I guess I should know better by now, but it still astonishes me that EAs can set such abysmally low standards for themselves while simultaneously representing themselves as dramatically more ethical than everyone else.
...compared to what? Seriously what groups of people are you comparing to? Among the people in my extended network who see themselves as altruists, EAs seem to hold themselves and each other to the highest standards, and also seem to actually be more ethical than the rest. My extended network consists of tech company workers, academics, social justice types, and EAs. (Well and rationalists too, I’m not counting them.)
I agree this is a low bar in some absolute sense—and there are definitely social movements in the world today (especially religious ones) that are better in both dimensions. There’s a lot of room for improvement. And I very much support these criticisms and attempts at reform. But I’m just calling it like I see it here; it would be dishonest grandstanding of me to say the sentence Zvi wrote in the OP, at least not without giving additional context.
I think most organizations the size of EA have formal accountability mechanisms that attempt to investigate claims of fraud and abuse in some kind of more-or-less fair and transparent way. Of course, the actual fairness and effectiveness of such mechanisms can be debated, but at least the need for them is acknowledged. The attitude among EAs, on the other hand, seems to be that EAs are all too smart and good to have any real need for accountability.
I guess I should know better by now, but it still astonishes me that EAs can set such abysmally low standards for themselves while simultaneously representing themselves as dramatically more ethical than everyone else.
...compared to what? Seriously what groups of people are you comparing to? Among the people in my extended network who see themselves as altruists, EAs seem to hold themselves and each other to the highest standards, and also seem to actually be more ethical than the rest. My extended network consists of tech company workers, academics, social justice types, and EAs. (Well and rationalists too, I’m not counting them.)
I agree this is a low bar in some absolute sense—and there are definitely social movements in the world today (especially religious ones) that are better in both dimensions. There’s a lot of room for improvement. And I very much support these criticisms and attempts at reform. But I’m just calling it like I see it here; it would be dishonest grandstanding of me to say the sentence Zvi wrote in the OP, at least not without giving additional context.
I think most organizations the size of EA have formal accountability mechanisms that attempt to investigate claims of fraud and abuse in some kind of more-or-less fair and transparent way. Of course, the actual fairness and effectiveness of such mechanisms can be debated, but at least the need for them is acknowledged. The attitude among EAs, on the other hand, seems to be that EAs are all too smart and good to have any real need for accountability.