That’s a red line in my book, and I will not personally work with Nonlinear in the future because of it, and I recommend their exclusion from any professional communities that wish to keep up the standard of people not being silenced about extremely negative work experiences.
Let’s suppose that Nonlinear have crossed red lines, and that additional information from them won’t change this. (In reality I think that this is up in the air for the next week or so; I won’t allow my limited imagination to diminish the hope.)
Do you not believe in the possibility of rehabilitation in this case?
I haven’t read up on what norms here work well in other high-trust communities. But at least in criminal vs. society settings I would want to be a strong proponent of rehabilitation. It seems pretty plausible to me that, after thinking more about best norms in high-trust communities, I could come to think that “create horrendous work environment” and “create credible fear of severe retaliation” were things that could change (and be monitored) upon rehabilitation, and that it would be good for this to happen after X period of time.
I don’t mean to imply that I couldn’t see evidence that persuaded me that this concern had been mediated sufficiently. But silencing and intimidating into being quiet is a problem that self-reinforces — when it’s happening, it stops you from learning about it, and about anything else bad that’s happening. So I think it’s important to take a much more hardline stance against it than with other norm-violations even if the two norm-violations caused a similar amount of damage.
The people involved may deserve some sort of rehabilitation—the company should not. And then also, there’s a question of whether this process would allow them to run EA organizations and not just take part in them.
Edit: I used the word ‘company’, but I mean any organisation. I don’t know the status of NL.
Because there’s barely anything relevant that is common to both. We don’t have any moral obligation to companies, nor does it make the world better in my view to “rehabilitate” companies. A person has to continue existing in society even after committing a crime. A company doesn’t have to continue existing.
I think the question of what to do with wrongdoers is a complex and difficult one. I will say that I think rehabilitation of criminals is important because there’s really no alternative for them—they’re outcasts from society as a whole, so we reintegrate them or they have no life at all. By contrast, we would not be entirely destroying someone’s life by expelling them from EA funding and networking circles—if you feel like being expelled from EA would destroy your life, it’s already time to start building an independent support network IMO.
Here’s another thing.
Let’s suppose that Nonlinear have crossed red lines, and that additional information from them won’t change this. (In reality I think that this is up in the air for the next week or so; I won’t allow my limited imagination to diminish the hope.)
Do you not believe in the possibility of rehabilitation in this case?
I haven’t read up on what norms here work well in other high-trust communities. But at least in criminal vs. society settings I would want to be a strong proponent of rehabilitation. It seems pretty plausible to me that, after thinking more about best norms in high-trust communities, I could come to think that “create horrendous work environment” and “create credible fear of severe retaliation” were things that could change (and be monitored) upon rehabilitation, and that it would be good for this to happen after X period of time.
I don’t mean to imply that I couldn’t see evidence that persuaded me that this concern had been mediated sufficiently. But silencing and intimidating into being quiet is a problem that self-reinforces — when it’s happening, it stops you from learning about it, and about anything else bad that’s happening. So I think it’s important to take a much more hardline stance against it than with other norm-violations even if the two norm-violations caused a similar amount of damage.
The people involved may deserve some sort of rehabilitation—the company should not. And then also, there’s a question of whether this process would allow them to run EA organizations and not just take part in them.
Edit: I used the word ‘company’, but I mean any organisation. I don’t know the status of NL.
Why do you distinguish between person and company in this respect?
Because there’s barely anything relevant that is common to both. We don’t have any moral obligation to companies, nor does it make the world better in my view to “rehabilitate” companies. A person has to continue existing in society even after committing a crime. A company doesn’t have to continue existing.
I think the question of what to do with wrongdoers is a complex and difficult one. I will say that I think rehabilitation of criminals is important because there’s really no alternative for them—they’re outcasts from society as a whole, so we reintegrate them or they have no life at all. By contrast, we would not be entirely destroying someone’s life by expelling them from EA funding and networking circles—if you feel like being expelled from EA would destroy your life, it’s already time to start building an independent support network IMO.