I know that I was wrong because people of the global majority continuously speak in safe spaces about they feel unsafe in EA spaces. They speak about how they feel harmed by the kinds of things discussed in EA spaces. And they speak about how there are some people — not everyone, but some people — who don’t seem to be just participating in open debate in order to get at the truth, but rather seem to be using the ideals of open discussion to be a cloak that can hide their intent to do harm.
I’m not sure what to say to this.
Again, just because someone claims to feel harmed by some tread of discourse, that can’t be sufficient grounds to establish a social rule against it.But I am most baffled by this...
. And they speak about how there are some people — not everyone, but some people — who don’t seem to be just participating in open debate in order to get at the truth, but rather seem to be using the ideals of open discussion to be a cloak that can hide their intent to do harm.
Um. Yes? Of course? It’s pretty rare that people are in good faith and sincerely truth-seeking. And of course there are some bad-actors, in every group. And of course those people will be pretending to have good intentions. Is the claim that in order to feel safe, people need to know that there are no bad actors?(I think that is not a good paraphrase of you.)
We need a diverse set of people to at least feel safe in our community.
Yeah. So the details here matter a lot, and if we operationalize, I might change my stance here. But on the face of this, I disagree. I think that we want people to be safe in our community and that we should obviously take steps to insure that. But it seems to be asking to much to insure that people feel safe. People can have all kinds of standards regarding what they need to feel safe, and I don’t think that we are obligated to carter to them because they are on the list of things that some segment of people need to feel safe.
Especially if one of the things on that list is “don’t openly discuss some topics that are relevant to improving the world.” That is what we do. That’s what we’re here to do. We should sacrifice pretty much none of the core point of the group to be more inclusive.
“How much systemic racism is there, what forms does it take, and how does it impact people?” are actually important questions for understanding and improving the world. We want to know if there is anything we can do about it, and how it stacks up against other interventions. Curtailing that discussion is not a small or trivial ask.
(In contrast, if using people’s preferred pronouns, or serving vegan meals at events, or not swearing, or not making loud noises, etc. helped people feel safe and/or comfortable, and they are otherwise up for our discourse standards, I feel much more willing to accommodate them. Because none of those compromise the core point of the EA community.)
...Oh. I guess one thing that seems likely to be a crux:
...if we are to succeed in truly achieving effective altruism at scale..
I am not excited about scaling EA. If I thought that trying to do EA at scale was a good idea, then I would be much more interested in having different kinds of discussions in push and pull media.
I’m not sure what to say to this.
Again, just because someone claims to feel harmed by some tread of discourse, that can’t be sufficient grounds to establish a social rule against it.But I am most baffled by this...
Um. Yes? Of course? It’s pretty rare that people are in good faith and sincerely truth-seeking. And of course there are some bad-actors, in every group. And of course those people will be pretending to have good intentions. Is the claim that in order to feel safe, people need to know that there are no bad actors?(I think that is not a good paraphrase of you.)
Yeah. So the details here matter a lot, and if we operationalize, I might change my stance here. But on the face of this, I disagree. I think that we want people to be safe in our community and that we should obviously take steps to insure that. But it seems to be asking to much to insure that people feel safe. People can have all kinds of standards regarding what they need to feel safe, and I don’t think that we are obligated to carter to them because they are on the list of things that some segment of people need to feel safe.
Especially if one of the things on that list is “don’t openly discuss some topics that are relevant to improving the world.” That is what we do. That’s what we’re here to do. We should sacrifice pretty much none of the core point of the group to be more inclusive.
“How much systemic racism is there, what forms does it take, and how does it impact people?” are actually important questions for understanding and improving the world. We want to know if there is anything we can do about it, and how it stacks up against other interventions. Curtailing that discussion is not a small or trivial ask.
(In contrast, if using people’s preferred pronouns, or serving vegan meals at events, or not swearing, or not making loud noises, etc. helped people feel safe and/or comfortable, and they are otherwise up for our discourse standards, I feel much more willing to accommodate them. Because none of those compromise the core point of the EA community.)
...Oh. I guess one thing that seems likely to be a crux:
I am not excited about scaling EA. If I thought that trying to do EA at scale was a good idea, then I would be much more interested in having different kinds of discussions in push and pull media.