This is a special post for quick takes by Yarrow B.. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Have Will MacAskill, Nick Beckstead, or Holden Karnofsky responded to the reporting by Time that they were warned about Sam Bankman-Fried's behaviour years before the FTX collapse?
Has anyone else noticed anti-LGBT and specifically anti-trans sentiment in the EA and rationalist communities? I encountered this recently and it was bad enough that I deactivated my LessWrong account and quit the Dank EA Memes group on Facebook.
I'm sorry you encountered this, and I don't want to minimise your personal experience
I think once any group becoms large enough there will be people who associate with it who harbour all sorts of sentiments including the ones you mention.
On the whole though, i've found the EA community (both online and those I've met in person) to be incredibly pro-LGBT and pro-trans. Both the underlying moral views (e.g. non-traditionalism, impartiality and cosmpolitanism etc) point that way, as do the underlying demographics (e.g. young, high educated, socially liberal)
I think where there might be a split is in progressive (as in, leftist politically) framings of issues and the type of language used to talk about these topics. I think those often find it difficult to gain purchase in EA, especially on the rationalist/LW-adjacent side. But I don't think those mean that the community as a whole, or even the sub-section, are 'anti-LGBT' and 'anti-trans', and I think there are historical and multifacted reasons why there's some emnity between 'progressive' and 'EA' camps/perspectives.
Nevertheless, I'm sorry that you experience this sentiment, and I hope you're feeling ok.
The progressive and/or leftist perspective on LGB and trans people offers the most forthright argument for LGB and trans equality and rights. The liberal and/or centre-left perspective tends to be more milquetoast, more mealy-mouthed, more fence-sitting.
Have Will MacAskill, Nick Beckstead, or Holden Karnofsky responded to the reporting by Time that they were warned about Sam Bankman-Fried's behaviour years before the FTX collapse?
Will responded here.
Has anyone else noticed anti-LGBT and specifically anti-trans sentiment in the EA and rationalist communities? I encountered this recently and it was bad enough that I deactivated my LessWrong account and quit the Dank EA Memes group on Facebook.
I'm sorry you encountered this, and I don't want to minimise your personal experience
I think once any group becoms large enough there will be people who associate with it who harbour all sorts of sentiments including the ones you mention.
On the whole though, i've found the EA community (both online and those I've met in person) to be incredibly pro-LGBT and pro-trans. Both the underlying moral views (e.g. non-traditionalism, impartiality and cosmpolitanism etc) point that way, as do the underlying demographics (e.g. young, high educated, socially liberal)
I think where there might be a split is in progressive (as in, leftist politically) framings of issues and the type of language used to talk about these topics. I think those often find it difficult to gain purchase in EA, especially on the rationalist/LW-adjacent side. But I don't think those mean that the community as a whole, or even the sub-section, are 'anti-LGBT' and 'anti-trans', and I think there are historical and multifacted reasons why there's some emnity between 'progressive' and 'EA' camps/perspectives.
Nevertheless, I'm sorry that you experience this sentiment, and I hope you're feeling ok.
The progressive and/or leftist perspective on LGB and trans people offers the most forthright argument for LGB and trans equality and rights. The liberal and/or centre-left perspective tends to be more milquetoast, more mealy-mouthed, more fence-sitting.