1. There are a zillion shitty jobs out there, and there is nothing wrong with either advertizing or taking a shitty job so long as everyone is aware it is shitty and the terms are clear upfront.
Against Non-Linear: It is not clear that the interns/whatever were fully aware just how shitty the jobs would be upfront, and they were probably oversold on them. This was probably seen as good business strategy. It isn’t.
Against Alice: Personally, I think these jobs would have red flags a mile away. I have known people who went to work for obvious MLMs, and I think it is ultimately the responsibility of the person signing the contract to read the fine print and be aware of what they are getting into. If you, as an organization, put out shitty terms, and someone agrees to that, it’s not your fault for making a shitty offer. If you, as an employee, accept work without a clear contract.… Don’t do that. Other people may try to exploit you, and the typical company WILL try to exploit you. That is what they do. Your only defense is to not accept it. If you accept that, you agreed to it so you have to live with the consequences.
Again, probably the shittiness of the job was somewhat covered up. To the extent to which that is the case, beyond ordinary marketing, that’s on Non-Linear. Personally, I think these jobs would be incredibly obviously shitty. And merely advertizing or filling a shitty job is not a crime.
2. Every organization eventually has someone who distorts the truth and could be a future disgruntled employee.
This point is not against Non-Linear or against Alice.
Rather, we should be careful of the low bar Ben set for publicizing this.
I agree that this would be more of a scandal if Non-Linear were bigger, and it’s great to catch this before then, for many reasons.
But if you hire enough people, you will eventually run into someone who distorts the truth. We may all have different base rates for this. On the one hand, it could be seen as costly to complain. On the other hand, work generally kind of sucks—that’s why you have to be paid to do it. (If your work doesn’t suck, consider yourself very lucky.) So people often end up in tension with their employers.
So whatever epistemic standards we set need to account for the fact that, given enough time, there will be a motivated disgruntled employee in every EA organization. The trick is how you can distinguish between the organizations that are generally rotten and the ones with a disgruntled employee or two. And I’m not sure Ben’s post really gets at this. The talk about setting a low bar is concerning because I don’t need an alarm that goes off whenever there is a story, because that will be every organization given enough time. I need an alarm that can distinguish between the signal and the noise. I care about the false negatives and the false positives.
Personally, I don’t find myself updating on the information in Ben’s post, and I had not previously heard of any issues with Non-Linear. I don’t find myself updating simply because the set-up was so obviously shitty that I’m not surprised. The founders are so clearly obsessed with themselves and brag about how little they pay people for outsourced work—how could it be a good place to work, even before getting to the shared living situation?
Shitty jobs are shitty. Water is wet. I don’t blame Non-Linear for advertizing shitty jobs (so long as they weren’t misleading about it). I think it’s a shame that young people sometimes have poor awareness regarding shitty jobs, but I don’t blame Alice for not realizing. I find it hard to blame either party here for acting in their own self-interest, but practically speaking Non-Linear should have advertized the jobs more to people for whom it would be a legitimate step up, rather than people who would only work there if they were confused about its shittiness.
It is not clear that the interns/whatever were fully aware just how shitty the jobs would be upfront, and they were probably oversold on them.
weak datapoint: At one point Kat posted a “job” on FB that, near the end of the linked description, mentioned the position was unpaid. To her credit, the lack of pay was in the actual position description, and when I pushed back she changed the FB post. Her reasoning (note: this is from memory and is probably at least a year old) was that she’d never heard of a volunteer position with such specific requirements, so job felt like a better fit.
Some remarks from an old fogey:
1. There are a zillion shitty jobs out there, and there is nothing wrong with either advertizing or taking a shitty job so long as everyone is aware it is shitty and the terms are clear upfront.
Against Non-Linear: It is not clear that the interns/whatever were fully aware just how shitty the jobs would be upfront, and they were probably oversold on them. This was probably seen as good business strategy. It isn’t.
Against Alice: Personally, I think these jobs would have red flags a mile away. I have known people who went to work for obvious MLMs, and I think it is ultimately the responsibility of the person signing the contract to read the fine print and be aware of what they are getting into. If you, as an organization, put out shitty terms, and someone agrees to that, it’s not your fault for making a shitty offer. If you, as an employee, accept work without a clear contract.… Don’t do that. Other people may try to exploit you, and the typical company WILL try to exploit you. That is what they do. Your only defense is to not accept it. If you accept that, you agreed to it so you have to live with the consequences.
Again, probably the shittiness of the job was somewhat covered up. To the extent to which that is the case, beyond ordinary marketing, that’s on Non-Linear. Personally, I think these jobs would be incredibly obviously shitty. And merely advertizing or filling a shitty job is not a crime.
2. Every organization eventually has someone who distorts the truth and could be a future disgruntled employee.
This point is not against Non-Linear or against Alice.
Rather, we should be careful of the low bar Ben set for publicizing this.
I agree that this would be more of a scandal if Non-Linear were bigger, and it’s great to catch this before then, for many reasons.
But if you hire enough people, you will eventually run into someone who distorts the truth. We may all have different base rates for this. On the one hand, it could be seen as costly to complain. On the other hand, work generally kind of sucks—that’s why you have to be paid to do it. (If your work doesn’t suck, consider yourself very lucky.) So people often end up in tension with their employers.
So whatever epistemic standards we set need to account for the fact that, given enough time, there will be a motivated disgruntled employee in every EA organization. The trick is how you can distinguish between the organizations that are generally rotten and the ones with a disgruntled employee or two. And I’m not sure Ben’s post really gets at this. The talk about setting a low bar is concerning because I don’t need an alarm that goes off whenever there is a story, because that will be every organization given enough time. I need an alarm that can distinguish between the signal and the noise. I care about the false negatives and the false positives.
Personally, I don’t find myself updating on the information in Ben’s post, and I had not previously heard of any issues with Non-Linear. I don’t find myself updating simply because the set-up was so obviously shitty that I’m not surprised. The founders are so clearly obsessed with themselves and brag about how little they pay people for outsourced work—how could it be a good place to work, even before getting to the shared living situation?
Shitty jobs are shitty. Water is wet. I don’t blame Non-Linear for advertizing shitty jobs (so long as they weren’t misleading about it). I think it’s a shame that young people sometimes have poor awareness regarding shitty jobs, but I don’t blame Alice for not realizing. I find it hard to blame either party here for acting in their own self-interest, but practically speaking Non-Linear should have advertized the jobs more to people for whom it would be a legitimate step up, rather than people who would only work there if they were confused about its shittiness.
weak datapoint: At one point Kat posted a “job” on FB that, near the end of the linked description, mentioned the position was unpaid. To her credit, the lack of pay was in the actual position description, and when I pushed back she changed the FB post. Her reasoning (note: this is from memory and is probably at least a year old) was that she’d never heard of a volunteer position with such specific requirements, so job felt like a better fit.