All of SoniaAlbrecht's Comments + Replies

I've been thinking about your perspective lately, and wondered if there is a variable I hadn't considered enough. I was raised middle class American and my dad was raised upper middle class American. For this post, I drew on my decade of experience as a lower class American after a disability left me unable to earn a good living for a long time. My field was heavily male dominated (construction). Since in my experience lower class American norms seem more gendered to me, I would expect the experience of someone who hasn't worked in a male-dominated lower c... (read more)

I think the essence of EA's smartness comes down to our ability to change our minds when presented with good information that challenges our worldview. I've been part of all sorts of communities, including many other youthful social-do-gooder movements, and never seen anything like it. People's models of the world are usually wrong in important ways, so I think this is probably the most important form of intelligence. So yes, I agree with Jeffrey Kursonis that we are probably typically smarter than average in the ways most applicable to what we work on.

Proposing a change to how Karma is accrued:

I recently reached over 1,000 Karma, meaning my upvotes now give 2 Karma and my strong upvotes give 6 Karma.  I'm most proud of my contributions to the forum about economics, but almost all of my increased ability to influence discourse now is from participating in the discussions on sexual misconduct. An upvote from me on Global Health & Development (my primary cause area) now counts twice as much as an upvote from 12 out of 19 of the authors of posts with 200-300 Karma with the Global Health & Devel... (read more)

If anyone's curious about GoodEAGoneBad's reply, we continue the conversation in a comment I made sharing this shortform on this post: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2JXLxKbSsbicnt9N9/ea-needs-life-veterans-and-less-smart-people

I'm actually  more open than I appear, and feel bad about not engaging more with you about the details. I want to, but going through all that again like we did in the comments on Owen's post would be too distracting from school for me right now.

I'm sorry my comment gave the wrong impression! 

I did find your comments on that post and believe we have very different perspectives on how serious the punishment should be. I thought the likelihood of  someone familiar with lower class banter culture having such different opinions from me about the punishment was low, so I really appreciate you speaking up!

I agree that Owen's behavior was not ok in any context. I agree he should be punished for it. I am only disagreeing with the extent of the punishment demanded in the comments on that post and similar comments regarding some other incidents in the Time article. 

Yes, poor people are not a monolith! Some people from our background (especially the people who chose to stick around EA long enough to be on the forum) will prefer current EA norms and feel grateful for them. I don't mean to dismiss your experiences at all. There are many different socioeconomic cultures that are underrepresented in EA, so I don't know what direction we should shift our norms in overall. Maybe there is that much diversity even within the US. I was speaking about my personal experience as someone from this background and the experiences of... (read more)

Yes, poor people are not a monolith! Some people from our background (especially the people who chose to stick around EA long enough to be on the forum) will prefer current EA norms and feel grateful for them. I don't mean to dismiss your experiences at all. And like I said earlier, there are many different socioeconomic cultures that are underrepresented in EA, so I don't know what direction we should shift our norms in overall. Maybe there is that much diversity even within the US. I was speaking about my personal experience as someone from this backgrou... (read more)

I'm actually confused about why this got so many downvotes, as I didn't think I was saying anything controversial. Can someone explain?

Yes! I was someone who upvoted the comments pointing out the problems with the article, because I think understanding the details of the problem is essential for solving it. However, I definitely don’t want any known or unknown victims to get the impression we are dismissing their experiences. Any sexual misconduct is far too much, and truly terrible things have happened.

I’m actually a bit confused about what you mean. Can you elaborate? Also, are you criticizing me or other people?

I would also prefer a world that adds to  the previous discussion instead of reinventing the wheel here, but in practice I don't think people would pay as much attention if we merely linked to that thread. To me the  case for how much the fallout from the apology matters rests on how justified the fallout is, so I believe the merits of the case against the apology deserve the space they are getting in this thread. Thanks for clarifying more what you meant. 

Yes! And a note on that: I've heard of some low and middle income country cultures with sex/dating norms similar to lower class American ones, and some with sex/dating norms even more reserved than upper class American ones. This means I have no idea what alterations would produce more socioeconomic diversity on net, and encourage people from other countries to speak up about their cultural norms.

Yes, as I shared below, I intended my statement to be anecdotal evidence that leaves a lot of room for other perspectives.

Although the only NPCs quote I noticed was referring to something else. Can you share the NPCs quote that referred to what we are discussing?

I agree with this, and want to share a concrete proposal that might help that I recently wrote a shortform about. Here's the content of the shortform:

"On Socioeconomic Diversity:

I want to explain how the discourse on sexual misconduct may be reducing the specific type of socioeconomic diversity I am personally familiar with. 

I’m a white female American who worked as an HVAC technician with co-workers mostly from racial minorities before going to college. Most of the sexual misconduct incidents discussed in the Time article have likely differed from st... (read more)

Thanks for sharing this important information! 

I want to add a couple important points from the Vox article that weren't explicit in your comment. 

-This proposal was discarded

-The professional field scores were not necessarily supposed to be measuring intelligence.  PELTIV was intended to measure many different things. To me professional field fits more into the "value aligned" category, although I respect that other interpretations based on other personal experiences with high status EAs could be just as valid.

I agree that work on AI safety is a higher priority for much of EA leadership than other cause areas now.

Thanks for sharing! Yeah I meant that only to refer to the people I know well enough to know their opinions and the general vibe I've gotten in the biggest EA AI safety hub. Mine  is just anecdotal evidence and leaves a lot of room for other perspectives. Sorry I didn’t say that well enough.

Oh awesome! That's a huge relief that this specific person has likely already been dealt with. It's a shame they didn't mention that in this article either.

Edit: This statement is about my personal experience in the biggest EA AI safety hub. It’s not intended to be anything more than anecdotal evidence, and leaves plenty of room for other experiences. Thanks to others for pointing out this wasn’t clear. 

I'm part of the AI-oriented community this part is referring to, and have felt a lot of pressure to abandon work on other cause areas to work on AI safety (which I have rejected). In my experience it is not condescending at all. They definitely do not consider people who work in other cause areas less sma... (read more)

This is so much more damning than the Time article. It includes deeply disturbing details instead of references to people's feelings. We need to do so much more more soul searching over this than we did over the Time article. [Edit: I've been very critical of the Time article, and don't have an opinion about whether we should be doing more soul-searching on sexual misconduct overall than we are already]. I found the contrast between the two descriptions of Joseph's dinner with the older man particularly troubling.

This is the description in the Time article... (read more)

On Socioeconomic Diversity:

I want to describe how the discourse on sexual misconduct may be reducing the specific type of socioeconomic diversity I am personally familiar with. 

I’m a white female American who worked as an HVAC technician with co-workers mostly from racial minorities before going to college. Most of the sexual misconduct incidents discussed in the Time article have likely differed from standard workplace discussions in my former career only in that the higher status person expressed romantic/sexual attraction, making their statement mu... (read more)

The other sense in which the OP is relitigating the apology is that for many of us (likely including the OP), the case for how much the fallout from the apology should influence our decisions rests on the case for how justified the fallout is. If it is not justified, many of us feel  that we should find another solution instead of compromising our integrity by giving into political pressure. If the fallout is not justified, many of us believe that most of the content of this post is not very important.

The OP's post includes the statement "But the Apology had a glib tone, reused the original racial slur, seemed to indicate he was still open to discredited ‘race science’ hypotheses, and had an irrelevant digression on eugenics. I personally think these are disqualifying views for someone in his position as Director. " The other points he raised are more important, but he stated he believes that the apology is grounds for dismissal in and of itself regardless of the rest of the points he makes. 

Yes I agree we are talking past each other, and tried to clarify that in a comment that seems to have gotten overlooked because it wasn't upvoted. I am not arguing with people like Ben who believe he should go regardless of the apology and the logistical challenges it may have caused. Bostrom may deserve to go for all I know. As I mentioned in my original comment, I have no opinion about it overall. I am only arguing that the apology and fallout from it are not a good reason to think he should go. I am not trying to distract from the non-apology discourse.... (read more)

As I mentioned earlier, I don't have an opinion on whether Bostrom should step down or not, only that the apology is not a good reason to step down. If you are right that the reasons outside the apology are good enough, I would support that. However, at this point I would also need a statement from an EA organization that he would not be stepping down because of the apology. 

I believe the value EA contributes relative to other social justice movements is our ability to judge research on its merits no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel. I've never seen anything like it in the others I've been a part of. This is how we discovered that donating abroad is better at preventing death than donating locally, that AI and biosecurity were bigger risks before our views became mainstream, and a host of other topics.  I believe losing this value would be worse than losing a relationship with Oxford University or losing funding ... (read more)

Ben I don’t want to discuss this any more than you do. I’d prefer to never have to discuss it like they apparently get to do on LessWrong. However, people who think this research is discredited keep bringing it up, which repeatedly damages the epistemics of the community.

Edit: I feel that my writing was very poor quality here, and apologize for that. Thanks to others for pointing out how different writing needs to be on the forum from other writing. This phrasing I used later in the discussion is a better worded version of what I was trying to say in the n... (read more)

I realize I wasn’t clear enough that I was talking about genetic stuff the whole time in my comment. Sorry about that! I will edit my comment for clarity.

The first study I referenced was specifically referring to whether IQ differences between races have a genetic element. It found that far more experts in the field believe it has both a genetic element and a environmental element than just an environmental element.

I believe that environmental factors influence genetics enough that you don’t need to interpret genetic differences as innate racial difference... (read more)

Edit: I want to make it clear that I am talking about “genetic” differences not “environmental” differences in this comment. Thanks to titotal for pointing out I wasn’t clear enough. The survey of experts finds that far more experts believe both genetic factors and environmental factors play a role than just environmental factors. I spend the rest of my comment arguing that even if genetic factors play a role, genetic factors are so heavily influenced by environmental factors that we shouldn’t view them as evidence of innate differences in intelligence bet... (read more)

Thank you for your contributions Lauren and Bruce. 

Personally I get a lot out of being able to have these conversations with anyone no matter how high their status is in EA, as long as we don't have a specific workplace relationship with a large power differential. For example, the man I'm referring to was one of the top people at an EA organization I wanted very much to work at at the time, but if I already worked there and it happened at work or in a private environment (this was a group conversation), I would have felt uncomfortable. 

If I wasn... (read more)

I've continued to work hard to see things from the perspective of women like you over the last couple days, and just had another surprising realization. I've actually experienced a conversation in EA that I think could have gone in the Time article (similar to some of the milder examples they gave like the man who expressed an interest in adult relationships with large age gaps to a young lower status woman, not the OP's example). I will give no details because I don't want to get anyone in trouble. I enjoyed the conversation and it took this intense dialo... (read more)

I realized you’ve made a good point, and don’t feel as confident about my takes as I used to because of this. People may not have been comfortable being honest when they gave Owen feedback on this post because of the similar power dynamics at play that seem to have made them unwilling to be honest in the first place. Although the policies about sexual misconduct of “Big EA” seem to have evolved substantially since then, so I hope it wouldn’t have been quite as bad.

I want to make a small comment on your phrase "it could have a chilling effect on those who have their own cases of sexual assault to report." Owen has not committed sexual assault, but sexual harassment. If this imperfect wording was an isolated incident, I wouldn't have said anything, but in every sexual misconduct comment thread I've followed on the forum, people have said sexual assault when they mean sexual harassment, and/or rape when they mean sexual assault. I was a victim of sexual abuse both growing up and as an adult, so I'm aware that there are big differences between the three, and feel it would be helpful to be mindful of our wording.

I was someone who upvoted Aella's post that you are referring to, but strongly disagreed with that statement even at the time. It would be disturbing to think that all the people who upvoted the post agreed with that part! I think that statement was so extreme relative to the rest of the post that many people who upvoted it probably feel as I do. 

Don't worry I am. I imagine it was hard to tell I wasn't denying that power differentials are a serious problem in their own right for someone who hasn't spent a lot of time critiquing powerful men, or has and hasn't had the positive response I have. I also think the fact that I was no longer talking about sexual misconduct specifically was lost in the comment thread. I'm glad I said it, because I found the feedback useful. Thanks for checking in!

Edit: I want to make it crystal clear here that I'm not talking about sexual misconduct at this point, or denying that actual power differentials are a huge problem in EA. I'm learning that the forum requires a clearer writing style that I'm still new at.

The concrete steps you mentioned make sense to me, although my weakly held view is that people with less power caring too much about power differentials is an even bigger problem than actual power differentials. Maybe more workshops about overcoming imposter syndrome would help?  I think epistemics wo... (read more)

Thanks for sharing. I actually think that quote from the post describes my relationship with my friends very well except for the  saliency and pressure part, although it's vague enough that it's possible it's describing something different too.

I am updating that so many women seem to care so much more about power differentials than I do  that norms that cater to them would probably be net positive because otherwise we would have far  fewer women  in the movement. 

This isn't really about sexual misconduct anymore for me, but a broad... (read more)

Oh yes, I agree this would be a very different scenario than the one in the OP and with my friends, and I would feel much the same way you do about it. 

As someone with a fairly upvoted comment expressing a different perspective than yours, I want to mention that personally I had never heard of Owen until this post except for the disturbing description in the Time article, and that personally I have no interest in advancing my career based on any of my political opinions, so his power is irrelevant to me. While I appreciate that the last section of your comment came from a place of wanting to be supportive towards early career people like me, I think it oversimplifies the issues and found it a bit condesce... (read more)

Thank you for your contributions Rebecca and Lauren. My career is the most important thing in the world to me, so I have empathy for women who would take actions that feel drastic to me to protect theirs. I've worked hard to see things from your perspectives, but in thinking about them I actually came away more confident that women should feel comfortable standing up to powerful men.

It dawned on me that until I changed my career plans this month, most of my male friends held positions of power in my field very similar to the power gap that I think the post... (read more)

Thanks for explaining!

Thanks for everyone's contributions. I am learning a lot. I see that the author made significant mistakes and am glad he is taking action to correct them and that the community is taking them seriously, but I want to make a small comment on the sentence "She was in a structural position where it was (I now believe) unreasonable to expect honesty about her experience." I don't know enough about the specific relationship in the post to comment on it directly, but felt it could describe enough dynamics that it could use a diverse array of perspectives from wo... (read more)

Can someone who downvoted my replies explain why they chose to? I didn’t think I was saying anything controversial, so I’m confused.

In many areas, the EA community and rationalist community overlap a lot (for example, in the San Francisco Bay Area where I socialize , and in the AI alignment cause area where I have some experience). I realize this isn’t true in a lot of parts of EA.

The part of the post this comment is objecting to relies on that prior trust and familiarity with the rationalist community. If you’re not its’ target audience, I wasn’t objecting to you not getting anything useful out if it. I was just trying to provide some helpful context for why so many people have upvoted this post despite Aella’s sparse and recent presence on the forum.

Aella is a leader in the rationalist community. As such, she’s interacted with us frequently outside the forum and a lot of EAs have developed a lot of trust in her over a long period of time. I can see how this post wouldn’t be as persuasive for someone who didn’t know of her through that.

It probably varies widely depending on one’s community. I was one of the people who gave your comment a disagreement vote. I did so because I feel that in my community (college educated, California ) and the online spaces we inhabit, it is very costly and brave to doubt claims of sexual assault. I also had no trouble being believed when I was a victim of sexual abuse, even in far more conservative environments. However, I definitely don’t want you to feel like we are dismissing your experiences! I’m sure many communities behave as you described.

As a sexual abuse survivor, I want to thank you for what this courageous post means to people like me. I also want to make the broader point that epistemic integrity is beneficial in so many unpredictable ways that it should be highly valued even in emotionally sensitive topics. 

First I want to say that I think the dynamics of isolated incidents of rape, sexual assault and harassment are different from being  a victim of all these things constantly over many years, and I don't claim to speak for victims of the former. Also, even though I think my... (read more)

Great article. I’m a devout Christian who believes rewards in the afterlife are based on morality not religion, and I feel the article missed something important about Christianity. According to this 2021 Pew poll, only 44% of American Christians believe that people who don’t believe in God cannot go to heaven.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/11/23/views-on-the-afterlife/

I also want to mention that for me and many other devout Christians, the afterlife is relatively unimportant. What matters most is trying to glorify God on earth. That essentiall... (read more)