Just wanted to clarify, I don’t think that the resistance to the stricter norms is only about “wanting to have more fun”. I agree with your comment. Yet, I think you are missing at least couple of important aspects of the situation.
Can you share more about what important aspects you think I’m missing? My best guess is you’re reading my use of the word “fun” narrowly (which is probably poor word choice on my part), thinking I mean something like sex/parties/drugs. So to clarify, what I mean is “personal enjoyment” which can include things like meaningful relationships. I obviously like personal enjoyment and want more of it for myself and others. But when, on a community level, we find personal enjoyment in conflict with doing good in the world, I want the community to choose doing good.
But that might not be what you’re saying I’m missing.
Hm, I understand now. I, however think that things like meaningful relationships are not a matter of personal enjoyment but mental health. So for me the price of what you call “the norms which diminish fun” would be much higher and may actually minimize community’s impact in the long term. We already have the issue with burnouts.
Hm, I also struggle with mental health and I know it’s hard. I absolutely do not want to suggest that your mental health is not important. I do want to know more about what you view as the primary purpose of the community. While improving mental health is a value of mine, I do not see EA’s primary function as a place to improve one’s mental health. I think that can often be a benefit of EA, and I think EA has a duty to not worsen people’s mental health. But the main purpose of EA is not to improve the mental health of the community members. If that makes sense.
Friends and meaningful relationships are absolutely important to have in one’s life, and I derive so much value from the meaningful relationships I have within EA. But there are many ways to both (1) develop meaningful relationships within EA that don’t violate any of the norms people have suggested and (2) develop meaningful relationships with people outside of EA. It might mean some people have to change some of their behavior, but not in a way that would ruin their life. It might limit the number of potential romantic options, but it doesn’t preclude you from romance altogether. If we see the primary purpose of EA as doing good, and not as a place to develop meaningful relationships, setting norms that limit certain types of conduct is reasonable.
I didn’t take your comment personally :). I think it will be very hard for many EA people to find meaningful relationship outside the crowd for many various reasons, pretty unusual worldview being one of them. As for meaningful relationships who don’t violate the norms—sure. They will do it also . But who people fall in love or desire with is not guided by “community norms” but biology ect. Yeah, we can control ourselves—but to the certain extent. So too strict or unskillfully placed norms don’t solve the issue but end up in shame, frustration and lying. Which does everything but contributes to mental health and effectiveness. So I am pro loose norms and constant work on emotional maturity, communication and systemic, flexible and adjustable intervention systems.
In my oppinion—a very attractive compromise which many other cultures adopt is to keep everythign you love about the deep relationships except for the sex. People having sex with each other is uniquely prone to causing harm+drama+conflict.
I don’t think we’ll ever see a TIME article exposing the problem that someone in EA had too many people offer to help them move house, or that community events were filled with too much warmth and laughter, or that people offered too much emotional support to someone when they lost a parent.
More friendship and loyalty and support and love and fun and shared moments of vulnerability is fine! Just leave out the sex part!
I don’t think this fixes all of it. For example, imagine someone describing being expected to load their boss’ personal belongings into a moving truck, on a weekend, with pizza and beer for compensation.
Also, many people will want to participate in EA professionally but not socially, and the stronger the community is socially the harder that will be.
Which isn’t to say that we should avoid doing nice things for each other and having fun together, but it doesn’t free us from thinking about how people might feel pressured.
Agreed, but there is something—if not uniquely, then at least particularly—problematic with respect to people feeling pressured with respect to sexuality. Both that sexuality is pretty central to personal self-determination and that the harms from sexuality pressure are more concentrated on a minority-within-EA population.
We should be careful to avoid dismissing a simple easy solution to a real problem because it might fail to solve an imaginary one. Do you really think the community currently has a problem with bosses pressuring their direct reports to help them move house?
How do you know we don’t live in a world where >90% of the problem is specifically due to people having sex / trying to have sex with each other? What would convince you that sex is the culprit, rather than interpersonal relationships in general?
Just wanted to clarify, I don’t think that the resistance to the stricter norms is only about “wanting to have more fun”. I agree with your comment. Yet, I think you are missing at least couple of important aspects of the situation.
Can you share more about what important aspects you think I’m missing? My best guess is you’re reading my use of the word “fun” narrowly (which is probably poor word choice on my part), thinking I mean something like sex/parties/drugs. So to clarify, what I mean is “personal enjoyment” which can include things like meaningful relationships. I obviously like personal enjoyment and want more of it for myself and others. But when, on a community level, we find personal enjoyment in conflict with doing good in the world, I want the community to choose doing good.
But that might not be what you’re saying I’m missing.
Hm, I understand now. I, however think that things like meaningful relationships are not a matter of personal enjoyment but mental health. So for me the price of what you call “the norms which diminish fun” would be much higher and may actually minimize community’s impact in the long term. We already have the issue with burnouts.
Hm, I also struggle with mental health and I know it’s hard. I absolutely do not want to suggest that your mental health is not important. I do want to know more about what you view as the primary purpose of the community. While improving mental health is a value of mine, I do not see EA’s primary function as a place to improve one’s mental health. I think that can often be a benefit of EA, and I think EA has a duty to not worsen people’s mental health. But the main purpose of EA is not to improve the mental health of the community members. If that makes sense.
Friends and meaningful relationships are absolutely important to have in one’s life, and I derive so much value from the meaningful relationships I have within EA. But there are many ways to both (1) develop meaningful relationships within EA that don’t violate any of the norms people have suggested and (2) develop meaningful relationships with people outside of EA. It might mean some people have to change some of their behavior, but not in a way that would ruin their life. It might limit the number of potential romantic options, but it doesn’t preclude you from romance altogether. If we see the primary purpose of EA as doing good, and not as a place to develop meaningful relationships, setting norms that limit certain types of conduct is reasonable.
I didn’t take your comment personally :). I think it will be very hard for many EA people to find meaningful relationship outside the crowd for many various reasons, pretty unusual worldview being one of them. As for meaningful relationships who don’t violate the norms—sure. They will do it also . But who people fall in love or desire with is not guided by “community norms” but biology ect. Yeah, we can control ourselves—but to the certain extent. So too strict or unskillfully placed norms don’t solve the issue but end up in shame, frustration and lying. Which does everything but contributes to mental health and effectiveness. So I am pro loose norms and constant work on emotional maturity, communication and systemic, flexible and adjustable intervention systems.
In my oppinion—a very attractive compromise which many other cultures adopt is to keep everythign you love about the deep relationships except for the sex. People having sex with each other is uniquely prone to causing harm+drama+conflict.
I don’t think we’ll ever see a TIME article exposing the problem that someone in EA had too many people offer to help them move house, or that community events were filled with too much warmth and laughter, or that people offered too much emotional support to someone when they lost a parent.
More friendship and loyalty and support and love and fun and shared moments of vulnerability is fine! Just leave out the sex part!
I don’t think this fixes all of it. For example, imagine someone describing being expected to load their boss’ personal belongings into a moving truck, on a weekend, with pizza and beer for compensation.
Also, many people will want to participate in EA professionally but not socially, and the stronger the community is socially the harder that will be.
Which isn’t to say that we should avoid doing nice things for each other and having fun together, but it doesn’t free us from thinking about how people might feel pressured.
Agreed, but there is something—if not uniquely, then at least particularly—problematic with respect to people feeling pressured with respect to sexuality. Both that sexuality is pretty central to personal self-determination and that the harms from sexuality pressure are more concentrated on a minority-within-EA population.
We should be careful to avoid dismissing a simple easy solution to a real problem because it might fail to solve an imaginary one. Do you really think the community currently has a problem with bosses pressuring their direct reports to help them move house?
How do you know we don’t live in a world where >90% of the problem is specifically due to people having sex / trying to have sex with each other? What would convince you that sex is the culprit, rather than interpersonal relationships in general?