An Incomplete List of Things I Think EAs Probably Shouldn't Do

I'm concerned about EA falling into the standard "risk-averse bureaucracy" failure mode. Every time something visibly bad happens, the bureaucracy puts a bunch of safeguards in place. Over time the drag created by the safeguards does a lot of harm, but because the harm isn't as visible, the bureaucracy doesn't work as effectively to reduce it.

I would like to see Fermi estimates for some of these, including explicit estimates of less-visible downsides. For example, consider EA co-living, including for co-workers. If this was banned universally, my guess is that it would mean EAs paying many thousands of dollars extra in rent for housing and/or office space per month. It would probably lead to reduced motivation, increased loneliness, and wasted commute time among EAs. EA funding would become more scarce, likely triggering Goodharting for EAs who want to obtain funding, or people dying senselessly in the developing world.

A ban on co-living doesn't seem very cost-effective to me. It seems to me that expanding initiatives like Basefund would achieve something similar, but be far more cost-effective.

It seems a little weird to me that most of the replies to this post are jumping to the practicalities/logistics of how we should/shouldn't implement official, explicit, community-wide bans on these risky behaviours.

I totally agree with OP that all the things listsed above generally cause more harm than good. Most people in other cultures/communities would agree that they're the kind of thing which should be avoided, and most other people succeed in avoiding them without creatiing any explicit institution responsible for drawing a specific line between correct/incorrect behavior or implementing overt enforcment mechanisms.

If many in the community don't like these kind of behaviours, we can all contribute to preventing them by judging things on a case-by-case basis and gently but firmly letting our peers know when we dissaprove of their choices. If enough people softly disaprove of things like drug use, or messy webs of romantic entanglement - this can go a long way towards reducing their prevalance. No need to draw bright lines in the sand or enshrine these norms in writing as exact rules.

A lot of these are phrased in ways that immediately sound like "oh, well of course you wouldn't do that", but the situations in which people end up doing them are generally much more ambiguous. When I think over my ~15y in the workplace I can find examples of essentially all of these, in my life or a close coworker, that I wouldn't classify as probably a bad idea:

Live with coworkers, especially when there is a power differential and especially when there is a direct report relationship

In ~2016 one of my housemates who I'd been friends with for 5+ years recruited another of my housemates (who I'd been friends with for 10+ years) to join an EA-aligned company. The next year they recruited me as well. None of us reported to each other, but both of them were tenants of mine (my wife and I owned the house) and we were something like three of five people working for the company in Boston at the time.

I do think there was risk here, but I also think it was a pretty small one, and this would not have been a good reason for either me or my other housemate to say "sorry, not going to consider this job".

Date coworkers, especially when there is a power differential and especially when there is a direct report relationship

In ~2018 while I was working on a team of ~20 at a tech company, two of my coworkers (reporting peers of each other, but I think maybe one was the tech lead of the other) realized they liked each other. They talked to our manager and HR, one of them moved to another team, and they started dating. As of when I last caught up with them a few months ago they were still together. There was definitely risk here, but from the outside it seems like the process for handling it was good, and it would be really sad for both of them if this relationship hadn't happened.

In ~2008 my girlfriend (now wife) and I applied for a seasonal job where we'd both be working in the kitchen. We disclosed this relationship to the hiring manager, and while I would normally have reported to the person in my girlfriend's role they set things up so I'd report to someone else. This wasn't an issue, and I think refusing to hire us because we were dating would have been worse for both the employer and us. Some coworkers dated each other while we were there, and I think this was generally positive.

On the other hand, cases where the organization does not adjust the org chart in response to relationships are much more risky and almost always a bad idea. Managers shouldn't date their reports, and neither should anyone date someone where they have significant power over their career. This does mean sometimes choosing between exploring the possibility of a relationship and continuing specific career plans.

Promote drug use among coworkers, including legal drugs, and including alcohol and stimulants

Something like every place I've worked made alcohol available to employees in social situations, plus caffeine in ~all situations. If this had been cocaine I think we'd clearly see that as promoting cocaine consumption.

Pressuring people to consume drugs seems quite different, and that I'd agree is almost never a good idea.

Live with their funders/grantees, especially when substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms are not active ... Date their funders/grantees, especially when substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms are not active

In ~2015 when I was earning to give a large portion of my earnings went to CEA, which employed my wife (who I also lived with). When the EA Infra fund became available I started donating there instead, because a dynamic where I was donating to my wife's employer didn't seem ideal, but I don't think this was so risky that I should have refrained from donating to CEA until then.

How risky this category is depends a lot on how large a portion of the relationship each party is. In ~2015 my donations to CEA were ~$85k, which (I think) was a single-digit portion of their fundraising and my wife was one of ~20 employees. There's also a sense in which this is different because once I earned the money it was legally joint property with my wife, though at the time our agreement was we each chose where our earnings went.

I do agree that this category is generally pretty risky, though, and how you handle CoI matters a lot.

Date the partner of their funder/grantee, especially when substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms are not active

No direct experience with this one (not polyamorous) thought it seems like a slightly weaker case of the previous one.

Retain someone as a full-time contractor or grant recipient for the long term, especially when it might not adhere to legal guidelines

I agree we should follow the law on contractors vs employees, but I don't actually understand what this is trying to get at beyond that? What's the sort of situation it's trying to avoid?

Offer employer-provided housing for more than a predefined and very short period of time, thereby making an employee’s housing dependent on their continued employment and allowing an employer access to an employee’s personal living space

In ~2017 I was considering accepting an offer to work for a for-profit EA-adjacent startup in Africa, and the offer to provide housing was a strong positive. In moving to a very different environment, having the support of coworkers who've gone through something similar sounded really valuable.

From ~2016-2020 my wife and I employed a series of au pairs to watch our kids, which included providing them a room in our house.

In ~2008 my girlfriend (now wife) and I worked at a seasonal job in a rural area, which included on-site housing. Not having to commute was a strong positive.

...

Now, for all of these I can also easily imagine cases where the risk was not worth it and it went poorly, but I think "probably shouldn't do" is too strong overall.

(own views only)

On a different tangent, I think you're treating "X with funder/grantee" relationships as symmetric. However, from my standpoint, the primary responsibility lies with the funder (and the organizations they represent) to manage their professional roles appropriately.

A grantmaker has a professional obligation to their employer and donors to avoid compromising their judgment and/or abusing their power; a grantee has no such professional obligations (Analogously, if Bob cheats on his wife with Candice, in Western liberal societies we generally understand that the bulk of the blame should fall on Bob, not Candice). 

This is even more the case if you extend the professional limitations to partners-of-partners. Someone going on a date with me did not consent to have their future dating pool restricted by the community, especially if applied retroactively.

(Speaking for myself, in a personal capacity) When I see posts like this, I'm more than a bit confused about which funder/grantee relationships people are thinking about should be included.

• Live with their funders/grantees, especially when substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms are not active
• Date their funders/grantees, especially when substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms are not active
• Date the partner of their funder/grantee, especially when substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms are not active

Does it include: 

• Actual active funder of an actual active grantee? 
  • eg Alice was the primary investigator of Bob's grant. Alice and Bob are housemates who share a two-person apartment. For some reason this was never flagged.
• A grantmaker in an organization which funded a grantee, but the grantmaker will never be involved in an actual grantmaking decision involving the grantee due to COI reasons?
  • eg, Casey and Dylan are thinking of dating; Casey followed organizational protocol and marked themselves as abstaining from any grantmaking decisions involving Dylan's org.
• A grantmaker in an organization that funds the grantee, but the grantmaker will never be involved in an actual grantmaking decision involving the grantee due to specialization reasons?
  • eg Elijah works as a grants associate for the animal welfare team at a foundation; he used to date Fiona, who leads an AI safety organization that has received funding from the foundation. 
• Someone working in a funding organization, in a non grantmaking capacity?
  • eg, Gabriela works as an accountant for a donor-advised fund that has given money to Hana's partner's partner's nonprofit. Gabriela and Hana are engaged.
• A private individual donating to a nonprofit? 
  • eg Isaac is housemates with Jamilah, who works at a biosecurity nonprofit. On Jamilah's birthday, Isaac donated to Jamilah's nonprofit.
  • I also want to flag that this is extremely normal in the nonprofit world outside of EA; within EA I think there's a (correct imo) expectation that donating to your roommate or spouse's organization potentially implies compromised judgment, but outside of EA I don't think the typical person will think poorly of you for doing so.

In my own opinion (note that there are some relevant and significant biases):

• Alice's case is rather sketchy; the potential compromise in judgment is pretty evident; safeguards should very much be in place.
• Casey's case seems fine to me in well-run organizations but concerning in poorly set-up ones; this is one situation where "substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms" seems relevant.
• Elijah's case seems fine to me. Out of an abundance of caution maybe he should report the COI to his organization (in case either he or Fiona changes cause areas in the future), but it really doesn't seem like a big deal if he were to wait until a potential conflict arises to disclose.
• Gabriela's case seems obviously fine to me.
• Isaac's case broadly seems fine to me, but as an EA qua EA I think Isaac should be careful to be clear to himself when he's donating for altruistic reasons vs other reasons (like wanting to be nice to his housemate).

Interested in other takes.

I think all of these have costs, and those costs should be recognized. But sometimes the benefits are worth it, banning the practice would make things worse, and the actually helpful thing is to come up with better solutions.

E.g. 
> [don't have] "Work trials" that require interruption of regular employment to complete, such that those currently employed full-time must leave their existing job to be considered for a prospective job

The fact that people need to, at best, spend all their vacation days on work trials, and maybe take huge risks with their livelihood, is bad. A good friend of mine was badly burned on this, and I think less of the organization for it. OTOH, work trials are really informative. If we removed work trials I expect that: EA jobs become even more of a club (because they have references hirers personally know), jobs are performed worse (because the hiring decision was made with less information), many people get fired shortly after starting, and more emphasis on unpaid work (as an alternate source of information). 

No one is doing disruptive work trials to be mean, they're a solution to the fact that interviews aren't very informative. Could they be better implemented? Probably. Are there much better solutions out there? I hope so. But if you just take this option away I suspect things get worse.

Some of these seem fine to me as norms, some of them seem bad. Some concrete cases: 

Live with coworkers, especially when there is a power differential and especially when there is a direct report relationship

Many startups start from someone's living room. LessWrong was built in the Event Horizon living room. This was great, I don't think it hurt anyone, and it also helped the organization survive through the pandemic, which I think was quite good.

Retain someone as a full-time contractor or grant recipient for the long term, especially when it might not adhere to legal guidelines

I don't understand this. There exist many long-term contracting relationships that Lightcone engages in. Seems totally fine to me. Also, many people prefer to be grant recipients instead of employees, those come with totally different relationship dynamics.

Offer employer-provided housing for more than a predefined and very short period of time, thereby making an employee’s housing dependent on their continued employment and allowing an employer access to an employee’s personal living space

I also find this kind of dicey, though at least in Lightcone's case I think it's definitely worth it, and I know of many other cases where it seems likely worth it. We own a large event venue, and we are currently offering one employee free housing in exchange for being on-call for things that happen in the night. This seems like a fair trade to me and very standard (one of the sections of our hotel is indeed explicitly zoned as a "care-taker unit" for this exact purpose). 

Date the partner of their funder/grantee, especially when substantial conflict-of-interest mechanisms are not active

This seems really quite a lot too micromanagey to me. I agree that there should be COI mechanisms in place, but this seems like it's really trying to enforce norms on parts of people's lives that really are their business.

Can we add "ask their employees to break the law" to this

Work trials (paid, obviously) are awesome for better hiring, especially if you're seeking to get good candidates that don't fulfill the traditional criteria (e.g. coming from an elite US/UK university). Many job seekers don't have a current employment.

Living with other EAs or your coworkers is mostly fine too, especially if you're in a normal living situation, like most EA group houses are.

These suggestions aren't great. I agree with the "Don't date" ones, but these were already argued for before.

I wonder if there should be some set of standards that orgs can opt into and know that they will be audited for compliance? I am very sensitive to the tradeoffs here with being a small org that can move quickly, so maybe pledging to not to do these things could be like a higher level of certification for orgs large and secure enough to handle the overhead?

Thanks for getting the ball rolling on this discussion! This can often be a thankless task as even if people agree with 70-80% of what you wrote, unfortunately, their comments will naturally focus on the parts where they disagree with you.

On the other hand, parts of this seems to go too far. For example, would organising an after-work drinks count as "promoting drugs among coworkers, including alcohol"?

This isn't the only example where I'd like to see a bit more nuance and thought.

I think these would be great norms to promote within EA. Although I think in a start-up scenario, living with / dating co-workers at the same organisational power level is pretty fine.

I believe there is a reasonable risk should EAs... [d]ate coworkers, especially when there is a power differential and especially when there is a direct report relationship

I think you're right that there's some risk in these situations. But also: work is one of the main places where one is able to meet people, including potential romantic partners. Norms against dating co-workers therefore seem quite costly in lost romance, which I think is a big deal! I think it's probably worth having norms against the cases you single out as especially risky, but otherwise, I'd rather our norms be laissez-faire.

I made a poll. Now you can anonymously say which of these norms you agree and disagree with. 

https://viewpoints.xyz/polls/ea-norms

Thank you for sharing this. I think that this is a great way to encourage more conversation about these practices/behaviors.

I think this pushes a set of norms as a fait accomplis when many seem murkier to me. In particular, among the things you think are clearly a risk are several situations that I do not think orgs should have on their risk list unless there are other external reasons.

• Live with coworkers if there is no reporting issue or power differentials
• Date coworkers if there is no reporting issue or power differentials
• Promote stimulant use can be fine in some cases - eg "have you considered getting an ADHD diagnosis, maybe try mine for a day and see how you feel"

Can we wait a bit after the current complex discussion before pushing out lists of norms that are hard to disagree with publicly.  

Edit Thank you @Rockwell for starting the discussion. Apologies for being a bit grumpy above.

Thanks for re-emphasizing these norms.

For those who disagree with these norms, these sources help explain why they are important:

• Power dynamics between people in EA
• Coercive Dynamics in EA Bay Area (response to Time Mag)

The sub-population that disagrees with these norms has substantial overlap with the sub-population that would most benefit from them.

I suspect that there is significant geographic concentration in the bay area as well, because of a culmination of factors including housing prices pushing people to group homes, gender ratios, tech/startup culture, and the co-existence of the rat community.

I don't think the situation will get better, despite the attempt at norm setting, until the locus of EA money and power isn't as concentrated in the bay area.

I conditionally disagree with the "Work trials". I think EA companies doing work trials is a pretty positive innovation that EA in particular does that enables them to hire for a better fit than not doing work trials. This is good in the long run for potential employees and for the employer.

This is conditional on 

• work trials being paid at a reasonable rate, where "reasonable" is probably within ~20% of the expected compensation paid out by the job, on a pro rata hourly rate.
• Probably the trial being 40 hours or less

I can anticipate some reasonable disagreement on this matter but it seems to me it's not so unreasonable to give these work trials even if they last long enough that it requires the candidate to take a few days of leave off work. Being paid for the trial itself should compensate for the inconvenience. More than a week of time seems like it should have even stronger justification and I wouldn't endorse that.

Although I understand this process would still require some inconvenience to the candidate and their current employer, on balance, if the candidate is well-paid, it seems like a reasonable trade-off to ask for, considering the benefit to the candidate and the employer for finding a good fit.

EA™ Group Houses and the branding of private, personal spaces as “EA”

What does this mean? Is this referring to people living with other EAs and referring to it as an EA group house?

It's time to create separate brands for the professional and the social/personal aspects of EA.

The conflation of the two is at the source of a lot the issues, and folks should be able to opt into one and not the other.

Thanks for writing up your views here! I think it might be quite valuable to have more open conversations about what norms there's consensus on and which ones there aren't, which this helps spark.

I fixed the results page of the poll and I think it's pretty interesting. 

Poll: https://viewpoints.xyz/polls/ea-norms

Results: https://viewpoints.xyz/polls/ea-norms/results

Most EAs seem to think some of these risk behaviours are fine.

Likewise there is a lot of disagreement.

And there was a lot of uncertainty (the question mark option)

I'm glad you wrote this post. Mostly before reading this post, I wrote a draft for what I want my personal conflict of interest policy to be, especially with regard to personal and professional relationships. Changing community norms can be hard, but changing my norms might be as easy as leaving a persuasive comment! I'm open to feedback and suggestions here for anybody interested. 

Great suggestions, genuinely.

Now, let's count off those who are already in such situations, many of whom are at the highest levels of EA, some who have been successfully navigating all this complexity for a decade. What are their secrets? Can there, maybe, be some lessons from them that can mitigate some of the ill-effects for those who in the future are still going to inevitably find themselves there?

I think I largely agree with this list, and want to make a related point, which is that I think it's better to start with an organizational culture that errs on the side of being too professional, since 1) I think it's easier to relax a professional culture over time than it is to go in the other direction and 2) the risks of being too professional generally seem smaller than the risks of being insufficiently professional.