Managing contentious conversation topics

Guest author: Andy Masley, long-time organizer of EA DC.

Last updated: 6th January, 2026

1. Background

When I first started organizing an EA city group, I was confused about the community's expectations around open debate versus community health. I wanted to preserve the kind of rigorous intellectual debate that makes EA valuable: donating to human versus animal charities, or disagreements about whether AI risk is overblown or deserves far more resources and focus. But I also wanted clear, firm conversational norms so no one would feel disrespected or unwelcome. I didn't want the group to become a general intellectual salon where everything was constantly up for debate and question.

Members came from very different backgrounds with very different values. If a more conservative member disagreed with another member's account of their gender identity, I didn't want a debate to erupt where people felt they had to justify every aspect of themselves just to participate. The EA instinct to question everything seemed to be in tension with making people with radically different views feel comfortable together.

I didn't know if I'd be stepping on the movement's toes by imposing strict rules on what could and couldn't be discussed. I didn't want the group to feel like an intellectual battle, both for the sake of people feeling comfortable on its own terms, and to avoid getting distracted from the debates that actually matter to EA.

Now that I have more experience, I know that many people in EA really value careful event moderation. EA groups do not have to be, and in my opinion should not be, a place where every last thing is up for debate.

2. Contentious conversations to be encouraged

These are some examples of very contentious claims in debates I think should not only happen but be encouraged within EA groups:

• "I think it's ethically acceptable to eat meat because I'm skeptical that animals are conscious in morally relevant ways."
• "Working on AI safety is a waste of resources because transformative AI is much further away than people think."
• "We should prioritize animal welfare interventions over human interventions because the total scale of alleviated suffering is much greater.”
• "Earning to give is underrated and more people should do it."
• "Earning to give is overrated and direct work is almost always better."

These conversations are hard. Some of them might genuinely upset members who care deeply about these issues. But they're directly related to EA's core project of figuring out how to do the most good, and they need to be allowed. If a member comes to you afterward saying they felt uncomfortable because someone argued that animal welfare work isn't cost-effective, you should be sympathetic but firm: this is a legitimate debate within EA, and engaging with it is part of what we're here to do.

3. Contentious conversations to avoid

These are conversations that you can and should moderate or redirect:

• Off-topic political debates that aren't related to EA cause areas.
• Personal attacks or hostile communication styles.
• Conversations that make people feel unwelcome based on their identity rather than their ideas.
• People who seem more interested in being provocative than in genuine inquiry.

EA groups should have strong content moderation outside of the main EA cause areas. Within those cause areas, you need to allow for genuine intellectual disagreement, even when it's uncomfortable. Outside of them, you have wide latitude to keep conversations productive and maintain a welcoming atmosphere.

Some tips on moderating and redirecting conversations can be found here and here.

4. Why to avoid “Anything goes”

I've seen some EA groups fall into what I'd call the "anything goes" failure mode. This happens when organizers are so worried about being intellectually closed-minded that they refuse to set any boundaries at all. The group becomes a place where anyone can derail conversations into whatever they want to talk about, where being provocative is rewarded more than being thoughtful, and where people who aren't comfortable with conversational chaos eventually drift away.

This is bad for several reasons:

1. It drives away people who would be excellent EAs. Many thoughtful, impact-focused people don't enjoy environments where they feel like they have to constantly defend themselves against tangentially related provocations. If your group culture selects for people who enjoy rhetorical sparring about anything and everything, you're going to lose a lot of talent.
2. It's not actually more intellectually rigorous. There's nothing inherently more rigorous about being willing to debate anything. Real intellectual rigor comes from going deep on questions that matter, which requires focus.
3. It confuses the group's purpose. An EA group exists to help people think about and act on doing the most good. It's not a general-purpose debate society. Staying focused on that mission is what makes the group valuable.

You can include something like this in your code of conduct and reference it in event descriptions. The goal is to give people a sense of what to expect: rigorous debate within a bounded space rather than a free-for-all.

There is space for irrelevant topics and debate when it's already part of an event where people are talking about random topics, like during social time at a meetup or at a happy hour. The key distinction is between structured discussion time and unstructured social time. If someone wants to debate their hot takes on urban planning during the networking portion of your event, that's fine, people can opt in or out of those conversations naturally. The problem arises when someone tries to derail a focused discussion on EA topics into whatever they find interesting, when provocative tangents start dominating spaces meant for something else, or when conversations make members themselves feel attacked or disrespected. Setting this expectation helps members understand that you're not trying to police all conversation, just protect the time specifically dedicated to EA work.

5. Real-life examples

A few practical examples of how I've handled this:

• At a discussion event, someone started going deep into a political debate that wasn't EA-related. I stepped in: "Hey, that's an interesting topic but it's a bit off our focus tonight. Let's bring it back to [the EA topic we were discussing]." No one was offended; they just needed a redirect.
• In our Slack, I've occasionally messaged people privately when their comments were veering into territory that felt more provocative than productive. Something like: "I appreciate you engaging, but I'm noticing this thread is generating more heat than light. Can you help me understand what you're hoping people get out of this conversation?" Usually this is enough.
• After an event, a member told me they were upset by someone's argument about animal consciousness. I acknowledged their frustration, but explained that this is a genuine area of disagreement within EA and that we need to allow space for different views on it. I also checked in: were they upset by the content of the argument, or by how it was delivered? If the latter, that's something I could address.

The frame that's helped me most is thinking about what level of debate is necessary for an EA group to function versus what's just possible to include. It's necessary for EA groups to allow debate about EA cause areas. Without that, you can't actually do the work of figuring out what matters most. It's merely possible to allow debate about everything else. You can include it if you want, but there's no particular reason to, and there are good reasons not to.

Most importantly, I got a lot of support from the broader EA community. It would have been really useful if someone had spelled this out when I started, so I try to communicate a few things to new organizers: they should feel supported in applying careful moderation to their groups. They should clearly delineate for themselves where the group's boundaries are. And they should make it clear in the group's norms documents that members can expect two things simultaneously: to be deeply respected and not constantly asked to justify every belief they hold, but also to encounter contentious debate within the core EA cause areas.

6. Additional resources

• Look at when and how to ask people to leave your group if you have a community member who repeatedly raises unhelpful and contentious topics.
• Some tips on moderating and redirecting conversations can be found here and here.