A few notes: (epistemic status: thinking out loud)
Replaceability of his Digital Minds entrepreneurship: I’ll note that I think it is always hard to replace someone who will act as founder of something. Getting something off the ground (going from zero to one) is something very few people are willing, interested, or think of to do. Good entrepreneurs are a scarce breed, or, at least they are when you want more projects and have a funding overhang (we still do for stuff like this). And whenever you narrow it down to any domain, they become even scarcer, and I think if you narrow it down in to a domain that is new (like digital minds research), they become even scarcer than that.
If there were job listings for founders for ideas which are already exciting to funders, the zero to one problem could be easier solved eg “Funding has been secured for forming a network of digital mind research collaborators and advisors. Seeking suitable founder, apply here.” Maybe Jacy and a dozen other people would apply and then we would know just how replaceable he is. But there are not and no one is doing this (this requires its own entrepreneur). Also there are certain implications of this I’d find very disrespectful to the people who had the key idea in the first place.. it’s a bit dehumanizing like everyone is just a cog in the machine.
My view is that whether someone receives funding depends on the kind of work they are doing, as well as the level of risk they present to the community.
I think I’ll note that usually grantmakers are going to measure this. And maybe we should trust them to, idk, if they are EA anyway, at least until further details are given. Like I think it’s fine to ask for details but not fine to assume that the grantmakers made an egregious or community-harming decision (Now I think I have to obligate drop this thing although it’s a tangent and I realize it complicates things and goes against my above poll intent).
We still don’t know enough: I agree this is weird. If I were him, given the intense community backlash, I’d have next done a detailed writeup of everything I’d done with clarification of every relevant detail and what was going on in my mind at the time, then said I’d step back and would be receiving voluntary therapy, treatment, and/or social skills coaching until further notice, depending on what the writeup indicated. But expecting a pre-Gen-Z man to even think of doing this is like, a big ask. No insult to such men but society does not exactly set most of us up to think of that kind of solution, let alone pre-zoomer men. Also I think expecting a lot of details when the complainants remained anonymous might be an impossible ask (thought I think he could probably give more). I also wonder if having a norm where people are forced to bare open every embarrassing incident is good for EA morale… If they are akin to embarrassing incidents it would be better if he showed full details to the Community Health Team and they did a summary for potential grantmakers, employers etc of Jacy when requested (actually this has likely already been done, but I doubt that SFF looked at it in the case of the recent grant because they aren’t exactly community-related in that way. Would be interesting and worth knowing if they did though and why they’d have decided to move forward anyway if they did). I’ll also note that Jacy has already pushed back a lot on the expulsion from Brown for sexual misconduct and his insistence and other details give good reason to doubt the school made the right decision. And either way, if he did do something egregious, that was ~10 years ago from now (I think) which puts it outside of the statute of limitations and I think we should take our cue from that societal norm. He was punished (possibly quite overpunished) via expulsion and it is not our job to do so further. I would like to focus on rehabilitation and recent cases. It might be that without names Jacy can never address the cases to onlooker satisfaction, but perhaps proof of rehabilitation and actions taken to learn would help, and I don’t really know why he didn’t at least come back and talk about that.
CEA Events: I’m not sure that CEA would still hold their ban 3 years later, or if they haven’t gotten around to lifting it, would be good if they’d comment if it ever seems relevant to know. I also remember [edit: IIRC but it looks like I likely didn’t] reading that CEA felt that the Brown incident kind of tipped them to be more concerned, but if you are very unsure what to think about the brown incident, you might not want to decide as CEA did which was a risk-reduction standpoint rather than a serving justice (either clearing someone’s name or convicting them) standpoint. Relatedly I’ll note, attending EA events (a prime place for asking people out) might have a higher bar of entry for Jacy than getting funding. Events are prime places to interface with women (bigger con for Jacy attending) and they are not that important for people settled into doing their direct work already (smaller pro for Jacy attending). Events are helpful, sure, but they aren’t going to be key to effectiveness for someone like Jacy. If CEA evaluated the risk as low but still just don’t want him at events because there aren’t enough pros to take any risks, that’s their right and pretty reasonable. But using funding to do important work, granted by a fund which has a high bar for effectiveness is, by definition, just simply “important”. The pros and cons scale here is going to tip way differently if he is a minimal risk.
Conjecture on exposure to “victims”:
whether he should… be in a position where he can be exposed to more victims (recruiting researchers) is less clear to me
It isn’t clear he ever did anything toward any woman he worked with?
Troubling men can do troubling things to women anywhere [so I’m just not so sure this holds as a qualifier]. I note that it might even actually be better to have him in EA where people are primed to call him on things and he knows he is treading on thin ice. I know this sentence will gross people out but I’m just saying that EA women are not worth more than other EA women. Sure I don’t want him in the community if there is a notable risk[edit: and I acknowledge that it isn’t EA’s job to take him on], but if we could establish that risk is pretty low, then it is seems reasonable to also infer that it would be better for women overall to have him in the community. [All I’m trying to do here is point out that EAs arent necessarily exposing men “to more victims” by working with them or funding them. Unless the counterfactual is that they are going to jail, men are going to get other jobs and work with women so it seems illfitting to bring up that he will be exposed to more women as a morally-relevant or ction-relevant point. If he is that much of a risk he should be in jail or under house arrest or something? At the very least he should have a formal charge so when people do a background check on him it comes up? If we have a problem that notable with him we are just passing him on as a missing stair to the rest of the world.]
I kind of think the terminology “victims” might be a bit strong here for recent cases. Maybe “accusers” or “complainants” is better if speaking from women’s perspective, and “targets” better if speaking from Jacy’s perspective? I say this as a woman that I find the term a bit disrespectful here or something, to both those women and to people who have experienced worse sexual misconduct… I can definitely imagine situations where I report someone doing some stuff like Jacy did, repeatedly asking out or something related to that, which might indeed be harassment. But I would not ever call myself a victim in regards to that sort of thing and I would not presume to call other women victims about it. And I think saying Jacy might “victimize” women who come across him, implies that people should expect or be fearful of worse treatment than we have sound (publicized?) reason to expect.
Also there are certain implications of this I’d find very disrespectful to the people who had the key idea in the first place.
Sorry, are you referring to Jacy here? what key idea did he come up with?
He was punished (possibly quite overpunished) via expulsion and it is not our job to do so further.
Agree that it is not CEA’s job to punish Jacy for his actions at Brown, but this was largely not what happened.
perhaps proof of rehabilitation and actions taken to learn would help, and I don’t really know why he didn’t at least come back and talk about that.
I agree, and lack of this after 3 years should be a reason to update against its existence or the extent Jacy actually cares about this.
Conjecture on exposure to “victims”
It isn’t clear he ever did anything toward any woman he worked with?
One quick question-do you think if sexual harassment allegations are true, is the EA community more or less at risk if Jacy is an independent researcher with no interaction to other EA researchers, or if he’s actively trying to form a research network, or if he takes a community building role?
Troubling men can do troubling things to women anywhere. It might actually be better to have him in EA where people are primed to call him on things and he knows he is treading on thin ice. I know this sentence will gross people out but I’m just saying that EA women are not worth more than other EA women.
I think in that set of claims, the one doing the most work is “establish that risk is pretty low”, which in Jacy’s case, is an open question. To respond to the other parts-EA women are not cannon fodder for non-EA women. The community health team’s job is to protect the EA community and should not be based on the extent adjacent communities are adequately managing the situation. The EA community does not exist primarily to internalize the negative externalities of society, and members of the EA community should not be expected to sacrifice themselves like this.
I can definitely imagine situations where I report someone doing some stuff like Jacy did, repeatedly asking out or something related to that
Do you have nonpublic info on Jacy? Can you be more clear on the kinds of situations you are imagining? How many of these do you think would result in a ban from CEA events? I guess my view here is that in most situations that would lead to a ban from CEA events, the word “victim” is probably appropriate. I think again this points to the issues around lack of clarity here, as some may be indexing the level of severity based on other things that CEA have banned people for, which are much worse than “Jacy had asked some women out on dates”, while you are basing this off other information or taking Jacy’s apology at face value etc, which doesn’t seem super well justified.
I mean, if we are talking about entrepreneurship replacability, that if it was his idea to form a network of digital mind research collaborators and advisors, and he wanted to lead it and was capable of doing so, it could be seen as disrespectful to push him off the idea of the project and find someone to replace him on an essentially-identical project.
Agree that it is not CEA’s job to punish Jacy for his actions at Brown, but this was largely not what happened.
Okay fair, I’m updating that I am misremembering reading what I thought I did, but if I ever find what I’m thinking of I’ll add it.
I agree, and lack of this after 3 years should be a reason to update against its existence or the extent Jacy actually cares about this.
Fair. I mean I kind of wonder if he expected people to get over it (which if it really was minor, he probably would expect), and was recently blindsided by the response to his March post. Maybe we will see a writeup soon (but probably not, you are right)
One quick question-do you think if sexual harassment allegations are true, is the EA community more or less at risk if Jacy is an independent researcher with no interaction to other EA researchers, or if he’s actively trying to form a research network, or if he takes a community building role?
I guess I consider it the wrong question? Like obviously the answer is the former has less risk to the EA community, but I don’t think minimizing risk is the only thing that matters? The degree of risk is the most important thing? Above a certain threshold of risk I would just want to do the most impactful one. We don’t know the risk.
I think in that set of claims, the one doing the most work by far is “establish that risk is pretty low”, which in Jacy’s case, is an open question.
I agree, and I did specifically include that clause for that reason FWIW. I will go back and italicize it to make it clear. I believe that I really did consider this also negates the rest of that paragraph such as thinking of EA woman as cannon fodder etc.
Do you have nonpublic info on Jacy? Can you be more clear on the kinds of situations you are imagining? How many of these do you think would result in a bn from CEA events? I guess my view here is that by most situations that warrant a ban from CEA events I think the word “victim” is appropriate.
No. I can say that relevant thing I was imagining (among other scenarios) was something like repeated asking out after saying no (which is technically harassment) or making sexual or attraction-based comments (also harassment depending on badness of comment and whether the context and relationship implies it is disrespectful or degrading) and a response from CEA something like “he clearly has a tendency to make women uncomfortable and this seems net negative for the events, so why honestly even allow him to come and possibly make another mistake, even if he is learning? Let’s just ban him and be done with it.”. However I acknowledge this is unfounded and these are just some possibilities among other worse possibilities.
I think again this points to the issues around lack of clarity here, as some may be indexing the level of severity based on other things that CEA have banned people for, which are much worse than “Jacy had asked some women out on dates”, while you are basing this off other information or taking Jacy’s apology at face value etc, which doesn’t seem super well justified.
I completely agree with you. And yeah I think that’s a good point, that my taking the apology at face value is not “super well justified”. I actually wasn’t exactly trying to defend Jacy in particular. But trying to begin some discussion which might be relevant to determining if there is a punishment-over-rehabilitation framework in this community and where that line should be drawn. I can’t say anything about Jacy’s case in particular, and I also don’t claim that CEA made a mistake about him or operated under any problematic framework when making their decision about him. To me it does feel really weird though, that if it was so bad, that CEA didn’t make it more public so we could all better trust to steer clear or something. That does seem like it would become a missing stair concern, which actually maybe is what happened with him getting funding, idk. Anyway something bad does seem to be going on here (like maybe an overzealous reaction years later, or, I’m thinking more likely after this and another conversation, a non-transparent-enough culture which might lead to missing stairs. In fact either could be present in EA culture even if not in Jacy’s case). And whatever it may be, I am starting to worry it will catch up with EA and at least some of its members eventually, in unpleasant ways (in some sense this whole thread is one of those ways).
I am now thinking that the root thing, the meta-thing upstreamof us discussing whether Jacy’s funding was okay or not, is more worth addressing than actually answering the question “how and where did Jacy get funding and was it okay knowing what we know”.
A few notes: (epistemic status: thinking out loud)
Replaceability of his Digital Minds entrepreneurship: I’ll note that I think it is always hard to replace someone who will act as founder of something. Getting something off the ground (going from zero to one) is something very few people are willing, interested, or think of to do. Good entrepreneurs are a scarce breed, or, at least they are when you want more projects and have a funding overhang (we still do for stuff like this). And whenever you narrow it down to any domain, they become even scarcer, and I think if you narrow it down in to a domain that is new (like digital minds research), they become even scarcer than that.
If there were job listings for founders for ideas which are already exciting to funders, the zero to one problem could be easier solved eg “Funding has been secured for forming a network of digital mind research collaborators and advisors. Seeking suitable founder, apply here.” Maybe Jacy and a dozen other people would apply and then we would know just how replaceable he is. But there are not and no one is doing this (this requires its own entrepreneur). Also there are certain implications of this I’d find very disrespectful to the people who had the key idea in the first place.. it’s a bit dehumanizing like everyone is just a cog in the machine.
I think I’ll note that usually grantmakers are going to measure this. And maybe we should trust them to, idk, if they are EA anyway, at least until further details are given. Like I think it’s fine to ask for details but not fine to assume that the grantmakers made an egregious or community-harming decision (Now I think I have to obligate drop this thing although it’s a tangent and I realize it complicates things and goes against my above poll intent).
We still don’t know enough: I agree this is weird. If I were him, given the intense community backlash, I’d have next done a detailed writeup of everything I’d done with clarification of every relevant detail and what was going on in my mind at the time, then said I’d step back and would be receiving voluntary therapy, treatment, and/or social skills coaching until further notice, depending on what the writeup indicated. But expecting a pre-Gen-Z man to even think of doing this is like, a big ask. No insult to such men but society does not exactly set most of us up to think of that kind of solution, let alone pre-zoomer men. Also I think expecting a lot of details when the complainants remained anonymous might be an impossible ask (thought I think he could probably give more). I also wonder if having a norm where people are forced to bare open every embarrassing incident is good for EA morale… If they are akin to embarrassing incidents it would be better if he showed full details to the Community Health Team and they did a summary for potential grantmakers, employers etc of Jacy when requested (actually this has likely already been done, but I doubt that SFF looked at it in the case of the recent grant because they aren’t exactly community-related in that way. Would be interesting and worth knowing if they did though and why they’d have decided to move forward anyway if they did). I’ll also note that Jacy has already pushed back a lot on the expulsion from Brown for sexual misconduct and his insistence and other details give good reason to doubt the school made the right decision. And either way, if he did do something egregious, that was ~10 years ago from now (I think) which puts it outside of the statute of limitations and I think we should take our cue from that societal norm. He was punished (possibly quite overpunished) via expulsion and it is not our job to do so further. I would like to focus on rehabilitation and recent cases. It might be that without names Jacy can never address the cases to onlooker satisfaction, but perhaps proof of rehabilitation and actions taken to learn would help, and I don’t really know why he didn’t at least come back and talk about that.
CEA Events: I’m not sure that CEA would still hold their ban 3 years later, or if they haven’t gotten around to lifting it, would be good if they’d comment if it ever seems relevant to know. I also remember [edit: IIRC but it looks like I likely didn’t] reading that CEA felt that the Brown incident kind of tipped them to be more concerned, but if you are very unsure what to think about the brown incident, you might not want to decide as CEA did which was a risk-reduction standpoint rather than a serving justice (either clearing someone’s name or convicting them) standpoint. Relatedly I’ll note, attending EA events (a prime place for asking people out) might have a higher bar of entry for Jacy than getting funding. Events are prime places to interface with women (bigger con for Jacy attending) and they are not that important for people settled into doing their direct work already (smaller pro for Jacy attending). Events are helpful, sure, but they aren’t going to be key to effectiveness for someone like Jacy. If CEA evaluated the risk as low but still just don’t want him at events because there aren’t enough pros to take any risks, that’s their right and pretty reasonable. But using funding to do important work, granted by a fund which has a high bar for effectiveness is, by definition, just simply “important”. The pros and cons scale here is going to tip way differently if he is a minimal risk.
Conjecture on exposure to “victims”:
It isn’t clear he ever did anything toward any woman he worked with?
Troubling men can do troubling things to women anywhere [so I’m just not so sure this holds as a qualifier]. I note that it might even actually be better to have him in EA where people are primed to call him on things and he knows he is treading on thin ice. I know this sentence will gross people out but I’m just saying that EA women are not worth more than other EA women. Sure I don’t want him in the community if there is a notable risk [edit: and I acknowledge that it isn’t EA’s job to take him on], but if we could establish that risk is pretty low, then it is seems reasonable to also infer that it would be better for women overall to have him in the community. [All I’m trying to do here is point out that EAs arent necessarily exposing men “to more victims” by working with them or funding them. Unless the counterfactual is that they are going to jail, men are going to get other jobs and work with women so it seems illfitting to bring up that he will be exposed to more women as a morally-relevant or ction-relevant point. If he is that much of a risk he should be in jail or under house arrest or something? At the very least he should have a formal charge so when people do a background check on him it comes up? If we have a problem that notable with him we are just passing him on as a missing stair to the rest of the world.]
I kind of think the terminology “victims” might be a bit strong here for recent cases. Maybe “accusers” or “complainants” is better if speaking from women’s perspective, and “targets” better if speaking from Jacy’s perspective? I say this as a woman that I find the term a bit disrespectful here or something, to both those women and to people who have experienced worse sexual misconduct… I can definitely imagine situations where I report someone doing some stuff like Jacy did, repeatedly asking out or something related to that, which might indeed be harassment. But I would not ever call myself a victim in regards to that sort of thing and I would not presume to call other women victims about it. And I think saying Jacy might “victimize” women who come across him, implies that people should expect or be fearful of worse treatment than we have sound (publicized?) reason to expect.
Sorry, are you referring to Jacy here? what key idea did he come up with?
Agree that it is not CEA’s job to punish Jacy for his actions at Brown, but this was largely not what happened.
I agree, and lack of this after 3 years should be a reason to update against its existence or the extent Jacy actually cares about this.
One quick question-do you think if sexual harassment allegations are true, is the EA community more or less at risk if Jacy is an independent researcher with no interaction to other EA researchers, or if he’s actively trying to form a research network, or if he takes a community building role?
I think in that set of claims, the one doing the most work is “establish that risk is pretty low”, which in Jacy’s case, is an open question. To respond to the other parts-EA women are not cannon fodder for non-EA women. The community health team’s job is to protect the EA community and should not be based on the extent adjacent communities are adequately managing the situation. The EA community does not exist primarily to internalize the negative externalities of society, and members of the EA community should not be expected to sacrifice themselves like this.
Do you have nonpublic info on Jacy? Can you be more clear on the kinds of situations you are imagining? How many of these do you think would result in a ban from CEA events? I guess my view here is that in most situations that would lead to a ban from CEA events, the word “victim” is probably appropriate. I think again this points to the issues around lack of clarity here, as some may be indexing the level of severity based on other things that CEA have banned people for, which are much worse than “Jacy had asked some women out on dates”, while you are basing this off other information or taking Jacy’s apology at face value etc, which doesn’t seem super well justified.
I mean, if we are talking about entrepreneurship replacability, that if it was his idea to form a network of digital mind research collaborators and advisors, and he wanted to lead it and was capable of doing so, it could be seen as disrespectful to push him off the idea of the project and find someone to replace him on an essentially-identical project.
Okay fair, I’m updating that I am misremembering reading what I thought I did, but if I ever find what I’m thinking of I’ll add it.
Fair. I mean I kind of wonder if he expected people to get over it (which if it really was minor, he probably would expect), and was recently blindsided by the response to his March post. Maybe we will see a writeup soon (but probably not, you are right)
I guess I consider it the wrong question? Like obviously the answer is the former has less risk to the EA community, but I don’t think minimizing risk is the only thing that matters? The degree of risk is the most important thing? Above a certain threshold of risk I would just want to do the most impactful one. We don’t know the risk.
I agree, and I did specifically include that clause for that reason FWIW. I will go back and italicize it to make it clear. I believe that I really did consider this also negates the rest of that paragraph such as thinking of EA woman as cannon fodder etc.
No. I can say that relevant thing I was imagining (among other scenarios) was something like repeated asking out after saying no (which is technically harassment) or making sexual or attraction-based comments (also harassment depending on badness of comment and whether the context and relationship implies it is disrespectful or degrading) and a response from CEA something like “he clearly has a tendency to make women uncomfortable and this seems net negative for the events, so why honestly even allow him to come and possibly make another mistake, even if he is learning? Let’s just ban him and be done with it.”. However I acknowledge this is unfounded and these are just some possibilities among other worse possibilities.
I completely agree with you. And yeah I think that’s a good point, that my taking the apology at face value is not “super well justified”. I actually wasn’t exactly trying to defend Jacy in particular. But trying to begin some discussion which might be relevant to determining if there is a punishment-over-rehabilitation framework in this community and where that line should be drawn. I can’t say anything about Jacy’s case in particular, and I also don’t claim that CEA made a mistake about him or operated under any problematic framework when making their decision about him. To me it does feel really weird though, that if it was so bad, that CEA didn’t make it more public so we could all better trust to steer clear or something. That does seem like it would become a missing stair concern, which actually maybe is what happened with him getting funding, idk. Anyway something bad does seem to be going on here (like maybe an overzealous reaction years later, or, I’m thinking more likely after this and another conversation, a non-transparent-enough culture which might lead to missing stairs. In fact either could be present in EA culture even if not in Jacy’s case). And whatever it may be, I am starting to worry it will catch up with EA and at least some of its members eventually, in unpleasant ways (in some sense this whole thread is one of those ways).
I am now thinking that the root thing, the meta-thing upstream of us discussing whether Jacy’s funding was okay or not, is more worth addressing than actually answering the question “how and where did Jacy get funding and was it okay knowing what we know”.