As an outsider and having read each allegation made by the Victims and seeing past comments made here and elsewhere like LessWrong its astonishing to me that the community it self constantly attempts to deflect and victim blame as is CLEARLY evident among the comments seen here regarding the take down of the heavily downvoted 'Women and Effective Altruism' post here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sD4kdobiRaBpxcL8M/what-happened-to-the-women-and-effective-altruism-post
Its disgraceful that people are calling the victim 'bigoted' for talking about the abusive culture around poly relationships in EA, and then to go on and question why she would take the post down when commenters go on to victim blame her even when she says how distressing the comments are. All you see among the comments are excuses attempting to defend the culture by claiming its elsewhere as well or that there will always be such abuse cases. Even when I was in University I didn't see such comments made (in Canada).
To anyone on the outside the cult like nature of EA is very evident especially when you have such highly influential people attending events that gatekeep the most coveted jobs in the Valley and allow them to freely talk about their sexual lives as if its natural with young adults in their early 20s. It is very evident how this dynamic can lead to cases of abuse and cover up when everybody in the community and at these events wants to put the best impression forward to key people who can dictate their career success. Its not anything specific to EA but the simple power dynamic that exists and was seen with allegations made against people like Brent, add to this a very faulty messiah complex and its easy to see why a lot of bias against victims exist. At least its VERY reassuring to see leaders begin to tackle this issue, but to many outsiders a clear bias among commenters and the community, at least in past, is evident when looking through past posts.
As an outsider and having read each allegation made by the Victims and seeing past comments made here and elsewhere like LessWrong its astonishing to me that the community it self constantly attempts to deflect and victim blame as is CLEARLY evident among the comments seen here regarding the take down of the heavily downvoted 'Women and Effective Altruism' post here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sD4kdobiRaBpxcL8M/what-happened-to-the-women-and-effective-altruism-post
Its disgraceful that people are calling the victim 'bigoted' for talking about the abusive culture around poly relationships in EA, and then to go on and question why she would take the post down when commenters go on to victim blame her even when she says how distressing the comments are. All you see among the comments are excuses attempting to defend the culture by claiming its elsewhere as well or that there will always be such abuse cases. Even when I was in University I didn't see such comments made (in Canada).
To anyone on the outside the cult like nature of EA is very evident especially when you have such highly influential people attending events that gatekeep the most coveted jobs in the Valley and allow them to freely talk about their sexual lives as if its natural with young adults in their early 20s. It is very evident how this dynamic can lead to cases of abuse and cover up when everybody in the community and at these events wants to put the best impression forward to key people who can dictate their career success. Its not anything specific to EA but the simple power dynamic that exists and was seen with allegations made against people like Brent, add to this a very faulty messiah complex and its easy to see why a lot of bias against victims exist. At least its VERY reassuring to see leaders begin to tackle this issue, but to many outsiders a clear bias among commenters and the community, at least in past, is evident when looking through past posts.