Hey Tanya! Thanks for this response. Here are some frank thoughts of mine.

It pains me a little to write this, and I’m trying to be as objective as possible (but that’s definitely hard to do since I’ve had so much stake involved in EA PH). I also know you mean and have meant well. I appreciate the apologies and suggestions of improvement and look forward to those for other people in community.

I definitely feel you (the team) are owed more bluntness here: I’m definitely disappointed that it feels EA PH is taking things more seriously now that there is airing outside of the board and now that you (main CH person for as long as I remember) are leaving the board. To be frank, I felt taken much less seriously simply because I was one of the co-founders’ girlfriend at that time, despite my efforts to make sure I didn’t get so tied into the decision making. I understand that there was in fact some conflict of interest involved that I had to be wary of and that had to be factored in. But I was still a member, and it felt like nothing I experienced mattered so much simply because I dated the co-founder — a treatment no one else fully might have understood, as no other people that have dated the co-founders were involved at all or were as involved with this specific community as heavily as me.

So it’s sad how much I had to deal with and tolerate because I had to watch over someone’s reputation. If I was bullied or hurt, or had feedback, I couldn’t bring it up really, because I could not risk offending the other members; they were the guests, ones of a higher priority the way a dinner host has to forget their hunger to feed the others. But the thing is, I was ultimately not a host. Who I dated was the host; I was still a member, I feel I should have still been treated like a guest (extended the same courtesy as the other members), so I felt I was always less heard. And I believe I’ve aired my grievances multiple times; I’m not sure why I needed to write full-blown docs or posts to be heard.

EA PH was not a safe place for me, it was net-negative to my impact; it was horrible to always feel like I was reduced to a case study from the beginning (from its first funding application without even knowing I was inserted initially) to the end (in order to fulfill its “biosecurity cause area”) and frankly, blatantly leaving the community has been so healing to me and is probably the best decision I’ve ever made.

So I hope you do more than fix and amend your bureaucracy, because I’ve heard of other people who have left or distanced due to the poor leadership and poor values. There’s really only one person left in the EA PH core team** I really trust, and I hope they can drive things more as they seem to have better epistemics (in my opinion) — but I’m not so involved anymore so this is ultimately up to the community, board, and core team.

I know these words were pretty blunt but I thought direct feedback was important — take care and good luck in addressing things!

(Haven’t done complicated software ‘cause one that was good doesn’t run on a Mac and others are just okay? Mac’s works but it’s quite slow)

I appreciate this! RSI is the bane of my existence HAHA. I do a bit of voice recognition but nothing too complicated. My friends make fun of me now, like I’m Louis Litt with his voice recorder 😆 what software do you use?

Charlotte! So nice to hear from you, you’re definitely one of the loveliest people I’ve met in EA. I’d love to talk about it one day maybe! You’re right that it’s frustrating to have this mix of emotions. I just decided I had too many negative ones to feel I was being productive — after writing this post I’ve been immensely happier and more productive!

Hope you’re well :)

Hey, super appreciate this! I agree. I’ve gotten sooo many echoes of solidarity from others (people in and people who have left EA) but they were all private, and I understand why

I appreciate that! I definitely believe I am EA in ideals but I just felt immediate relief identifying as EA adjacent because it made me feel more solid in the ideals without having to interact so deeply with the community

Hi Jessica! I also was happy to work with you. Thanks for commenting. I want to reiterate that I understood this decision and why it was done, but I can’t say it made me feel good (esp when it happened. Maybe one good way to describe it was it felt CEA had favorite kids). And I’ve gotten lots of private messages after this post voicing out similar sad feelings. As someone who does believe in effective decision-making and impartiality in this, I really just understood and accepted it.

I think in my post I was trying to voice out my feelings of sadness I’ve held in, of different aspects of EA and EA CB. Some people can easily make their emotions in tune with their rationally held beliefs. I’m not exactly like that — so despite understanding why CEA did it, it still made me sad about who I was at that period of time. It didn’t mean I couldn’t get into an Ivy League in the future, but it did mean I wasn’t an Ivy League then (not that I hadn’t thought about it, many factors just made it so that college had to be where I was based in), and that automatically made an invisible barrier between me and my Ivy League colleagues.

I agree with some sentiments of others in this comment section — that it plays to the system, and I guess that’s somewhat the fastest most effective way sometimes. But it does make me sad because it makes me feel that so many people in this theoretical future are bound to the status quo.

I am partially sad that a lot of people seem to be missing the point. It kinda proves the point I was trying to make

So exciting!

I might know someone interested to apply, but I'm wondering first the location of these roles?

Great post! One thing that came to mind is caution truly is the "norm" that is really pointed at when starting doing biosecurity-relevant work in EA, which has had its tradeoffs with me, some of which you've pointed out