when I say something "looks bad" I'm not thinking about PR
where there's smoke, there's a fire hazard
Every few months, someone will tell me a story about the EA community that makes me cringe.
“He gave an unrestricted grant to his girlfriend even though she doesn’t have any relevant credentials”
“I actually got into EA because I matched with this older guy on a dating app”
“So he starts telling me why it’s actually good that his organisation isn’t demographically diverse”1
And I’ll say something like, “Wow, that looks really bad.”
If I say it looks bad on the internet, usually someone will comment and say that it doesn’t matter if it looks bad, it matters if it is bad. We should be more worried about truth than public relations!
Public relations are important to me, so I’ll get nerdsniped into explaining why a good reputation is incredibly valuable, and get into a big comment war. There goes the rest of my day!
But public relations weren’t what made me say the thing looked bad in the first place!
I say something looks bad when:
a person is in a situation with a much higher than usual chance of wrongdoing
but I know they’re innocent, or I suspect they’re innocent, or I want to give them the benefit of the doubt
Putting it in forecasting language: the base rate of a person in this situation having done something morally wrong is high.
It’s not bad to give your girlfriend a grant! But compared to grantmakers deciding about grants for strangers, someone in your situation is more likely to be biased.
It’s not bad to date someone much younger than you! But compared to couples of similar ages, someone in your situation is more likely to have undue power over their partner.
It’s not bad to run a demographically homogenous organisation! It’s not even bad to tell people about the decisions that got you there, if they’re interested. But compared to demographically diverse organisations, the average CEO or organisation in that situation is more likely to be racist.
So when I say, “That looks really bad!” what I mean is:
You’re putting yourself in the same reference class as people who do morally wrong things, which might be worthwhile if you have a good reason - is there a good reason?
Of course, if you take this to its logical extreme, I could end up saying, “That looks bad” to all kinds of completely innocent activities. I could even wind up encouraging people to change based on offensive stereotypes. That’s not good. I simply choose not to take this to its logical extreme, and encourage you not to either.
But I do want you to understand me and what my actual concerns are. So the next time I comment, “That looks bad” on your Forum post, I want you to know: it’s not about PR risk, it’s about moral risk.
These stories are all fictionalized
>“I actually got into EA because I matched with this older guy on a dating app”
This isn't as bad as the other kinds of examples given. It's more of a problem when it's a "much older" guy (or a "much older" person of whatever gender).
To explain why, I see your xkcd comic and raise you this one.
https://xkcd.com/314/
The rule of thumb provided is the Standard Creepiness Rule: Don't date under (your-own-age/2 +7). It's kind of a meme but its enduring power is that it does work decently well. Yet it breaks down into a problem when the stigmatization of a couple dating each other when two people's ages are a decade-ish apart, like 20 and 30, just because they're just so far apart in age, without other evidence of it being a problematic relationship, disrespects the autonomy and privacy of both people in the couple.
On the EA Forum posts discussing the incidences of sexual abuse in the community that broke earlier this year, I remember several commenters alleged that the prevalence of polyamory in the community was a culprit, and a sign that EA is a cult. Meanwhile, there were several other women who remarked that so much peer pressure to just be monogamous instead of polyamorous for the reputational sake of the community/movement or whatever, as an invasion into their personal/private lives, is what made them feel like EA was cult-like.
To stigmatize romantic relationships when there’s a big age gap can often have the same effect, not just in EA, but in any walk of life. The devil of whether there is an element of abuse or predation in a relationship is in the details. If the details are unknown, reacting based on a suspicion is probably going wrong often causes more harm than good. It’s okay to be concerned that something wrong is going on in the relationship, though it’s probably best to privately talk to the person in the relationship you’re worried about, or at least their other friends/peers you also personally know, before you make any assumptions.
>It’s not bad to give your girlfriend a grant! But compared to grantmakers deciding about grants for strangers, someone in your situation is more likely to be biased.
>These stories are all fictionalized
For what it’s worth, there are multiple, real, well-documented incidents like this from years past, that the effective altruists in question have spoken to. The most recent example of this that comes to mind is Holden Karnofsky addressing the fact that his wife is the president and co-founder of Anthropic AI, and formerly employed by OpenAI, back in March.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aJwcgm2nqiZu6zq2S/taking-a-leave-of-absence-from-open-philanthropy-to-work-on?commentId=JJhnJWZo3e4jmBMjf
>Of course, if you take this to its logical extreme, I could end up saying, “That looks bad” to all kinds of completely innocent activities. I could even wind up encouraging people to change based on offensive stereotypes. That’s not good. I simply choose not to take this to its logical extreme, and encourage you not to either.
One problem is that there are those who frequently take it to the logical extreme. That's not what you do, of course, as you mentioned. It's good you're discouraging others from doing so, though unfortunately just mentioning it won't be sufficient to convince others to stop. It needs to be emphasized more.
That stems in part from how the morality of different parts of someone's life may be kind of arbitrary or subjective in how its perceived by different people. Polyamory comes up as an example again. Many people, especially effective altruists, don't recognize any violation of common-sense ethics in polyamory. Yet many people, perhaps most people do. For some people, someone else even slightly violating the bounds of strict monogamy stretches the limit of what they're willing tolerate. For them, polyamory is beyond the pale.
Most people in EA are of course not like that. It may be no more than a small minority of effective altruists who experience much discomfort being part of a social network with a disproportionately high rate of polyamory among its participants. I don't know and I could be wrong.
Yet for however many people would want polyamory to be criminalized, or for lifestyles that lend themselves to polyamory to be criminalized, there are many countries where the lifestyle is legal. It's not even a victimless crime. Indeed, in the countries where most effective altruists live, the human rights that allow and lend themselves to a polyamoryous lifestyle are, at least in theory, enshrined and protected by law. Some effective altruists probably hail from a country where polyamory is practically a crime, though I'd guess most effective altruists think polyamory shouldn't be a crime anyway. That's my opinion, at least.
This is a backdrop on which some polyamorous effective altruists may experience prejudice, discrimination and stigmatization many poly people face. Again, it's not as bad in effective altruism for most, though something that is no violation of what some people consider common-sense morality can be, to many others, a heinous and horrible moral failing.
Another example like that which comes to mind is dietary choices, whether someone eats meat, is vegetarian, or vegan. Not as commonly, or as often, in my experience, but all kinds of behaviour stereotypically associated with poor and/or uneducated people wind up morally stigmatized too.