I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months thinking about the communities that I choose to participate in and how that reflects on me. (just airing out some thoughts, feel free to skip)

Ex. I’m affiliated with the Media Lab, which gave out the Disobediance Award to BA.

I go to MIT and Harvard, which have long and problematic histories, the Epstein stuff being some of the more recent ones.

I participate in #ScienceTwitter, which I’ve realized can be actively harmful to women and POC.

I’m part of the AI/ML community, which has some really deeply rooted issues with racism/sexism/classism that I’m not convinced we’ll be able to fully move past.

I’m on YouTube, which profits off of all kinds of problematic content.

There are other examples, but the short version of this thread/rant is that I’m trying to figure out what that says about me. After all, if it were just a couple of things, then maybe I’m the exception, but I could find examples in every community I’m part of, so maybe it’s me?

I don’t really have an end to this thread - I read @astronaia’s thread and a lot of what she said matched what I’ve been feeling for a while, so I thought I’d say something. If you made it this far, go follow some of the people who have been calling out these things.