SpeedyOtter

Karma: 71

SpeedyOtter 25 Jul 2025 17:47 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kestrel🔸’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
Having thought a bit more about this, maybe “listen. listen. listen”. I think I’m often incurious about the feelings of others, perhaps because I don’t really expect myself to understand what upset them. Easier for me, sometimes to come up with a hard and fast rule “ask before you touch people” “don’t flirt at this event” than to really get it.
I guess I could just pay a lot more attention to why people are upset in the first place. And perhaps sort of give up on really understanding in order to just listen. That’s my current approach anyway.

SpeedyOtter 24 Jul 2025 13:09 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: ida ’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
Do you think it’s possible that some amount of the behaviour I did would be acceptable in other spaces? eg is there any choice at all in EA norms, or is there sort of a rule of the universe about where community norms should be and my behaviour very likely crosses that line everywhere.
I guess I do think it’s more that some behaviour was unacceptable, some was marginal and some was bad for EA but would have been fine in other places. Or at the very least I was (and am) confused that it upset people (and tends to upset EAs much more than other friends).

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 18:00 UTC
1 point
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kip’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
@titotal, note that this reply sort of stands in contrast to your original message.

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 15:37 UTC
12 points
2 ∶ 1
on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
I’ve read the responses to this post and while many of them contain criticisms of me and my actions (many of which I agree with and wrote in the original post), few seem to contain substantive disagreements to the post itself.
The post has a lot of downvotes and 12 people have reacted with “disagree”.
I don’t think it should be enough to dislike my conduct. I often dislike it too. Could someone explain what is wrong with the post?
I still claim that I care about people I have upset and that EA is not a very good fit for me. I think even after being exceedingly careful, people were still upset. This was after having attempted to stop flirting and un-asked touches altogether.
What, actually, are your disagreements with the post?

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 15:29 UTC
0 points
2 ∶ 1
in reply to: Eli_Nathan’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
I asked a couple of questions in reply to your message. I don’t think this can really be a dialogue if you respond to your own questions rather than mine.

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 9:35 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: May 🔸’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s AI written. But even if it is, it’s fine with me. It makes information dense points, that one might agree or disagree with.
I agree it seems to be misunderstanding the post.

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 9:23 UTC
4 points
1 ∶ 1
in reply to: Joel Tan🔸’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
I agree, where do you think I say otherwise?

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 9:12 UTC
8 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Chris Leong’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
Hi,
This meant a lot to me.
This is how I would like to judge posts I disagree with, so I appreciate you advocating for mine in such terms.

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 9:04 UTC
6 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jason’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
Yes, I agree. And I did this, but I still got several complaints. At this point, I am not sure how I could be more careful than I was at the end. I’m not exaggerating. I wasn’t flirting at all or touching people (I asked my friends before I did, and didn’t touch anyone else).

“I recognize that creates a burden for you that others do not have to bear. But it does not impair your ability to participate in the core of what EA is. And some differential burden is unavoidable in life. “

Yeah I don’t totally disagree here.

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 8:58 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: frances_lorenz’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
Hi, I read the piece a while back. I liked some bits and disliked others. Mainly I wanted to give some context for my piece.
I don’t think my piece is deeply engaging with yours, nor is it intending to.
On harms versus intent, I agree harms matter more.
But I disagree on the last point. I think harm probably is sometimes the result of people with different norms/ preferences/ boundaries interacting. And I think EA takes particular sides in these cases.

SpeedyOtter 21 Jul 2025 8:52 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: titotal’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
I added some posts to try and give context to the piece.
I think that many people seem to hold it against the men in question personally. Do you disagree? If not, not sure we need to discuss a different article.

SpeedyOtter 20 Jul 2025 10:37 UTC
15 points
2 ∶ 3
in reply to: Eli_Nathan’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
I am confused by this.
You attribute a sense to me: “I’m sorry you’re sad, but I endorse my actions and may continue them.”

This piece is about how I’ve largely stopped attending EA events. I don’t intend to continue these actions. Also I explicitly do not endorse many of these actions “I would take it back if I could.”

Perhaps you mean that it seems like I intend to continue being social and occasionally touching my friends on the arm or making slightly flirty jokes outside of the EA community. I am more careful these days, but yes I do. Is this your issue?

You say “Many men—including those who are neurodivergent, from different cultural backgrounds, or naturally flirtatious—manage to participate in EA without repeatedly making others uncomfortable.”

Yes, this is true. Do you think that the piece doesn’t acknowledge this? eg here:

”I’ve always been told I don’t have a great grasp of personal space. In some sense I don’t know what your experience of it is. How do you know how close to stand? Can you feel, somewhere, that someone is crowding you? Can you sense when they move back? I can start to notice some of that, but only if I’m really paying attention. And mostly I am not.”
My point is that I can both care about people and hurt them and so seek to remove myself from the situation? Is your point that I don’t actually care? Or that there is some obvious low risk path I can take short of removing myself? I think I’m missing the implication here? What do you think the obvious next step is?

SpeedyOtter 20 Jul 2025 10:21 UTC
5 points
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in reply to: Kestrel🔸’s comment on: I don’t think we’re a good fit
Perhaps, “Take this extremely seriously. Imagine how I [you] am feeling right now, do you really want to cause that?” and maybe “If you continue to cause issues like this, things probably won’t go well for you and is this really a good place for you?”

Perhaps show them this piece? I think many people can improve at this, but those that can’t would probably be better served by leaving earlier.

Sorry to hear about the harassment, glad it’s not happened in EA spaces, they tend to be pretty careful about this stuff.

I don’t think we’re a good fit

SpeedyOtter20 Jul 2025 0:12 UTC

26 points

30 comments4 min readEA link