(I am the same TJ that wrote the original comment. I wasn’t able to log back into the original account so I created a new one.)
I’m not sure what you mean when you say “whiteness is true”. I feel like you just told me “happiness is true”. It just doesn’t parse. Happiness and whiteness are adjectives, they don’t have truth values on their own. If you tell me that a particular person is happy or white, then it becomes a claim about the world that is true or false.
That said, we probably do have some kind of genuine disagreement about how common racism/sexism is in EA or the world or something, and that is maybe cruxy? But you don’t seem to want to talk about that. You seem to want to talk only about your feelings, and that comes off as very not helpful. EA isn’t about making EAs feel good. Traditional approaches to charity before EA were about making donors feel good. EA’s big innovation was to focus on the effects on non-EA beneficiaries, not the feelings of its own members.
You seem to think there is a trilema where we either (1) want more diversity, and try to convince minorities that we are not racist/sexist, (2) want more diversity, and try to convince minorities that we are working to fix our racism/sexism, or (3) want fewer minorities. You further seem to think that 1 vs 2 should be evaluated as a choice based on what will actually cause more diversity. I think this is incorrect. How much racism/sexism there is in EA is a factual question, and nobody chooses their beliefs about factual questions. As I said, I think we may genuinely disagree about this one. But a person who believes there is not much racism/sexism yet chooses option 2 is being dishonest, they are trying to deceive minorities, and that does not seem like a good way to treat anyone. Similarly for a person who believes there is a lot of racism/sexism and chooses option 1. So if it is down to 1 vs 2, then that must be evaluated based on what is actually true about EA, not based on what we expect the effects to be.
As for 3, I don’t think anyone actively wants fewer minorities or women in EA. I have never once heard anyone say “there are too many PoCs in EA” or “there are too many women in EA” or anything remotely like that. That is just not part of the discourse. Nobody is complaining about diversity. Instead, I think what you are mistaking for that, is an option 4, which is to not concern ourselves too much with the racial or gender makeup of EA, and instead concern ourselves with the actual purpose of EA, to do the most good with the hours and dollars that we set aside for charity, and to work with the people who can best help us do that, whatever their races or genders, and whatever racial or gender makeup comes about as a result. In my view, this option 4 is obviously the correct course. Human history is littered with examples of people overly concerned with the races and sexes of those around them, pretty much always with unpleasant results. We should learn from that history and not repeat it.
I’m certainly not trying to separate you from your loved ones. EA isn’t a cult. Loving someone doesn’t always mean indulging their feelings or agreeing with their beliefs or trying to fix what they think is a problem. Sometimes it does, but not always. Loving someone means making a point of interacting with them in a way that makes them stronger. What makes them stronger may be highy personal and highly context dependent. But acting with the purpose of making someone else stronger is the essence of love. If a person incorrectly believes that they are being mistreated on account of their race or sex, then indulging that belief will generally make them weaker. That kind of belief both feels unpleasant and creates a self-fulfilling narative where the person has less control and agency. That is costly! And it is a much more costly error than incorrectly believing that they are not being mistreated on account of their race or sex, so where there is ambiguity, it is best to assume we are not being mistreated on account of race or sex.
You seem to believe that all of your PoC/women friends feel unwelcome in EA because of their race or sex, feel that they are discriminated against or something. I don’t know your friends, so I don’t know if this is true of them or not. I do remember a time in my life when I assumed that all my women and racial minority friends saw the world and their social interactions in terms of race and sex, and I was wrong about that. There are lots of minorities out there who don’t feel like the world is against them because of their minority status, who just try to get on with whatever it is they do with their lives, and they are generally better off for it.
(I am the same TJ that wrote the original comment. I wasn’t able to log back into the original account so I created a new one.)
I’m not sure what you mean when you say “whiteness is true”. I feel like you just told me “happiness is true”. It just doesn’t parse. Happiness and whiteness are adjectives, they don’t have truth values on their own. If you tell me that a particular person is happy or white, then it becomes a claim about the world that is true or false.
That said, we probably do have some kind of genuine disagreement about how common racism/sexism is in EA or the world or something, and that is maybe cruxy? But you don’t seem to want to talk about that. You seem to want to talk only about your feelings, and that comes off as very not helpful. EA isn’t about making EAs feel good. Traditional approaches to charity before EA were about making donors feel good. EA’s big innovation was to focus on the effects on non-EA beneficiaries, not the feelings of its own members.
You seem to think there is a trilema where we either (1) want more diversity, and try to convince minorities that we are not racist/sexist, (2) want more diversity, and try to convince minorities that we are working to fix our racism/sexism, or (3) want fewer minorities. You further seem to think that 1 vs 2 should be evaluated as a choice based on what will actually cause more diversity. I think this is incorrect. How much racism/sexism there is in EA is a factual question, and nobody chooses their beliefs about factual questions. As I said, I think we may genuinely disagree about this one. But a person who believes there is not much racism/sexism yet chooses option 2 is being dishonest, they are trying to deceive minorities, and that does not seem like a good way to treat anyone. Similarly for a person who believes there is a lot of racism/sexism and chooses option 1. So if it is down to 1 vs 2, then that must be evaluated based on what is actually true about EA, not based on what we expect the effects to be.
As for 3, I don’t think anyone actively wants fewer minorities or women in EA. I have never once heard anyone say “there are too many PoCs in EA” or “there are too many women in EA” or anything remotely like that. That is just not part of the discourse. Nobody is complaining about diversity. Instead, I think what you are mistaking for that, is an option 4, which is to not concern ourselves too much with the racial or gender makeup of EA, and instead concern ourselves with the actual purpose of EA, to do the most good with the hours and dollars that we set aside for charity, and to work with the people who can best help us do that, whatever their races or genders, and whatever racial or gender makeup comes about as a result. In my view, this option 4 is obviously the correct course. Human history is littered with examples of people overly concerned with the races and sexes of those around them, pretty much always with unpleasant results. We should learn from that history and not repeat it.
I’m certainly not trying to separate you from your loved ones. EA isn’t a cult. Loving someone doesn’t always mean indulging their feelings or agreeing with their beliefs or trying to fix what they think is a problem. Sometimes it does, but not always. Loving someone means making a point of interacting with them in a way that makes them stronger. What makes them stronger may be highy personal and highly context dependent. But acting with the purpose of making someone else stronger is the essence of love. If a person incorrectly believes that they are being mistreated on account of their race or sex, then indulging that belief will generally make them weaker. That kind of belief both feels unpleasant and creates a self-fulfilling narative where the person has less control and agency. That is costly! And it is a much more costly error than incorrectly believing that they are not being mistreated on account of their race or sex, so where there is ambiguity, it is best to assume we are not being mistreated on account of race or sex.
You seem to believe that all of your PoC/women friends feel unwelcome in EA because of their race or sex, feel that they are discriminated against or something. I don’t know your friends, so I don’t know if this is true of them or not. I do remember a time in my life when I assumed that all my women and racial minority friends saw the world and their social interactions in terms of race and sex, and I was wrong about that. There are lots of minorities out there who don’t feel like the world is against them because of their minority status, who just try to get on with whatever it is they do with their lives, and they are generally better off for it.