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Notes -
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
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.
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.
I can believe it, because [insert rant about quokkas]. That does not mean that non-quokkas are playing along with your "but I thought you realised without me having to say it that we were conducting a radical honesty experiment?". I have opened my big dumb mouth and over-shared at times, but at least I've never mentioned about how I am dealing with my libidinal impulses, so to speak, to people. Any people, be they friends or not.
You seem to be making two entirely separate claims across your various comments here:
Claim 1: "Prominent EA types/the community as a statistical average have actually engaged in bad behavior in excess of base rates. This is harmful and morally wrong." (e.g. here: https://www.themotte.org/post/381/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/67827?context=8#context https://www.themotte.org/post/381/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/67831?context=8#context )
Claim 2: "Prominent EA types have followed a strategy which is suboptimal in the presence of hostile adversaries who wish to mislead the public about them without technically lying." (What I'm replying to right now.)
I think most people here disagree with (1) and agree with (2). For example in my comment above I'm disputing claim 1 and in reply you're asserting the truth of claim 2. That's pretty confusing, and I think if you want the conversation to be productive you should make it explicit which claim you are discussing.
(1) Reading up on the intra-community accounts from a couple years back (you might recall them yourself being low-key linked on various rationalist blogs) about the kinds of things people in the community got away with, without anyone doing more than some hand-wringing, inclines me to "heck yes, EA and the Rationalists have a sex creep problem and a lot of it is down to their community norms".
(2) By the same token, given the community norms, the weird/kinky/awkward/shy are encouraged to not be afraid and to let it all out. That then causes problems such as guy thinking "okay, we're friends, right? so it's perfectly normal for me to talk about jerking off in front of her" in relation to a woman who is not part of that particular community and does not know the norms.
The two are not contradictory. The problem, as others have pointed out, is that EA is now getting big enough and mainstream enough that the community norms of the Bay Area are butting up hard with the usual social norms of people not from that community, and things like TIME articles are the result.
I am aware of the occasional mentally unstable woman (e.g. Kathy Forth) making vague claims that plausibly mean very little. E.g. her only concrete claim is that someone touched her leg and her complaint about such resulted in his immediate expulsion. Keerthana Gopalakrishnan has similarly minor concrete claims (asked out 3x in a year) plus internal narratives ("felt unsafe").
I am not aware of anything that suggests rationalist communities have a problem worse than communities which are not considered problematic (e.g. cardiology, anti-moneylaundering, education, journalism). Perhaps if you want to make this claim you can provide evidence of it. The Time Magazine article and the various conclusions you drew (but which it did not actually say) are not such evidence.
No one claims this happened except you. Time Magazine does not. The guy who believes Time Magazine is referring to him says something entirely different happened. No one disputes him, and in the event of a dispute there is highly likely to be plenty of evidence.
I'll note you also claimed it happened during a job interview and he was her boss, which you seem to have retreated from. Why do you keep making claims such as these? Do you have some firsthand knowledge that the rest of us lack?
What did you mean when you said "I can believe it, because [insert rant about quokkas]"? I assumed it was referencing this which is entirely about my Claim 2 - that innocent rationalists will be harmed by evil and dangerous journalists/grifters/etc if they don't develop defense mechanisms. Did you mean something else?
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