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Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

time.com

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Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#31

Post by andrewflnr »

theragra wrote: post #15

If there are less cases of abuse than among generic populace, it is weird to blame the movement. From the article, it is hard to understand that EA is somehow worse than most of the USA. Also, arguments for polyamory are just that, arguments. You certainly can press someone into it, but from the article, the impression that it is more like persuasion. Regarding cult dynamics - any tight knit community feels like this…

> If there are less cases of abuse than among generic populace

Where are you getting this?

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#32

Post by sonjat »

Y_Y wrote: post #27
sonjat wrote: post #17

It's unclear if the issue is EA or how to handle misbehavior in organizations without formal structure or hierarchy. It isn't like a workplace, with reasonably well-defined boundaries, but something more akin to religion, where its influence bleeds over heavily into many aspects of ones life. As such, it is probably both more devastating when one is the victim of misconduct and also more difficult to police such misc…

You should be able to punish people even though there's reasonable doubt that they are culpable? Are you arguing for a "balance of probabilities" standard? Or that it's worth punishing some innocents so that the guilty are also punished?

I think I am arguing for a "balance of probabilities". If (to spout off random hypothetical) the punishment is something like a banning of someone from EA conferences, then there definitely needs to be evidence of their misconduct, but that level of evidence doesn't need to be the same as if they are looking at a criminal conviction. The point is balancing the need to protect the victim while not punishing the innocent is a difficult issue outside the criminal courtroom.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#33

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

gruez wrote: post #25
jfengel wrote: post #12

The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments. EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible things. Once that happens, it can easily spiral out from there. Peopl…

Your point seem superficially valid, but where do we go from there? >The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments. >EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible…

> Should we not talk ourselves into believing into stuff? Should smart people specifically avoid changing their beliefs out of fear of "justify all kinds of terrible things"?

It's simple really: just be skeptical of your own reasoning because you're aware of your own biases and fallibility. Be a good scientist and be open to being wrong.

> So you don't trust donating money to food banks or malaria nets because "don't have any reason to trust them", then what?

No, they don't trust that you can scale the concept of "food banks are more effective than I am" to any kind of maximization. You can still donate to worthy causes and effective organizations.

> Don't donate any money at all? Give up trying to maximize impact and donate to whatever you feel like donating to?

Yeah, basically. Giving is more helpful than not giving, so even a non-maximalist approach is better than nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good, aim for good.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#34

Post by zozbot234 »

theragra wrote: post #15

If there are less cases of abuse than among generic populace, it is weird to blame the movement. From the article, it is hard to understand that EA is somehow worse than most of the USA. Also, arguments for polyamory are just that, arguments. You certainly can press someone into it, but from the article, the impression that it is more like persuasion. Regarding cult dynamics - any tight knit community feels like this…

Arguments for polyamory are also regarded as grossly unprofessional in any environment that's focused on a specific goal. Most people don't want to be goaded by strangers into "arguing" about their relationship status. It's abusive.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#36

Post by willcipriano »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #10
wendyshu wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess GiveWell still does that, but I'm not really sure what everyone else in the movement does.

Givewell is certainly my go to.

Looks good I'll check it out.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#37

Post by gruez »

dfgheaoinbt6t wrote: post #24
JohnFen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effective Altruism is just a modern iteration of a thing that's been around for a very long time. The fundamental idea is sound. However, in practice, it all-too-easily devolves into something really terrible. Especially once people start down the path of thinking the needs of today aren't as important as the needs of a hypothetical future population. Personally, I started "tithing" when my first business was a succe…

>Especially once people start down the path of thinking the needs of today aren't as important as the needs of a hypothetical future population. It's not that that bothers me so much as the fact that many effective altruists do it so badly . We need to be concerned with the future. That is the only reason to maintain roads and bridges, to prevent pollution, or to conserve resources like water in aquifers and helium.…

>It's not that that bothers me so much as the fact that many effective altruists do it so badly. [...] But effective altruists are as likely to talk about colonizing Mars as they are to talk about global warming.

Are they doing it badly, or are you not understanding their arguments? AFAIK effective altruists want to colonize mars on x-risk grounds, which would explain why they want to prioritize that over global warming, even though the latter is happening right now. AFAIK they think that global warming is bad, but isn't an existential risk, whereas colonizing mars will mitigate many existential risks.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#38

Post by pcthrowaway »

zozbot234 wrote: post #30

This is not about effective altruism as in the generic practice of high-impact giving, it relates to a highly specific subculture of EA proponents. "Polycules", 'nuff said. These are not appropriate topics in a professional discussion among strangers.

It's a mission-focused group, and such groups usually include some amount of socializing. It's not the same as a workplace (although people frequently mention their partners in a workplace also)

There are certainly polyamorous people who behave poorly, but that doesn't mean people with multiple lovers should be held to different standards than monogamous people are, just because their romantic orientation places them in the minority.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#39

Post by gruez »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #33
gruez wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point seem superficially valid, but where do we go from there? >The worst thing about being smart is how easy it is to talk yourself into believing just about anything. After all, you make really good arguments. >EA appeals to exactly that kind of really-smart-person who is perfectly capable of convincing themselves that they're always right about everything. And from there, you can justify all kinds of terrible…

> Should we not talk ourselves into believing into stuff? Should smart people specifically avoid changing their beliefs out of fear of "justify all kinds of terrible things"? It's simple really: just be skeptical of your own reasoning because you're aware of your own biases and fallibility. Be a good scientist and be open to being wrong. > So you don't trust donating money to food banks or malaria nets because "don't…

>It's simple really: just be skeptical of your own reasoning because you're aware of your own biases and fallibility. Be a good scientist and be open to being wrong.

This just seems like a generic advice to me which is theoretically applicable to everyone. Is there any evidence of effective altruists not doing that, or this being specifically a problem with "really-smart-person"s?

>No, they don't trust that you can scale the concept of "food banks are more effective than I am" to any kind of maximization. You can still donate to worthy causes and effective organizations.

I'm not quite understanding what you're arguing for here. Are you saying that you disagree with effective altruists' assessment that you should be funding malaria nets in africa or whatever (ie. what they want you to do), rather than donating to local food banks (ie. what you want to do)?

>Yeah, basically. Giving is more helpful than not giving, so even a non-maximalist approach is better than nothing. Perfect is the enemy of good, aim for good.

To be clear, you're arguing for donating for whatever your gut tells you, rather than trying to maximize benefit?

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#40

Post by lbwtaylor »

The_Colonel wrote: post #18
lbwtaylor wrote: post #13

The article links to this EA community post on 'interpersonal harm' in the community, which I found interesting. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NbkxLDECvdGuB95gW/... One item caught my eye: >>There are also cases where I find a report to be alarming and would like to take action, but the person reporting does not want it known that they spoke up. In these cases, sometimes there’s very little that can be do…

If you don't respect the desired confidentiality, you'll get fewer people confiding with you. There are similar practices regarding rape - victims can seek e.g. securing the biological evidence without automatically triggering a criminal investigation. The logic being that this (critical) step should be as risk-free / barrier-free as possible. > There are a lot of hard lessons behind requiring mandatory investigation…

>> There are a lot of hard lessons behind requiring mandatory investigation of credible claims.

>Worth keeping in mind that companies are always primarily trying to cover their backs and these policies often reflect that.

Your comment was a fair one when it comes to corporations, but I was thinking of churches and community groups more like EA than corporations. Bad actors thrive in secrecy, particularly when they can use their power to create repercussions for people reporting bad acts, creating a culture of silence. Mandatory investigation is one of the few effective ways to resolve that. That's why it's the policy and/or law in many circumstances.

If my group had the same policy as EA, I would be very uncomfortable with it.

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