This is Marko. First I want to say that everything Roland says here is either correct or plausible to me, except for one misunderstanding: I am indeed an EA, just not an organizer of EA Zurich, and I don’t tell EA Zurich what to do.
Roland, you seem to be confused about who the „instigator“ is. The answer is, each one of us three has preferred you not to be at meetups for some time, each for his own reasons, it just took a while for that to become common knowledge. Noone had to persuade anyone.
As Roland notes, a lot of our reasons for the decision to exclude him are social/emotional. But even if we were just „task groups“ I think he would be a net negative contributor to both LW and EA.
Roland’s views are often very categorical: „Effective Altruists are the new hippies“, „Christianity is a death cult“, etc. This simplistic thinking makes it hard to learn from him and for him to learn from others.
Roland has some pet topics such as 9/11 truth and Thai prostitutes that he brings up frequently and that derail and degrade the quality of discussion.
Roland is generally hostile towards altruism and advocates against current EA endeavors, without constructively offering improvements or alternatives.
I also expect (low confidence) that the number of people who do not come to meetups because Roland was there is higher than 1.
I wholeheartedly agree with Elo’s advice. I am not interested in mediation, but would reluctantly agree to it if other community members think that’s a good idea.
first, I don’t think it is fair for you to mention viewpoints that I voiced either to you privately or in the group. I was doing so under the expectation of privacy, I wouldn’t want it to be made public. How much can people trust you while doing circling if they have to fear it appearing on the internet?
> Roland has some pet topics such as 9/11 truth and Thai prostitutes that he brings up frequently and that derail and degrade the quality of discussion.
We touched on those topics several times, but most were in private talks between both of us, so claiming that they derail the discussion is going to far.
I reiterate, since last December I tried to talk to you, asking what is the problem, wanting to get some specific feedback. You finally agreed with a meeting on Feb. and even then you didn’t bring up the points above. Again, it is very unfair from your side not trying to address the issues in private before going public.
finally you bring some concrete specific points. Why didn’t you or the others talk to me about it when I requested it? It seems a bit unfair that you bring it up now in public when I asked you in private before.
> „Effective Altruists are the new hippies“
It reflects what I see in some people, but not all of them and yes I see it as a problem in part of EA and Rationality. It is also mentioned in the third post I linked in the introduction(there the talk is about bohemians and not hippies, but I think it goes into the same direction). Yet I still go to EA meetings and think that I can learn from it.
> „Christianity is a death cult“, etc.
As a former Christian I think that is actually true by definition unless you believe that Jesus is alive, I got this from Hitchens btw. Marko you should be fair and mention that you go to a Christian church, so you are not unbiased in that respect :)
> 9/11 truth and Thai prostitutes that he brings up frequently and that derail and degrade the quality of discussion.
I’m indeed a 9/11 skeptic but I don’t remember that this topic did ever take over the discussion. Neither was I the one that started the discussion on LW(I think it was Eliezer).
Thai prostitutes, we once had a long discussion on one EA meeting about prostitution in general and that did go overboard, for fairness sake you should also mention that I was one of the people that suggested changing the topic.
Again I said it several times, if those topics are the problem I would have no problem not talking about them anymore. I told that Daniel and Michal several times.
Roland, it isn’t about the object level or any particular one specific thing. I gave some examples for illustration, but none of them are cruxes for me.
Let me be more specific. The problem is not that you hold and voice any particular opinions, the problem is that your opinion forming and voicing process is such that it is unproductive for us to engage with you.
I have known you for 2 years and have not seen you improve in this regard.
This is Marko. First I want to say that everything Roland says here is either correct or plausible to me, except for one misunderstanding: I am indeed an EA, just not an organizer of EA Zurich, and I don’t tell EA Zurich what to do.
Roland, you seem to be confused about who the „instigator“ is. The answer is, each one of us three has preferred you not to be at meetups for some time, each for his own reasons, it just took a while for that to become common knowledge. Noone had to persuade anyone.
As Roland notes, a lot of our reasons for the decision to exclude him are social/emotional. But even if we were just „task groups“ I think he would be a net negative contributor to both LW and EA.
Roland’s views are often very categorical: „Effective Altruists are the new hippies“, „Christianity is a death cult“, etc. This simplistic thinking makes it hard to learn from him and for him to learn from others.
Roland has some pet topics such as 9/11 truth and Thai prostitutes that he brings up frequently and that derail and degrade the quality of discussion.
Roland is generally hostile towards altruism and advocates against current EA endeavors, without constructively offering improvements or alternatives.
I also expect (low confidence) that the number of people who do not come to meetups because Roland was there is higher than 1.
I wholeheartedly agree with Elo’s advice. I am not interested in mediation, but would reluctantly agree to it if other community members think that’s a good idea.
Marko,
first, I don’t think it is fair for you to mention viewpoints that I voiced either to you privately or in the group. I was doing so under the expectation of privacy, I wouldn’t want it to be made public. How much can people trust you while doing circling if they have to fear it appearing on the internet?
> Roland has some pet topics such as 9/11 truth and Thai prostitutes that he brings up frequently and that derail and degrade the quality of discussion.
We touched on those topics several times, but most were in private talks between both of us, so claiming that they derail the discussion is going to far.
I reiterate, since last December I tried to talk to you, asking what is the problem, wanting to get some specific feedback. You finally agreed with a meeting on Feb. and even then you didn’t bring up the points above. Again, it is very unfair from your side not trying to address the issues in private before going public.
Marko,
finally you bring some concrete specific points. Why didn’t you or the others talk to me about it when I requested it? It seems a bit unfair that you bring it up now in public when I asked you in private before.
> „Effective Altruists are the new hippies“
It reflects what I see in some people, but not all of them and yes I see it as a problem in part of EA and Rationality. It is also mentioned in the third post I linked in the introduction(there the talk is about bohemians and not hippies, but I think it goes into the same direction). Yet I still go to EA meetings and think that I can learn from it.
> „Christianity is a death cult“, etc.
As a former Christian I think that is actually true by definition unless you believe that Jesus is alive, I got this from Hitchens btw. Marko you should be fair and mention that you go to a Christian church, so you are not unbiased in that respect :)
> 9/11 truth and Thai prostitutes that he brings up frequently and that derail and degrade the quality of discussion.
I’m indeed a 9/11 skeptic but I don’t remember that this topic did ever take over the discussion. Neither was I the one that started the discussion on LW(I think it was Eliezer).
Thai prostitutes, we once had a long discussion on one EA meeting about prostitution in general and that did go overboard, for fairness sake you should also mention that I was one of the people that suggested changing the topic.
Again I said it several times, if those topics are the problem I would have no problem not talking about them anymore. I told that Daniel and Michal several times.
Roland, it isn’t about the object level or any particular one specific thing. I gave some examples for illustration, but none of them are cruxes for me.
Let me be more specific. The problem is not that you hold and voice any particular opinions, the problem is that your opinion forming and voicing process is such that it is unproductive for us to engage with you.
I have known you for 2 years and have not seen you improve in this regard.