I partly agree with this, but I think the problem of ‘high-profile gatekeepers’ is much more serious, and that it would exist even in a largely monogamous movement which had the same professional/sexual overlap and the same (blatantly) deficient processes for responding to misconduct from high-profile members.
Put another way, your (b) is more important than your (a). And I can picture a quite idealised situation in which everyone is polyamorous, but they all obey good norms around flirting/displaying interest, and they all keep it strongly separated from money; and so the awful tit-for-tat funding/employment dynamics that have enabled harassment by EAs like Owen Cotton-Barratt don’t exist.
But I do agree that this is a pretty idealised situation, and not really achievable from where the EA community is right now. While it’s unfortunate, it’s also true that long-term relationships are often the main barrier stopping work life and professional life overlapping in these dangerous ways. Widespread polyamory gets rid of this barrier, and so introduces additional danger. Maybe, in an ideal world, the EA community could navigate around this danger; but this is not the ideal world, and after such blatant failures the community really needs to stop seeing itself in such an idealised and sanctified light. EA has failed to navigate these dangers in the past; if EAs stop thinking of their movement as fundamentally holier and analyse it in the same way they analyse any other social movement, they should not expect to be able to navigate them any better in the future. Polyamory might not be a massive priority compared to (say) massively overhauling safeguarding and reporting processes around misconduct; but it’s still important.
Thank you. I agree and disagree in part with the last paragraph in particular. It is very true that we do not live in an ideal world, and therefore should opt for pragmatic, sensible solutions. Virtually every other social movement manages to do just fine without widespread polyamory. Perhaps they’re better off for it? If poly is essentially confined to some cults and EA, surely the default hypothesis should be that it’s clearly societally maladaptive.
An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, after all, so while the Community Health team clearly needs a complete replacement of its existing personnel, perhaps it would be better if such a team either wasn’t needed or could be far smaller with far less to do. Procedures fail and bureaucracies are clumsy things. No likes the HR department for a reason: surely everyone would be far better off if there was less need for the EA version of it?
With regards to your last sentence, the problem here is that I’m not really talking about “safeguarding and misconduct” issues per se. Women can still have a miserable time in a social scene where there are no real safeguarding problems and no obvious misconduct beyond financial COIs (which polyamory does make inevitable, but hey). Monogamy is not infallible of course, but as a default it just makes everything massively easier when it comes to navigating social dynamics between men and women.
(before someone tells me that no one is poly in their uni EA club, yes I know and that’s also not what I’m talking about here)
I partly agree with this, but I think the problem of ‘high-profile gatekeepers’ is much more serious, and that it would exist even in a largely monogamous movement which had the same professional/sexual overlap and the same (blatantly) deficient processes for responding to misconduct from high-profile members.
Put another way, your (b) is more important than your (a). And I can picture a quite idealised situation in which everyone is polyamorous, but they all obey good norms around flirting/displaying interest, and they all keep it strongly separated from money; and so the awful tit-for-tat funding/employment dynamics that have enabled harassment by EAs like Owen Cotton-Barratt don’t exist.
But I do agree that this is a pretty idealised situation, and not really achievable from where the EA community is right now. While it’s unfortunate, it’s also true that long-term relationships are often the main barrier stopping work life and professional life overlapping in these dangerous ways. Widespread polyamory gets rid of this barrier, and so introduces additional danger. Maybe, in an ideal world, the EA community could navigate around this danger; but this is not the ideal world, and after such blatant failures the community really needs to stop seeing itself in such an idealised and sanctified light. EA has failed to navigate these dangers in the past; if EAs stop thinking of their movement as fundamentally holier and analyse it in the same way they analyse any other social movement, they should not expect to be able to navigate them any better in the future. Polyamory might not be a massive priority compared to (say) massively overhauling safeguarding and reporting processes around misconduct; but it’s still important.
Thank you. I agree and disagree in part with the last paragraph in particular. It is very true that we do not live in an ideal world, and therefore should opt for pragmatic, sensible solutions. Virtually every other social movement manages to do just fine without widespread polyamory. Perhaps they’re better off for it? If poly is essentially confined to some cults and EA, surely the default hypothesis should be that it’s clearly societally maladaptive.
An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, after all, so while the Community Health team clearly needs a complete replacement of its existing personnel, perhaps it would be better if such a team either wasn’t needed or could be far smaller with far less to do. Procedures fail and bureaucracies are clumsy things. No likes the HR department for a reason: surely everyone would be far better off if there was less need for the EA version of it?
With regards to your last sentence, the problem here is that I’m not really talking about “safeguarding and misconduct” issues per se. Women can still have a miserable time in a social scene where there are no real safeguarding problems and no obvious misconduct beyond financial COIs (which polyamory does make inevitable, but hey). Monogamy is not infallible of course, but as a default it just makes everything massively easier when it comes to navigating social dynamics between men and women.
(before someone tells me that no one is poly in their uni EA club, yes I know and that’s also not what I’m talking about here)