Maya—thanks for a thoughtful, considered, balanced, and constructive post.
Regarding the issue that ‘Effective Altruism Has an Emotions Problem’: this is very tricky, insofar as it raises the issue of neurodiversity.
I’ve got Aspergers, and I’m ‘out’ about it (e.g. in this and many other interviews and writings). That means I’m highly systematizing, overly rational (by neurotypical standards), more interested in ideas than in most people, and not always able to understand other people’s emotions, values, or social norms. I’m much stronger on ‘affective empathy’ (feeling distressed by the suffering of others) than on ‘cognitive empathy’ (understanding their beliefs & desires using Theory of Mind.)
Let’s be honest. A lot of us in EA have Aspergers, or are ‘on the autism spectrum’. EA is, to a substantial degree, an attempt by neurodivergent people to combine our rational systematizing with our affective empathy—to integrate our heads and our hearts, as they actually work, not as neurotypical people think they should work.
This has lead to an EA culture that is incredibly welcoming, supportive, and appreciative of neurodivergent people, and that capitalizes on our distinctive strengths. For those of us who are ‘Aspy’, nerdy, or otherwise eccentric by ‘normie’ standards, EA has been an oasis of rationality in a desert of emotionality, virtue-signaling, hypocrisy, and scope-insensitivity.
Granted, it is often helpful to remind neurodivergent people that we can try to improve our emotional skills, sensitivity, and cognitive empathy.
However, I worry that if we try to address this ‘emotions problem’ in ways that might feel awkward, alienating, and unnatural to many neurodivergent people in EA, we’ll lose a lot of what makes EA special and valuable.
I have no idea how to solve this problem, or how to strike the right balance between welcoming and valuing neurodiversity, versus welcoming and valuing more neurotypical norms around emotions and cognitive empathy. I just wanted to introduce this concern, and see what everybody else thinks about it.
I really appreciated your comment and think it’s important to acknowledge and ensure neurodiverse people feel welcome, and I’m coming from a place where I agree with Maya’s reflections on emotions within EA and am neurotypical.
Not sure I have time to post my thoughts in depth but I think the rational Vs. intuitive emotional intelligence tension within EA is something worth a lot more thought. It’s a tension / trade-off I’ve picked up on in the EA professional realm: where people aren’t getting on in EA organisations, where people aren’t feeling heard, and where the working culture becomes one that’s more afraid of losing status / threat mindset than supportive, to the detriment of employees.
Maybe as a counter to what you’re saying, some of the people who helped me best own and articulate my emotions (in the context of another EA repeatedly undermining me) are bay-area rationalist EAs who you might describe as neurodivergent. Why? I think a lot of people from that community have just done the work on themselves to recognise emotions in themselves, and consequently in others. And this is driven by valuing emotions / internal worlds intrinsically—in that integrating head and heart way you write about—and then getting better in that domain.
So to link this back to Maya’s post;
agree with making sure EA is truly inclusive and, in being better at responding to emotions and traumatic experiences, doesn’t swing to excluding neurodivergent people,
I think this tension / trade-off goes beyond social realm, and into the professional, and
I would like to play up how many neurodivergent people—especially those who might instinctively behave in a way that creates the culture Maya has highlighted as problematic - can actually be really good at creating an emotionally responsive and caring environment.
Happy to discuss further time permitting (which is sadly not on my side!)
I agree that many neurodivergent people can develop quite a good set of emotional skills (like some of your Bay Area rationalists did), and can promote emotionally responsive and caring environments.
(When I teach my undergrad course on ‘Human Emotions’—syllabus here—one of my goals is to help neurodivergent students improve their understanding of the evolutionary origins and adaptive functions of specific emotions, so they take them more seriously as human phenomena worth understanding)
My main concern is that EA should not become just another activist movement where emotions over-ride reason, where ‘lived experience’ gets prioritized over quantitative data, and where neurodivergent people get cancelled, shunned, and stigmatized for the slightest violations of social norms, or for ‘offending’ neurotypical people.
You’re right that striking the right balance is worth a lot more discussion—although my sense is that, so far, EA as a community has actually done remarkably well on this issue!
People think about where they have blindspots around reading certain styles of writing, and acknowledge that in those areas, they may not get the point being made, even if there is an important point
When someone makes a post that communicates in a way that you identify as your blindspot, you think about whether you can respond in the same style that they communicated.
If you can—do so. If you can’t—you don’t have to respond to the post at all. This is the crux of my suggestion. If you just see the world differently from someone else, so much so that responding to it would involve a clash of your worldviews, it’s okay to just leave it alone. I think “let it go” is an undervalued approach on every internet forum, and especially so here.
That’s my best guess at a strategy that works both for someone who systematizes a lot reading an “overly” emotional post, and for someone who systematizes very little reading an “overly” analytical post. But I agree this is something of a wicked problem and we need some way to tackle it. In the absence of an explicit approach, I think the OP is right to point out that people will just respond in an analytical way to emotional posts and that may not help anyone at all.
Thank you very much for your perspective! I recently wrote about something closely related to this “emotions problem” but hadn’t considered how the EA community offered a home for neurodivergent folks. I have now added a disclaimer making sure we ‘normies’ remember to keep you in mind!
Maya—thanks for a thoughtful, considered, balanced, and constructive post.
Regarding the issue that ‘Effective Altruism Has an Emotions Problem’: this is very tricky, insofar as it raises the issue of neurodiversity.
I’ve got Aspergers, and I’m ‘out’ about it (e.g. in this and many other interviews and writings). That means I’m highly systematizing, overly rational (by neurotypical standards), more interested in ideas than in most people, and not always able to understand other people’s emotions, values, or social norms. I’m much stronger on ‘affective empathy’ (feeling distressed by the suffering of others) than on ‘cognitive empathy’ (understanding their beliefs & desires using Theory of Mind.)
Let’s be honest. A lot of us in EA have Aspergers, or are ‘on the autism spectrum’. EA is, to a substantial degree, an attempt by neurodivergent people to combine our rational systematizing with our affective empathy—to integrate our heads and our hearts, as they actually work, not as neurotypical people think they should work.
This has lead to an EA culture that is incredibly welcoming, supportive, and appreciative of neurodivergent people, and that capitalizes on our distinctive strengths. For those of us who are ‘Aspy’, nerdy, or otherwise eccentric by ‘normie’ standards, EA has been an oasis of rationality in a desert of emotionality, virtue-signaling, hypocrisy, and scope-insensitivity.
Granted, it is often helpful to remind neurodivergent people that we can try to improve our emotional skills, sensitivity, and cognitive empathy.
However, I worry that if we try to address this ‘emotions problem’ in ways that might feel awkward, alienating, and unnatural to many neurodivergent people in EA, we’ll lose a lot of what makes EA special and valuable.
I have no idea how to solve this problem, or how to strike the right balance between welcoming and valuing neurodiversity, versus welcoming and valuing more neurotypical norms around emotions and cognitive empathy. I just wanted to introduce this concern, and see what everybody else thinks about it.
I really appreciated your comment and think it’s important to acknowledge and ensure neurodiverse people feel welcome, and I’m coming from a place where I agree with Maya’s reflections on emotions within EA and am neurotypical.
Not sure I have time to post my thoughts in depth but I think the rational Vs. intuitive emotional intelligence tension within EA is something worth a lot more thought. It’s a tension / trade-off I’ve picked up on in the EA professional realm: where people aren’t getting on in EA organisations, where people aren’t feeling heard, and where the working culture becomes one that’s more afraid of losing status / threat mindset than supportive, to the detriment of employees.
Maybe as a counter to what you’re saying, some of the people who helped me best own and articulate my emotions (in the context of another EA repeatedly undermining me) are bay-area rationalist EAs who you might describe as neurodivergent. Why? I think a lot of people from that community have just done the work on themselves to recognise emotions in themselves, and consequently in others. And this is driven by valuing emotions / internal worlds intrinsically—in that integrating head and heart way you write about—and then getting better in that domain.
So to link this back to Maya’s post;
agree with making sure EA is truly inclusive and, in being better at responding to emotions and traumatic experiences, doesn’t swing to excluding neurodivergent people,
I think this tension / trade-off goes beyond social realm, and into the professional, and
I would like to play up how many neurodivergent people—especially those who might instinctively behave in a way that creates the culture Maya has highlighted as problematic - can actually be really good at creating an emotionally responsive and caring environment.
Happy to discuss further time permitting (which is sadly not on my side!)
howdoyousay—thanks for this supportive post.
I agree that many neurodivergent people can develop quite a good set of emotional skills (like some of your Bay Area rationalists did), and can promote emotionally responsive and caring environments.
(When I teach my undergrad course on ‘Human Emotions’—syllabus here—one of my goals is to help neurodivergent students improve their understanding of the evolutionary origins and adaptive functions of specific emotions, so they take them more seriously as human phenomena worth understanding)
My main concern is that EA should not become just another activist movement where emotions over-ride reason, where ‘lived experience’ gets prioritized over quantitative data, and where neurodivergent people get cancelled, shunned, and stigmatized for the slightest violations of social norms, or for ‘offending’ neurotypical people.
You’re right that striking the right balance is worth a lot more discussion—although my sense is that, so far, EA as a community has actually done remarkably well on this issue!
Throwing out one possible approach:
People think about where they have blindspots around reading certain styles of writing, and acknowledge that in those areas, they may not get the point being made, even if there is an important point
When someone makes a post that communicates in a way that you identify as your blindspot, you think about whether you can respond in the same style that they communicated.
If you can—do so. If you can’t—you don’t have to respond to the post at all. This is the crux of my suggestion. If you just see the world differently from someone else, so much so that responding to it would involve a clash of your worldviews, it’s okay to just leave it alone. I think “let it go” is an undervalued approach on every internet forum, and especially so here.
That’s my best guess at a strategy that works both for someone who systematizes a lot reading an “overly” emotional post, and for someone who systematizes very little reading an “overly” analytical post. But I agree this is something of a wicked problem and we need some way to tackle it. In the absence of an explicit approach, I think the OP is right to point out that people will just respond in an analytical way to emotional posts and that may not help anyone at all.
Thank you very much for your perspective! I recently wrote about something closely related to this “emotions problem” but hadn’t considered how the EA community offered a home for neurodivergent folks. I have now added a disclaimer making sure we ‘normies’ remember to keep you in mind!