Currently conducting independent biosecurity research funded by Open Philanthropy as part of its Biosecurity Scholarships program while upskilling in biosecurity. Previously contractor RA for Alvea, new uni groups contractor at CEA, intern at LEEP, president of EA Blue. Learn more about me here: https://kirstenangeles.com/about
kta
Karma: 181
How EA Blue grew in our 2nd Year in the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines—Our achievements & learnings
Thank you for sharing this, Peter! Great notes; I’ve been reading this and have found it quite helpful. I read it after my term as president of EA Blue (uni chapter in the PH) and have learned points of improvement of my leadership then, and how to improve my leadership moving forward. Your notes are detailed and structured, and are great to reference. Love the insights too! On a meta-note, I was wondering if you can share how you take book notes efficiently without significantly slowing down your reading time (or your process in general). Thank you!
Thanks so much!
[Question] Does EA influence the way you celebrate Christmas?
Thanks for your comment and suggestion, Aaron! I just changed the title!
Great that you’re doing this!
Hey there! It seems the NTI link leads to only an image. Just wanted to let you know!
Already have my first call scheduled. Very excited!
Hey, I’m Kirsten, a student in Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. I was directed to this post by evelynciara after I shared that I posted a song cover inspired by EA. Would love to join this Slack :) This is my email: kirsten.angeles@obf.ateneo.edu
I like the diagram :) Best wishes for the remainder of 2022, and finding a successor! Is there any way others in EA not from EA MY can help you?
highly appreciate this post! would you be open to me privately messaging you (to ask questions)?
Great to see!
So happy to see all of this, there’s definitely a lot LEEP has learned and I’m very excited for your work! :)
Happy you guys set this up. Apart from the undergraduate biology prereq, curious if it’s recommended one complete the original GCBR curriculum first before joining or not necessarily?
I’m quite sad to see “When Gopalakrishnan said she wasn’t interested, she recalls, they would “shame” her or try to pressure her, casting monogamy as a lifestyle governed by jealousy, and polyamory as a more enlightened and rational approach.” – I’ve only supposed this was possible due to my personal feelings of some dynamics in the community, and I actually feared it (as someone who has had personal issues with polyamory) but am sad to have heard it actually concretely happened in this way; I really hope it doesn’t happen anymore.
(This might be a rambly comment but these are thoughts that plopped out of me after reading the article, particularly after reading the quote by Julia Wise, “How do you figure out what is a community problem versus what is a Bay Area problem or sex problem or something else?”)
I generally think sexual harassment in EA is just extremely more complicated because of how intertwined we all are, and how much we would be willing to put aside (e.g. bad feelings in interpersonal relationships) for optimizing working for “the greater good” (e.g. let’s not ruin this person’s career)
This “intertwinement” leads to many complicated things. If you report someone, they might be reprimanded in some form, either subtly or in a big way. Then depending on how they were reprimanded, you’d figure out a way how to deal with them in case you see them again since they’re in the EA community, after all. And if they’re banned, but online, you can be emotionally mature, but I don’t think those feelings go away easily for everyone.
And if you choose not to report (e.g. because it was too “small” to be a report, because they’re friends with your friend, because they’re working in an environment near you), they’ll still be there in the community, attend events, etc. and you just have to deal with them. And if you have a hard time “dealing with them” then that burden seems to be on you. Maybe some people say it’s because, “well we’re EAs, this is what we believe in, so be emotionally mature, and put this aside...”
This also applies to not just sexual harassment, but let’s say, negative interactions with someone. If someone is disliked, that can have ramifications depending on who is disliked. E.g. Alice had negative interactions with Bob. Alice is friends with Carol. Carol has to work with Bob. Alice ends up being connected to Bob in that way, Carol can’t do much because she’s working with Bob, bip bam boom, negative feelings for Alice, but for the sake of being emotionally mature, Alice sucks it up.
And this might be true outside of EA too (I think it is) but it gets complicated when putting the issue aside, or letting go, gets mixed with the fundamental philosophy of EA, or even rationality. It’s kinda the Broken Windows Theory to me, subtly ignoring, downsizing, or casting aside these kinds of things… ultimately blowing up in exposés like this one, or to people bitterly/sadly leaving the community… and I do get somewhat sad too when people just go like “okay if they don’t wanna be here then okay, we’re filtering them out.”
Agreed… I think similar stuff happen in many communities and social groups, and I think maybe EA gets tricky ’cause it’s like, hey, aren’t we generally good people? So shouldn’t we like… be outliers and like… be people who are sensitive and stuff and by a given, never sexually harrass? So not that it’s any less important, but EA ends up sticking out because of that.
To me, EAs being nice is usually the case, as per the usual impression of non-EAs who see EA conferences (“wow, this was the nicest crowd I’ve ever seen!) but we are not infallible, and should never justify bad behavior and keep improving especially given who we are (i.e., EAs; like what you said, “is EA as good as it could be”). And I think we should keep assessing how norms/spaces enable/allow upsetting behavior like those in the article to happen
I agree with this (what Peter said) and also have a couple stuff to add:
Just so you know, in the Philippines, generally women are considered more charitable, and this somewhat manifests in EA Philippines, where we are mostly women. This might not account for the quality of who is more likely to “quantify charity” but definitely gender is not binary, and I think it’s limiting to say “men more likely; that’s why this community is made up like this.”
Maybe what you say is because there are more men in the movement, but I don’t think it’s simply because men “quantify charity more;” I think that statement is very limiting. There are a ton of factors as to why predominantly white men are those who are into EA, and I think even just the idea that they generally can afford to be philanthropic is one of them (not that this is negative since it’s good they help and presumably wanna help effectively).
I think saying sexual harrassment doesn’t matter if there XYZ other stuff happening might be in utilitarian cases kinda true, but this belief gives leeway to damaging the movement longer-term. Let’s say 1000 years from now we theoretically obliterated x-risk but knowingly or unknowingly allowed sexual harrassment to occur in the manner stated in the article… I think we can do better than that. And I don’t think it’s right to sacrifice good values and good community dynamics if we’re fighting for a future where this community exists; I’d be very sad to see lots of discrimination/harassment continue to occur 5000 years from now.
I agree that the article had an anti-polyamory vibe and that doesn’t seem helpful in it of itself and damaging to some who are not doing anything wrong. But I do think some discussion is warranted, not to be against polyamory, but for how our community treats it in such a way that it affects some dynamics (’cause it can be tricky!)
For me, the broader picture is,
The blurry professional/personal line EA generally has + a polyamory subculture used negatively + powerful men who are more likely to harass gives a complex equation that can lead to behavior like that discussed in this article. The article could’ve been more explicit about this. In sum for me, what seems damaging is qualities of the community that encourage/enable people to cross lines in such a way that allows some minorities to get harassed in this way.
Also just to add, most poly people I know in EA are respectful and the explicit culture I’ve been exposed to doesn’t encourage crossing lines; perhaps the implicit culture is a bit more sensitive.
Hey Nathan, thanks for your comment! Currently, EA Blue doesn’t have something where we require help, but if we do I’ll definitely add it here or another member of EA Blue could make a post here on the forum! We’d just love any way we could stay in touch with the whole community!