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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32787 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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Effective Altruism drama update:

You may remember a few weeks ago the article Effective Altruism Promises to Do Good Better. These Women Say It Has a Toxic Culture Of Sexual Harassment and Abuse was published in TIME (Motte discussion here).

It's been a hectic two weeks on the EA forum. Meta community posts have been consistently getting more engagement than object-level posts about actual charity. There is a palpable tension on the site between the hardcore rationalists and the mainstream liberals. Vote counts swing on an hourly basis depending on who has the upper hand, but overall the discussion has remained civil (mostly). A few days ago, the (in)famous Aella posted "People Will Sometimes Just Lie About You", a devastating screed against prudes, anonymous allegations, and haters of eccentric Bay Area parties. Eliezer himself even shows up, taking a break from doomscrolling to deliver a supporting bombardment against the mainstream press.

There's nothing EAs care about more than cute poly girls and AI. Once Aella and Eliezer weigh in, case closed right? WRONG.

A statement and an apology

EV UK board statement on Owen's resignation

In a recent TIME Magazine article, a claim of misconduct was made about an “influential figure in EA”:

"A third [woman] described an unsettling experience with an influential figure in EA whose role included picking out promising students and funneling them towards highly coveted jobs. After that leader arranged for her to be flown to the U.K. for a job interview, she recalls being surprised to discover that she was expected to stay in his home, not a hotel. When she arrived, she says, “he told me he needed to masturbate before seeing me.”"

Shortly after the article came out, Julia Wise (CEA’s community liaison) informed the EV UK board that this concerned behaviour of Owen Cotton-Barratt;[1] the incident occurred more than 5 years ago and was reported to her in 2021.[2] (Owen became a board member in 2020.)

One of the perpetrators from the article has been identified. So who wins?

Well, its too soon to say. This seems to be the first sexual misconduct allegation confirmed against an official EA leader, so you can't really call the TIME story which broke it to be a complete pile of journalistic garbage. It does seem like a pretty minor infraction though. After reading Owen's statement it seems like it could fall under the "weird nerds trying to date" umbrella, but maybe you can't use that excuse when you're a board member.

One aspect I haven't seen discussed is that this is the same guy who was behind the controversial decision to buy Wytham Abbey for 15 million pounds (see here). In light of current events, it sure looks to me like EA officials decided to blow millions on a luxury venue in Oxford in order to impress women.

After that leader arranged for her to be flown to the U.K. for a job interview, she recalls being surprised to discover that she was expected to stay in his home, not a hotel. When she arrived, she says, “he told me he needed to masturbate before seeing me.”

I can understand how hearing that may seem creepy in that context, given that she just found out she would be staying with him, but in general, masturbating in a situation like this is a great idea. I have long though that men should masturbate before doing something important that involves women, sex, etc., to prevent their brain being overpowered by their penis.

Yeah, and they should not neglect to mention they did it. Loudly, and often. While making direct, and intense, eye contact.

Yes, informing people about it is probably not a good idea. It would be weird even if she wasn't staying with him, if they were just meeting in an office or something.

In his statement he said he and she were doing some weird full-disclosure-of-everything kinda social experiment, with both parties explicit consent. But now, retroactively, it's decided there's some power dynamic caused by him being involved in a community she's also involved in that makes this bad.

That completely changes things. Without it, very creepy and no borders. With it, sure, betrayal of honesty experiment.

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