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I realise I'm commenting on an environment I have no direct experience of, and going by second- and third-hand reports, so this is treading on thin ice. But I do think the EA/rationalist movement does have a problem with this, and it's down to them all being so nice and trusting and religiously trying to be open to experience and all the rest of the good things in the Big Five/OCEAN inventory and not kink-shaming or being judgemental and being accepting of non-conventional ways of doing things. And that includes tolerance of, if not enthusiasm about and for, things like polyamory and sex work and underage sex (by which I mean "well if the fifteen year old is mature enough to make up their own mind, who are we to say that they shouldn't be in a relationship with an older person, be that five years older or more? of course so long as there is no coercion or manipulation involved", not anything like paedophilia).
That leaves them wide open to being exploited by bad actors. One of the frustrating things for me was reading accounts of 'investigations' by the communities into accusations, where nobody would do anything because they were all so paralysed by terror of even appearing to create rules and set up judgements and impose consequences, just like the big bad normie world out there. There were accusations by the alleged victims that the alleged assailants or guilty parties had too much influence within the group and this is why the committees set up to look into accusations did nothing, which may or may not be true, but the general impression I got was paralysis because nobody wanted to be the one to say "Okay, I'm making the decision that we do this or that". They preferred to rely on whisper campaigns about "of course we all know that if X shows up at a conference or whatever, they shouldn't be let in and if they are let in, someone needs to follow them around as a minder".
Normies would have said "this person is a sex pest, boot their ass out the door and if they keep doing it call the cops", but the rationalists are so much better than normies that they couldn't do such a thing. They're lovely people, in general, and way nicer than me, but too much tolerant of weirdness that does spill over into creepiness.
Yes. This is no different to why other nerd groups are easy pickings for sociopaths, in principle. Nerds often share an experience of being ostracised, and so, are in turn loathe to ostracise anyone themselves -- even when to do so would be absolutely in their own interests. Why do games workshops or whatever always have that one reeking BO dude hanging around? Simple. Nobody wants to be the bad guy and kick him out. "That's exclusionary, and it makes us no better than them." This is the mentality.
Coupled with "anti-gatekeeping" rhetoric -- which I must reiterate, as far as I can tell is only EVER espoused by people who really need to be kept the fuck out of any group or community you even remotely value -- nerd groups become wide open for exploitation by terrible people, who will come in and, not being nerds, immediately start imposing all their own rules and kicking out dissenters in a way that the nerds would never do themselves. Because they're not nerds. They're parasitic invaders.
I suppose my prediction is that the EA lot, after all this poly nonsense gets out into the mainstream, is going to see an influx of people shallowly parroting the most basic EA rhetoric while trying to build a harem.
Does it make me a person who needs to be kept the fuck out of any group if I say "I don't want this gatekeeping"? Not all gatekeeping, but specifically this kind, the kind I see most often, the kind that targets big sweaty guys who are already obviously miserable as fuck and usually hiding funny and generous personalities behind a tough facade built by years of being shit upon.
It is always the guy at games workshop with bad bo. It was funny at first, because there was a guy like that at my games workshop too, but it's not like there aren't other nerd stereotypes, and body odour is such a minor problem! Do you know what I did the third time I entered the tiny store to feel my eyes watering and throat seizing up? I introduced myself to the guy and told him his body odour was killing everyone. He was in it all day so he didn't realise, and nobody else anywhere had the courtesy to tell him. He started wearing deodorant and washing his clothes properly and soon he was one of the most popular guys there.
Body odour, overweight, ugliness - these things are halo/horns effected, so I understand it is instinctual to be negatively predisposed towards them, but to me it also means you have to try to look deeper. Sex pests can fuck off, but I think nerd communities were indisputably better when they had sweaty ugly guys than when those guys got kicked out for making passive aggressive newbies uncomfortable. Hell, the internet was better too.
No, I don't think so honestly. I more mean people who rail against the concept of gatekeeping at all. Once we're just arguing over the specifics, that's a different matter, to me.
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This does seem possible.
I've been in a few different groups that had "sex pests". It does seem that many groups have developed anti-bodies to this type of problem. But maybe the EA anti-bodies to the problem is "make it a glaring issue with the whole movement, and thus make everyone hyper-aware of the problem."
The adult co-ed sports league I was in had the solution of 'macho guy gets offended that his girl got hit on by sex pest and threatens to beat the guy up'. The political groups I was in had the solution of 'ah that person might be a sex pest, never invite him to anything ever again, and don't tell him why'. The workplaces I was in had the solution of 'everyone breaks our byzantine set of rules at some point, threaten to fire them for breaking them, hope they quit so we don't need to explain to everyone else how the rules are still BS that you can mostly ignore'.
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