If there are Facebook threads that drain your ability to focus for hours, it seems pretty reasonable for that person to avoid such facebook threads. … [It]seems way better to have that responsibility be on the individual.
We agree here that if something is bad for you, you can just not go into the place where that thing is. But I think this is argument in favor of my position: that there should be EA spaces where people like that can go and discuss EA-related stuff.
For example, some people have to go to the EAA facebook thread as a part of their job. They are there to talk about animal stuff. So when people come into a thread about how to be antiracist while helping animals and decide to argue vociferously that racism doesn’t exist, that is just needlessly inappropriate. It’s not that the issue shouldn’t ever be discussed; it’s that the issue shouldn’t be discussed there, in that thread.
We should allow people to be able to work on EA stuff without having to be around the kind of stuff that is bad for them. If they feel unable to discuss certain topics without feeling badly, let them not go into threads on the EA forum that discuss those topics. This we agree on. But then why say that we can’t have a lesser EA space (like an EA facebook group) for them where they can interact without discussion on the topics that make them feel badly? Remember, some of these people are employees whose very job description may require them to be active on the EAA facebook group. They don’t have a choice here; we do.
We agree here that if something is bad for you, you can just not go into the place where that thing is. But I think this is argument in favor of my position: that there should be EA spaces where people like that can go and discuss EA-related stuff.
For example, some people have to go to the EAA facebook thread as a part of their job. They are there to talk about animal stuff. So when people come into a thread about how to be antiracist while helping animals and decide to argue vociferously that racism doesn’t exist, that is just needlessly inappropriate. It’s not that the issue shouldn’t ever be discussed; it’s that the issue shouldn’t be discussed there, in that thread.
We should allow people to be able to work on EA stuff without having to be around the kind of stuff that is bad for them. If they feel unable to discuss certain topics without feeling badly, let them not go into threads on the EA forum that discuss those topics. This we agree on. But then why say that we can’t have a lesser EA space (like an EA facebook group) for them where they can interact without discussion on the topics that make them feel badly? Remember, some of these people are employees whose very job description may require them to be active on the EAA facebook group. They don’t have a choice here; we do.