Thank you for posting this, Ian; I very much approve of what you’ve written here.
In general, people’s ape-y human needs are important, and the EA movement could become more pleasant (and more effective!) by recognizing this. Your involvement with EA is commendable, and your involvement with the arts doesn’t diminish this.
Ideally, I wouldn’t have to justify the statement that people’s human needs are important on utilitarian grounds, but maybe I should: I’d estimate that I’ve lost a minimum of $1k worth of productivity over the last 6 months that could have trivially been recouped if several less-nice-than-average EAs had shown an average level of kindness to me.
I would be more comfortable with you calling yourself an effective altruist than I would be with you not doing so; if you’re interested in calling yourself an EA, but hesitate because of your interests and past work, that means that we’re the ones doing something wrong.
I appreciate the vote of confidence! But I should also clarify that my wavering on self-identification with effective altruism has mostly not been due to lack of kindness from other EAs. I’ve sometimes been asked tough and direct questions, but I fully expected that and didn’t consider it any kind of harassment (with one exception where the guy later apologized). It sounds like you’ve experienced much worse and I’m sorry for that.
Thank you for posting this, Ian; I very much approve of what you’ve written here.
In general, people’s ape-y human needs are important, and the EA movement could become more pleasant (and more effective!) by recognizing this. Your involvement with EA is commendable, and your involvement with the arts doesn’t diminish this.
Ideally, I wouldn’t have to justify the statement that people’s human needs are important on utilitarian grounds, but maybe I should: I’d estimate that I’ve lost a minimum of $1k worth of productivity over the last 6 months that could have trivially been recouped if several less-nice-than-average EAs had shown an average level of kindness to me.
I would be more comfortable with you calling yourself an effective altruist than I would be with you not doing so; if you’re interested in calling yourself an EA, but hesitate because of your interests and past work, that means that we’re the ones doing something wrong.
I appreciate the vote of confidence! But I should also clarify that my wavering on self-identification with effective altruism has mostly not been due to lack of kindness from other EAs. I’ve sometimes been asked tough and direct questions, but I fully expected that and didn’t consider it any kind of harassment (with one exception where the guy later apologized). It sounds like you’ve experienced much worse and I’m sorry for that.