Thank you!
IsabelHasse
Karma: 140
I found this post both very informative and easy to read and understand. I will use these considerations in the future to read cost-effectiveness estimates more critically. Thank you!
If I had a bit of backup I think I could organize a virtual group for EAs in addiction recovery. I have organizing experience and am currently 43 days clean/sober.
Since some people here have shared their personal relevant experience and mine has been different to any of the ones I’ve read, I thought I’d share mine.
I have been in EA as a local group organizer and on-again-off-again student for 7 years. I’ve been to 5 in person conferences and many adjacent social events (after parties etc.) I’m a young woman, and am pretty used to attention from guys. Before creating a dating doc I had been asked out by EA guys four times. Three were very nice and respectful, and were in no position of social or professional status over me. One was in a position of social status and pressured me into making out after I had already turned him down—I certainly doubt he was the kind who would have refrained from doing this if there were a norm against sleeping around in EA, since he was a real Transgressor of Norms. (he’s since lost his status and demoted himself to EA-adjacent, in part because of other harassment allegations).
After I created a dating doc I was approached by someone who I had long admired greatly and who I absolutely considered high status. This was for the purpose of perhaps forming a serious relationship which certainly could not have been portrayed as ‘sleeping around’. However, he did ask me about my sexual preferences for purposes of determining compatibility and I somewhat exaggerated my interest in sex (I have very little & generally call myself asexual) because I was starstruck. I similarly downplayed others of my relationship preferences that conflicted with his. Again, a norm against sleeping around would not have helped, and in this case I would happily take the blame for not being good enough at honestly expressing my preferences.
As far as being hit on by random people at ea events: I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly experienced this? It’s possible I am very bad at knowing when I’m being hit on, as an aspie asexual. But if I were to guess I would say no, I’m only a little bad at this, since I am socially sophisticated for an aspie and have experience with guys being interested in me. So if I have been flirted with it was probably on the subtle side and therefore unlikely to make a person uncomfortable even if they were aware of it. In general when it comes to my interactions with men in EA, I have felt very respected and treated much more as a person and intellectual discussion partner than as a sexual prospect. The idea that other women might be getting driven out of EA from being hit on or seen primarily as a sexual prospect is surprising and feels contrary to my experience (not saying anyone who reports having this experience is lying or wrong).
Thank you, this is helpful.
I think that more research is definitely warranted. EAs can bring a unique perspective to something like climate change, where there are so many different types of interventions which probably vary wildly in effectiveness. I don’t think enough research has been done to rule out the possibility of there existing hugely effective climate change interventions that are actually neglected/underfunded, even if climate change as a whole is not. And since people who care about climate change are typically science-minded, there’s a chance a significant chunk could be persuaded to fund the more effective interventions once we identify them.
Great post, thanks for collecting these! Just want to mention that the David Coman-Hidy talk on ending factory farming is on the 12th, not the 8th.
Is it possible to contribute to research if I’ve never worked on a similar research project and have no relevant expertise?
I think an alternative system that would be more difficult to set up but likely more effective if successful would be an accountability team. The meetings would be similar to this but with more people—a google hangouts where everyone takes turns stating what they did and didn’t get done last week and what they intend to do next week. Not sure about other people but I would feel more pressure to complete my tasks if I had to admit ‘failure’ in front of a group rather than one person. The team could have a page online somewhere where everyone’s current intentions would be posted, and maybe people could even livestream themselves working on the page if they committed to working on something at a particular time (this would be helpful to me because I like having that kind of commitment). Then people could be assigned buddies within the group to bug them about their intentions if they want.
As a counterexample to “Engaging in collaborative truth-seeking goes against our natural impulses to win in a debate, and is thus more cognitively costly”: collaborative truth-seeking as described here is more intuitive and natural to me personally than debating.
I see your point and definitely agree on the importance of not becoming a movement focused on its own growth. However, I think an equally important concern is that the movement should include a truly diverse array of viewpoints and values, which may include people who value emotion more highly. Also, emotionally-driven/logic-driven is a spectrum, and in my experience EAs tend to be on the extreme side of logic driven. So appealing to more emotionally-driven donors may really mean appealing to donors closer to the middle of that spectrum.
This seems like a great idea. Making effective altruism open and welcoming to all sorts of people is definitely an important goal. One thing I’ve been considering (which I’m surprised I don’t see more discussions of in the community) is doing different types of fundraising for AMF, through which I could have conversations with potential donors about effective giving. Seeing someone actively doing something for a specific cause, rather than just discussing philosophy and logistics, seems like something that would appeal to more emotionally-minded donors.
We’ll see how it comes out! I’ve been writing fiction a while but never a play or musical.