This post was originally intended to be published as part of Draft Amnesty Week, but I have opted not to use that tag, as I strongly endorse this post and its contents. This post was also mostly written before I read CEA's response to sexual harassment by Fran, but it feels even more important in light of her piece. I find it difficult to read her experience and not come away feeling even stronger about what I wrote below.
When I was in high school, I used to get into debates about whether or not it mattered if people referred to themselves as a 'feminist'. My mom, in the hope she might avert me becoming a Jordan Peterson acolyte, bought me a copy of We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — which I read while pacing the length of my basement.
I do call myself a feminist now, just like I call myself an effective altruist, and while I didn't know about malaria nets or precipices back then, my views on the core questions at the heart of feminism have remained unchanged (I think equality is really good and important, unsurprisingly). And, while I stand by my teenage self, I do feel a bit of embarrassment that I was too concerned with abstract philosophical arguments to just refer to myself as what I was — a feminist (perhaps this is why I'll never be able to bring myself to saying I'm 'EA adjacent').
William MacAskill defines one of effective altruism's core features as "Tentatively impartial and welfarist" — you can find his full definition here, but rereading it years later I find it interesting that an alarming number of people in in this community are impartial and welfarist up until the point it’s in relation to sexism.
I think effective altruism is #Good, and the community has been an important part of my life — both socially (the number of weddings I've been invited to as a result of EA keeps going up), but more importantly for my own impact. I've given away thousands of dollars to effective charities I am certain I wouldn't have otherwise done. I like the people in the community, and I feel like I have grown and developed as a person as a result of their influence. Many of them are role models to me.
But I do think we need to look at our community, and be brutally honest (in the way they can only teach you to be over on Lesswrong) — effective altruism, and all the adjacent communities, has a sexism problem.
It is baffling, and frustrating, to me that sexism can be so pervasive within our community. In a visceral and emotional way it feels completely irrelevant whether or not EA does better or worse on the number of sexual harassment cases, a defense I sometimes hear. We are not merely trying to ‘be as good as the average community’ — we are trying to do the best we can, and for over a decade our community has been writing about our moral imperative to do so. What I love about this community is how much dedication and talent is directed at improving the world in the best possible ways, not just settling for the negligible impact so many charities unfortunately have. It would be absurd to imagine an EA community that settled for PlayPumps International as our bar — and so, regardless of how our community compares to any other, I find it absurd to suggest that we should settle or accept sexism within our community either.
I have heard — in private conversations, and from time to time on twitter — people say things like ‘well, sure, but was the perpetrator autistic’ or ‘what if this makes it harder for men to date’. I feel like a certain former EA spokesperson when I hear this stuff — like seriously guys, what the f-.
Our movement is predicated on consequentialism, outcomes exist regardless of intent, regardless of neurodivergence — it doesn’t help someone who's suffering if when you harmed them you had but only the best intentions. That person is still harmed. For some reason I see too many in this community, or adjacent ones, unable to accept that people (including men) must face consequences for their harmful actions, regardless of intent or neurodivergence.
In the years since FTX and the ‘TIME Magazine article’ I have heard numerous people preach the importance of good governance — of virtue ethics, of deontic principles — and I agree with all of that, but EAG talks and tweets aren’t enough to make it so — we have to put it into practice. If we mean what we say, then it isn’t acceptable to merely pay lip service, our actions have to reflect these values as well.
Some behavior is actually just unacceptable, and sometimes people in this community respond in unacceptable ways when that unacceptable behavior is reported. I think we should not shy away from calling things what they are — from seeing the truth — and the response, norms, behaviors, exhibited by some in this community are sexist. That’s the fact of the matter. Empathy for perpetrators (again, usually men), no matter what, at any cost, is neither effective nor altruistic. It’s a culture of sexism.
Sometimes, to me, it feels like people love to say ‘I’m EA adjacent’ because they are scared of taking responsibility for the community. No one wants the baggage of crypto scams or sexual harassment scandals, even if they’ll take the benefits that come from community infrastructure — but just because you keep your identity small doesn’t mean these things go away. If you exist and participate in EA/Rationalist/Vibecamp spaces you actively shape the norms of the community, and you have a responsibility to call out unacceptable behavior. It doesn’t matter if you call yourself an EA or not, you still have a responsibility to stop sexism when you see it, and to treat all others with respect.
And I don't even want to imply that this is an exclusively gendered thing, men can be abused and harassed as well. I feel lucky, and cared for, that when I have spoken about harms done to me no one has immediately questioned what I said, asked if the other person was neurodivergent, or proposed we poll the broader public for their takes. I think we should expect that kind of response to be extended to everyone in the community, not just me.
For me, part of the journey I experienced with effective altruism was a broadening of my empathy — I think people thousands of miles away, animals on factory farms, and those who are not yet born all deserve our concern. I find it frustrating, and demoralizing, when I see this empathy stop in others as soon as harassment or sexism comes up. Again, we should be honest, and I believe that the fact of the matter is some people want a culture that protects harassers, because they (especially some men) empathize too much with the person being accused of bad behavior, and far too little with the person who has suffered. That feels deeply antithetical to the ideals of the effective altruism community, and we should call it out as the contradiction it is.
And I have witnessed, especially in online spaces, the norms and epistemic tools common to the EA/rationalist spaces used as a way to doubt and put down those who have been harmed. We can’t be selectively truth seeking — we have a responsibility to kindness and respectful communication, regardless of the topic or the participants. We should not let the jargon or epistemic tools of these communities be used to put down other people — again, this feels antithetical to the values we all strive to embody.
I look up to my mom a lot, which I don't think she knows — but one day I hope I can be someone like her. I hope, if she were to ever read the forum, or go to an EA conference, my behavior in these spaces would make her proud. I hope that I have carried myself with empathy and compassion.
I think sometimes I am too hard on myself, but when I look back now on how I was as a young(er) EA I have a lot of pride for how I carried myself. I admire how much I'd speak up about things, and as baffling as it would have been to past Max, I sometimes wish I was more like him. Something that used to cause me trouble was how much I'd speak my mind — but speaking up is a core part of creating a better culture, and I hope I continue to call out things that I view as unacceptable.
I want to be a part of a movement that values truth, radical empathy, and good. Maybe it doesn’t truly matter if I call myself a feminist or if I call myself EA-adjacent — but regardless, sexism has no place in our community, and I hope to behave in a way that makes it so. I believe we all have a responsibility to leave the world better than we found — perhaps by donating or perhaps through direct work — and I similarly believe we are all responsible for creating a culture that is free from harassment.
IMO, the worst sub-group is the intersection formed by the group of people who call themselves 'rationalists', those who have sexist views, and those who are looking to be edgy/gain some notoriety. This is because this group will often try to use their 'rationalism' to justify their harmful '-isms' (sexism/racism etc)... using """"data"""" and """reason""", which generates a lot of controversy which helps them build more of a platform, etc.
In my opinion this is the most dangerous subcategory of sexist people (as opposed to the people who are just casually sexist out of convenience / or just because they can, but don't have further motives beyond that) because if you dare questioning their methods or conclusions they call you 'woke', 'irrational', or 'unscientific' (by contrast, the former category will just accuse you of being too uptight, lacking a sense of humour, or making a mountain out of a molehill). These pseudo-rationalist people are dangerous because they are not simply being sexist, they are actively making the apology of sexism. As a woman, you can't win against them, because you're either agreeing with them that women are less smart/capable/intelligent, or you're disagreeing with their 'highly rationalist proof', which they will claim proves their point, as you're 'clearly' not clever or free-thinking enough to appreciate the 'evidence'. This of course helps them get more attention, as more and more people either want to strongly agree or strongly disagree with them. Online, this behaviour drives comments, likes, and algorithmic traffic towards their profile, which serves their notoriety goals.
I've met my fair share of these over the years.
As one of the people quoted in the article I can heartily concur with this from personal experience (I'm really surprised by the disagrees).
Rationalist mouthpiece Eneasz Brodski wrote this https://deathisbad.substack.com/p/any-community-that-tolerates-trauma in response to me coming forward about a safety issue with a man at Vibecamp 2, which is a manual and encouragement on ostracizing victims of sexual violence.
The reaction from the community, especially from other rationalist mouthpieces is almost a mirror of Fran's experience. Until leaders have the courage to both admit there are systemic problems and that they need outside help to deal with them, these issues will continue to happen.
Thanks Ivy for sharing this article. Very sorry you were in any way affected by this though! Again, deeply enraging, but sadly very representative of other stuff I've seen and what I was referring to in my earlier comment.
For the benefit of readers of this thread, here's a taster of the article shared by @Ivy Astrix :
And for people who don't have the time to read it for themselves, the article broadly goes like this:
(1) Anyone sharing their trauma or cautioning about causing trauma (people the article refers to as "trauma junkies") is most probably doing so out of bad faith and a desire to gain attention.
(2) Because it is most probably fake, you would be justified as seeing those people as problematic and net negatives to your community.
(3) Therefore, to safeguard your community, you should probably either shut down any attempts they make to broach the subject or just exclude them altogether.
After about 1300 words spent outlining the "argument", and making the case that trauma junkies are causing "draining leadership resources", causing "crumbling communities" and that it is a moral duty for leaders to stop them, the author writes a "word of concession" that
nonetheless reaches quite extreme conclusions on what kind of actions should be taken against those 'trauma junkies' namely that, "for the protection of everyone else they must be isolated, just like the violent psychotic or compulsive rapist must be isolated".
I don't think I need to spend time explaining the flaws in this 'argument'.
What's scary is that this person, whom I don't know at all but from looking at their blog and recommendations (Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Scott Alexander stuff) would probably identify themselves as belonging to the rationalist community, can't see the issues with what they are writing. Or maybe they've decided that having such views and 'casual' (read, extremely low to non-existent) epistemic standards is... compatible with being a rationalist??! Clearly they have, as this article has been publicly published for 2 years now.
The extremely confident tone makes it clear that the author is not interested in having a constructive debate on the best way to handle trauma in communities. It's an attempt at banter, making fun at others, and basically branding oneself as a 'cool contrarian'. Exactly what I described in my earlier comment.
The confident tone is also an indication that the kind of social groups this person inhabits, which by all accounts are at least adjacent to rationalist circles (I scanned through the people who liked it and what they subscribe to on Substack), permits such low-quality discourse with basically no challenge (only one of the comments, although generally positive towards the message of the article, seems to gently suggest that the author should develop more empathy - it's not written very clearly though so I wouldn't know for sure).
If you've never come across this kind of behaviour before, imagine what it feels like to be the target of such an article. Especially when it looks like people are supporting it.
What's the solution? In my view, three things can really help:
- Call out the flaws in someone's arguments or behaviours whenever they happen. The issue is not that flawed arguments resulting in actual harm to people occasionally happen (they are bound to, nobody's perfect), but that they are allowed to go on with impunity.
- Remember that no discourse is ever disentangled from broader context. No idea is ever expressed by a 'disembodied spirit' (even LLMs are basing themselves on outputs from very real people with real biases). No discursive arena is ever truly fair, and gives true opportunity to everyone to express themselves and be heard in an equal way. We can try and make it that way, but this necessitates some awareness about the nature of potential power imbalances, and an anticipatory attempt to mitigate them. In my opinion, someone embodying real scout mindset looks out for signals of an uneven playing field, and makes the necessary adjustment to compensate them as necessary in a sincere attempt to getting at the truth.
- Have epistemic humility, and be wary of views that seem to radically diverge from traditional wisdom. Of course, sometimes, traditional wisdom is very wrong, and needs correcting. But in my view, the most-likely-to-be-morally successful challengers of traditional wisdoms are those who do so with humility and caution, and with an earnestness that is comparable to the magnitude of the change they are proposing (for a very helpful and eloquent description of this approach, see this talk by Toby Ord. I really loved it). Be wary of people who are super light-hearted and bantery when making a proposition that massively contradicts conventional wisdom, as chances are the tone they are using is not just a matter of style, it's a tactical decision to try and make people overlook the flaws of their arguments, gather virality and ultimately gain influence regardless of the merits of their reasoning (the old art of sophistry - gaining support for an argument without having solid substance because of surface-level tricks).
I don't think you accurately summarize the article. For example, you say he describes a trauma junkie as: "Anyone sharing their trauma or cautioning about causing trauma."
This is not how he describes the concept. Instead a trauma junkie is someone who:
I do think it would be genuinely concerning if prominent rationalists were generally dismissive of sexual assault and harassment. But that's not what the article is about. Instead, the author is dismissing people who describe "brief awkward conversations" as traumatic.
Hi Nathan, thanks for the additional contextualisation.
I want to make it very clear that I am not against a productive and reasoned discussion on how best to manage trauma discussions within a social group, including on the possibility of someone claiming to be a victim in bad faith. But this article never gets to be that because it only considers the one scenario where the supposed victim is acting in bad faith.
The problem is precisely that the author never really considers the possibility that the "trauma junkies" might in fact be acting in good faith, until the very last section of the article ('word of caution'), at which point he remarkably still advocates for banishing them from the group just like you would a 'violent psychotic' or 'compulsive rapist'. There is no consideration of tradeoffs, e.g. what effect this may have on the so-called 'trauma junky' if they turned out to be sincere . Of course, we know that in such cases, the effects are quite disastrous, and you can read Fran's recent post CEA's response to sexual harassment to see what that's like. So the article by Eneasz Brodski is not really an interesting, nuanced, substantiated and earnest discussion on a delicate topic, such as one that might be produced using a scout's mindset, or indeed rationalist ideals. For an example of something that I think is exactly that, read Fran's post, and you will find in it concrete examples where people who do think of themselves as rationalists and Effective Altruists did make mistakes that resulted in the effective dismissal of a serious case of sexual harassment. She explains the situation with a remarkable amount of calm and detachment and did so out of a genuine desire to see how similar situations can be handled better in the future.
Well... You may now be concerned.
Aside from the examples from Fran above, you might be interested in this article, which lists "views discussed involve racism, sexism, fascism, and other troubling ideologies" expressed at an EA afterparty. Full disclosure, I haven't read this article in full, and I'm not fully briefed on the whole Manifold/Manifest drama from 2024, but from a brief skim the article seems to list quite a few 'interesting' statements from a few prominent rationalists (most of whom I must admit I had never heard of because I am quite new to learning about this... and don't really feel a huge compulsion to explore, tbh). See for example this excerpt from Richard Hanania's article The EA Movement Will Be Anti-Woke or Die:
(Again, full disclosure, haven't particularly felt that keen to read the full article, so I haven't. I don't know who this Richard Hanania is in much detail but he clearly is quite involved in the EA / Rationalist community).
These dangerous rationalisations of harmful -ims are not surprising to me as I don't place 'rationalists' a cut above any other category of people in their ability to reason and avoid bias. Even when one tries really hard not to make a mistake, everyone makes mistakes and no one is above making a mistake. But mistakes can have very real negative ethical consequences, which is why I advocated for calling them out early, in a genuine, respectful, and earnest manner in order for us to all flourish as a group. ⭐️
lol how did i know men would be showing up to defend this disgusting article
from details in it i know it is about what i wrote about being sexually assaulted and cornered in a music venue at Vibecamp 2
after I brought it up at VC2 decompression somewhere there interrupted to talk about the dating plight of autistic men (which is why I was quoted), afterwards Aella implied that I was 'outsourcing my agency' at men, and complained to show i was sufficiently attractive and had enough status to perform rejections
Brodski is a coward who didn't have the guts to address me directly and instead wrote this passive aggresive garbage which EQUATES VIOLENT RAPISTS AND VICTIMS
what I talked about is what women who participate in nightlife have to worry about, and i could care less what sheltered berkeley philosophers have to say about whether my concerns are reasonable or not
sheltered men policing what a woman is allowed to feel in response to threats is the definition of patriarchy, misogyny, and a lot of other things rife within Rationalism
Vibecamp has ignored the fact that I was sexually assaulted for over 2 years, Brooke Bowman promised followup that never happened, that is the definition of being dismissive
I am very happy to be the person calling out the massive systemic problem in rationalism and EA, along with other brave women who have to deal with incredible amounts of gaslighting and dehumanization as Fran mentioned in her article and again could care less what Brodski or you have to say about it
I run a music festival and i am held accountable to its safety in ways Lighthaven and Vibecamp will never be subject to and the consequence free environment that exists for Rationalists is exactly why sexual harassment and assault happens
if you don't believe anything I have to say, you can instead look at what has been uncovered about men in Rationalism here https://archive.ph/xhV0S, and I do know for a fact from talking to journalists that other women are afraid to come forward and name abusers because it will impact their AI career prospects
so in short nathan please miss me with your mansplaining, rationalists think they are clever enough to keep this behaviour up but one day they will pick the wrong target and more women than I will be there to back up what she says
Ivy — I haven't yet had the chance to read this thread in detail nor the linked article (disclaimer that I have not opened the linked article nor read it yet), I've only been able to give the thread a full first pass. Thus, I felt I should refrain from commenting. But then, I realised if I don't leave something now, there's a strong chance I won't remember to come back to this. And one of the very dynamics I find sad is: victims who discuss their experiences and logical arguments publicly often resonate with so many readers, but this is not visible because those readers are likely moving quickly and won't necessarily wade into a public discourse.
So, to echo some of the points you've already raised: Hypothetically, let's say there is a person who fits the quoted description of a "trauma junkie." The idea that we should have to engage seriously with a subsequent argument that, at some point, equates the need to "isolate" such a person with the need to "isolate" a rapist is deeply worrying. Rape is a profound and violent removal of one's autonomy and humanity that results in incredibly high instances of PTSD. Rape is a felony charge, and for good reason. Often times in these discussion, it's missed that some people (i.e., likely the author of the linked post, based on the quoted sections) simply do not think rape is "that" bad and thus they find it congruent to make such careless statements or equations. But in that case, I'm left unable to engage productively because that's an irreconcilable and fundamental disagreement. I think rape is horrifying and the act of committing rape is horrifying, in quite literally any "context." I don't think rape is anything remotely close to as bad as the behaviour of a described "trauma junkie," though I agree that the described "trauma junkie" behaviour is bad and anti social.
I'd also like to say, there is a terrible circular logic that so often crops up when it comes to using trauma to discredit victims. I wish more people would read about trauma and understand its affects with more clarity and nuance. If Person A breaks Person B's leg, we do not suddenly discredit Person B as "hysterical" in their perspective because of the pain of their broken leg. Because, of course their leg is broken. Person A broke it. But, if Person A assaults Person B, resulting in trauma, we use the affects and pain of that trauma to discredit Person B so readily as a society. If we decide that victims are unreliable, by the nature of them being victims and not their actual individual behaviour, then we're both putting the entire class of victims in an impossible situation and we're falling back to approx. 1950s sexist talking points. Sometimes, I feel so stuck having to argue at a level I simply disagree with. On a meta level, I want us to fundamentally take abuse seriously and understand the actual literature, which shows that sexual assault is incredibly common, whereas false reports have happened and can, but they are not a prevalent issue at this time and no where near as rampant as reported rates of assault.
On a purely personal level: I teared up at the idea of disclosing my sexual assault and being met with the response you've faced. I'm so so beyond sorry. I feel like as a victim, there's this pressure to have to discuss your own assault in a completely detached, third-party observational, logical way. We rarely get to include our very real emotions or ask for extra respect, sensitivity, and awareness given the circumstances, with no actual expectation that people change the substance of their arguments. But some demonstration of compassion should be the very baseline expectation, and I find anything less cruel and unproductive. Otherwise, it makes conversations terribly asymmetric: outside observers can simply make their arguments with no personal stake, while the victim has to make both airtight arguments (fine) and somehow try to hold the very visceral lived experience of what happened and how it affected them and lives in them. So anyways, I just wanted to express a bit of clear, public support that the parts I was able to read thus far made utter sense and I can't imagine what you've had to carry or how disgusting it must have been to read the quotes you've shared, and I'm sorry and my heart is with you.
[Edit: I engaged critically with some of the quoted passages, but I want to be clear that I think writing such quoted passages in passive response to a disclosure of sexual assault is cruel and disgusting in my personal opinion.]
I think you have a good point that if a person behaves in a traumatized way, that's evidence they are an assault victim. On the other hand, it's also possible to go too far in the opposite direction, where it becomes socially unacceptable to disagree with the traumatized person in any way, and we have policies set by traumatized people who aren't thinking clearly.
I'm not claiming that EA is at this point necessarily. But I do believe this possibility is part of what motivates skepticism towards trauma victims. I expect with some creative thinking it is possible to come up with a compromise which achieves both of the important objectives here.
Of course it is socially acceptable to disagree with "traumatized" people in EA. I do it all the time. It is very easy for me to say, "I completely understand why you want that, but here is why I disagree," and then I lay out my arguments. You'll find that "traumatized" people are just people, capable of conversation and critical thinking. Trauma is just one type of challenge humans have to navigate, but there are many challenges.
The world is not split into traumatized unclear thinkers and non-traumatised clear thinkers. Many people think unclearly, all the time, for a variety of reasons. It is important to learn how to communicate with different people, which is effectively what your comment is saying. We all have emotions. Trauma itself is not a binary thing where you either "are" traumatised or "are not". Trauma as a diagnosis is a collection of symptoms which crossover with many other diagnoses, such as generalised anxiety, and so on.
Of course there are compromises, society at large is already making these compromises and many people are already thinking creatively about these issues. That is why we have things like laws, policies, codes of conduct, HR, social norms, and so on and so forth.
Well you previously wrote:
Insofar as others share this opinion of yours, it won't be socially acceptable to express those particular disagreements.
Assuming we are talking about the Any Community That Tolerates Trauma Junkies Is Unsafe For Everyone Else post, it's not something I would've predicted in advance would be considered "cruel and disgusting". So it remains the case that I personally have some uncertainty regarding what opinions will be considered "cruel and disgusting", to the point where it seems a bit safer socially to just avoid expressing much of any disagreement at all.
truly, thank you Fran <3
i wholeheartedly agree with what you've said here, i've unfortunately had experience with sexual violence from all angles: a friend of mine was the woman who finally got the story of Marc Emery's sex pestery published, I've supported other women at events and sometimes recounting what happened, even to myself is so surreal
there are failures of inexperience and failures by choice, and I am very tired of hearing about victims being held to documentarian standards whilst the people around them quietly contribute to their social death behind closed doors in addition to everything else they have to go through
it's been a difficult few years knowing i wasn't even worth a direct 'we don't believe you and we're not going to do anything' from either community or event, and i really can't tell you how much this comment means to me <3
Thank you Aida <3
it is crazy what these people will straight up say out loud, and even crazier what people will do to cover for toxic people
I know exactly who you mean, and they have been doing their best to create a culture where any accusation of sexism, racism, or sexual harrassment, no matter how mild, must be proven three steps beyond reasonable doubt before it is accepted as valid.
Fran has put in a frankly absurd level of care and detail into her account of events, and in responding to every little possible concern in the comments of her post. She has an airtight case backed up by independent investigators and a lawsuit settlement. And yet there is still one person in the comments that refuses to believe that there was a major problem (and probably more that are keeping quiet for now). I am heartened that basically everyone else has expressed their support so far, but I don't think you should have to go to that level of effort to get taken seriously on these matters.
I'm confused, if a 'proof' is bad, shouldn't it be possible to explain the flaw? It sounds like you are describing a person who is not arguing in good faith, which does not seem particularly "rational".
Yes exactly, the sexist/racist "proofs" are not really proofs, because they are fundamentally flawed, but the originators of such proofs refuse to hear any opposition. It's really an anti rationalist attitude dressed as a super rationalist attitude. As you say they're not arguing in good faith (scout mindset), they're just really committed to keeping their position (soldier mindset)