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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

#321

Post by amanaplanacanal »

andrewflnr wrote: post #31
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?

They might be saying that this is a series of anecdotes, not a scientific study, so we don’t know.

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

#322

Post by amanaplanacanal »

droopyEyelids wrote: post #214
camillomiller wrote: post #205

EA can be the scum of Earth and I wouldn’t be surprised that this kind of group could be as it sounds cultish and self-aggrandizing. But conflating their wrongdoings right away with the refusal of monogamy and the practice of polyamory is so annoying and conservative and plainly wrong. It also implies that these practices are one step removed from harassment, which is infuriating. It’s exactly like conflating homosex…

In a perfect world I agree with you, but at some point you have to ask yourself why non-monogamy keeps going out of style after periods of acceptance. Even with a religion justifying it, Mormons gave up polygamy! I think it's because polygamous relationships lend themselves to manipulative and abusive behavior more easily than monogamous relationships do. Over time that increase in probability of negative outcomes tu…

A culture where men can have many partners but women aren’t allowed to is inherently ripe for abuse. This is completely different from polyamory.

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

#323

Post by ben_w »

imtringued wrote: post #306
ben_w wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not believe utilitarianism is sound, because its logic can be easily used to justify some obviously horrible things. I think most moral philosophers agree with you on that. IMO, the way people talk about Utilitarianism feels to me exactly the same as my own feelings when at school, having only been taught 2D vectors and basic trig functions, I spent 6 months trying to figure out what it even meant to render in…

Utility can't be one dimensional and it probably isn't linear. In other words, we would have to treat most situations as unique and then try to find patterns and then the whole rationalism thing goes out of the window.

Only spherical-rationalism-in-a-vacuum goes out the window.

Unfortunately, and this goes back to my previous point, lots of people (I'm not immune!) mistake taking the first baby step for climbing the whole mountain.

I'm reminded of the joke about a an engineer, a physicist, and a theoretical mathematician who each wake up to a fire in their bedrooms: https://old.reddit.com/r/MathJokes/comments/j8bax6/an_engine...

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

#324

Post by throwanem »

benj111 wrote: post #288
throwanem wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"A pharmacist's approval" is a prescription, just one that happens to be written by the same person who fills it. So no, not OTC, which specifically refers to medications you can get without a prescription.

I suspect this is location specific though. In the UK my migraine medication was available over the counter, I still had to have a discussion with the pharmacist every time I bought it. Conversely when ever I've needed an actual prescription medication, in an emergency or whatever, that has always had to go through my doctor to get the prescription sorted.

Well, sure, countries will have their own laws over this or anything. Ours are defined at the federal level and thus apply the same everywhere in the country; since GGP and I are both USian, that's the basis on which I replied. (I don't know enough about any other country's such laws to speak to them!)

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

#325

Post by denton-scratch »

skybrian wrote: post #258
Sakos wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's bizarre EA seems to be a movement with power structures. I always just thought EA was a philosophy and based on that I felt it was an interesting idea. I don't have to worry about sexual harassment when I'm considering Plato or Stoicism. Why is it a thing with EA?

Many industry events have had problems with sexual harassment. Young people living together in group houses (for example, fraternities) often have problems too. So the problem in this case seems to be for young people who want to connect at in-person events. If you never go to events, don't want an EA job, and don't want to live with other EA people, then I don't think you can be affected? So I'm not sure it's a prob…

> holding lots of loosely moderated events, having parties, having group houses, and so on.

Ah. I wonder if the nub of this is group houses?

I can't tell whether the abuse phenomenon is characteristic of EA, or of San Francisco. I understand housing in SF is absurdly expensive, even for well-paid people, so perhaps group houses are more prevalent in SF. Is abuse more common in EA-affiliated group houses in other parts of the country?

My supposition is that abuse is more likely in a group house, whether it's connected with EA or not; but I have no facts to back that up.

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

#326

Post by Kinrany »

watwut wrote: post #319
Kinrany wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not, not if they succeeded and ended up better off than if they haven't started using in the first place.

You genuinely believe that this had potential to happen after the issues related to drugs started to show up? Cause it is very very unlikely.

However unlikely it is, naasking is right that OP's comment contains zero new information.

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

#327

Post by lotsofpulp »

montecarl wrote: post #251
Acutulus wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking for the US, yes indeed. Loperamide is technically an opioid and available OTC, though that's rarely a sought after compound unless one is in dire straits. Codeine is available with a pharmacist's approval alone in my state. So while it may not technically OTC by that definition (or is, I don't know how OTC is defined), it can be had without a prescription by visiting a participating pharmacy and simply reque…

For clarity, loperamide, sold under the brand name Imodium, is an anti diarrhea medication. It is an opioid; however, it does not readily cross the blood-brain barrier. It only acts on the opioid receptors in the large intestine and slows the movement of food. In very high concentrations it may get into the brain.

If I go to a developing country where I cannot guarantee access to a bathroom, I pop one or two of these every morning to keep me regular.

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

#328

Post by denton-scratch »

derbOac wrote: post #126
supersour wrote: post #48

> EA is diffuse and deliberately amorphous; anybody who wants to can call themselves an EA... But with no official leadership structure, no roster of who is and isn’t in the movement, and no formal process for dealing with complaints, Wise argues, it’s hard to gauge how common such issues are within EA compared to broader society. This passage reminded me of this article: https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm…

This is an aside, but although I agree that groups without formal power structures can hide real ones, I'm not sure explicit hierarchies are necessarily better. In my experience, they can be used to legitimize shadow hierarchies or corruption, which sometimes makes the problems worse. Those vague power structures exist with or without formal ones; when they coincide it's good, but when they don't, it can perpetuate o…

> I'm not sure explicit hierarchies are necessarily better.

It's the explicitness that is the good part, not the hierarchy. The premise is that there will always be hierarchy; groups that profess to be non-hierarchical have a hidden hierarchy that is more pernicious.

So it's not like "Oh, this group has no hierarchy, so lets invent one and write it down", it's more "This group appears to have no hierarchy; so we need to do some digging, to expose the hierarchy".

If you join a non-hierarchical group, it can take years to discover that it really does have a hierarchy, and more years to learn how it works. Hidden power is more dangerous than overt power.

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

#329

Post by naasking »

watwut wrote: post #286
naasking wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I intentionally drifted away from that group around that time, so I don’t know what happened to them This isn't a convincing story that they were wrong if you don't actually know what happened to them. It just looks like you're showing a bit of that hubris yourself, in assuming they went off a cliff.

OP disassociate with them when issues caught up with them. Even if their fixed their lifes after, this point stands.

What issues? How significant were these issues? The information is so vague that it tells us nothing. I'm skeptical opioids can be used this way, but the OP's post is not evidence of that.

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

#330

Post by skissane »

benj111 wrote: post #292
aj7 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had serious withdrawal symptoms 24 hours after medicating myself with controlled doses of hydromorphone after surgery. It’s always been remarkable to me how many people confidently assert I wasn’t addicted.

Conversely I'm on long term anti depressants and I get withdrawal symptoms if I forget to take them, but no one is ever referred to as being addicted to anti depressants. I suspect there are different (social) mechanisms at work here, but addiction is generally applied to one specific form of drug reliance.

> but no one is ever referred to as being addicted to anti depressants

People who are sceptical of antidepressants, such as Professor Joanna Moncrieff (University of College London), do speak of them as “addictive”, and consider their use to (at least sometimes) be a case of “prescribed drug dependency”, and also speak of “withdrawal” from them

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