Be extremely careful around people who call themselves “mediators” or “investigators” like AQM from TIME, or Ratrick Bayesman’s “EA Coach” described below (see Pt 3: My Case Study). On one hand, the existence of mediators is understandable; the original purpose may have been to bypass the growing complexity and cost of the traditional justice system while preserving social harmony. But without qualification and training, these “mediators” and “investigators” are incentivized by local gradients of power and popularity, which, in Silicon Valley, tends to concentrate in the hands of men.
So what do you recommend in terms of “qualification and training”? Lots of interpretations! If you’re evaluating an individual for filling this role, do you look for:
at least a year of professional experience in the social work industry
read 100k words on the subject
read 10k words on the subject
All seem like viable options (assuming a background of general trust-buildling character traits like thoughtfulness, analyticalness, a philosophical appreciation for consent as the driver from which social contracts are derived, things along these lines). Evaluating track records and, of course, evaluating conflict of interest sort of things, may be helped or hindered by a formal rule (I’m very uncertain).
Activists taught me a lot about consensus and conflict resolution, in my sordid past (specifically a Food Not Bombs chapter was an example of doing a good job and a BLM chapter was an example of doing a bad job), usually the correct choice of mediator would have read between 10k and 100k words on the subject plus had comprehensive (deep-rooted) moral intuitions along the lines of NVCy stuff.
Slightly concerned about (slightly goodharty) risks of “certification” driven understandings of mediations (which is one direction to take what you were saying) is that there could be lots of informal agreement about trust of a certified mediator’s good judgment dwindling, but no one else seems suitable because the blindspots of a certification process.
The context suggests that there needs to be at least enough “qualification and training” to render the proposed member independent of “local gradients of power and popularity.” I don’t think how many words one has read, or one’s moral intuitions, really contribute to that objective. In contrast, having a relevant professional license—while not a panacea—requires formation in the profession’s norms and a relevant education that is not bound up in “local gradients of power and popularity.”
I’m not getting it, because it’s too easy for me to construct a hypothetical qualified and trained person to just not be independent of local gradients of power and popularity, and my model of what’s needed to do a good job in these situations is actually quite attainable by certain dispositions/temperaments in informal ways.
I’m not inherently against this. But one problem is that it’s not clear who is qualified/trained and who is not. There’s currently no Yelp or Trustpilot for sexual harassment/abuse mediators. In contrast, I know a lawyer has my best interests in mind legally because I hired them and am paying them.
So what do you recommend in terms of “qualification and training”? Lots of interpretations! If you’re evaluating an individual for filling this role, do you look for:
at least a year of professional experience in the social work industry
read 100k words on the subject
read 10k words on the subject
All seem like viable options (assuming a background of general trust-buildling character traits like thoughtfulness, analyticalness, a philosophical appreciation for consent as the driver from which social contracts are derived, things along these lines). Evaluating track records and, of course, evaluating conflict of interest sort of things, may be helped or hindered by a formal rule (I’m very uncertain).
Activists taught me a lot about consensus and conflict resolution, in my sordid past (specifically a Food Not Bombs chapter was an example of doing a good job and a BLM chapter was an example of doing a bad job), usually the correct choice of mediator would have read between 10k and 100k words on the subject plus had comprehensive (deep-rooted) moral intuitions along the lines of NVCy stuff.
Slightly concerned about (slightly goodharty) risks of “certification” driven understandings of mediations (which is one direction to take what you were saying) is that there could be lots of informal agreement about trust of a certified mediator’s good judgment dwindling, but no one else seems suitable because the blindspots of a certification process.
The context suggests that there needs to be at least enough “qualification and training” to render the proposed member independent of “local gradients of power and popularity.” I don’t think how many words one has read, or one’s moral intuitions, really contribute to that objective. In contrast, having a relevant professional license—while not a panacea—requires formation in the profession’s norms and a relevant education that is not bound up in “local gradients of power and popularity.”
I’m not getting it, because it’s too easy for me to construct a hypothetical qualified and trained person to just not be independent of local gradients of power and popularity, and my model of what’s needed to do a good job in these situations is actually quite attainable by certain dispositions/temperaments in informal ways.
I’m not inherently against this. But one problem is that it’s not clear who is qualified/trained and who is not. There’s currently no Yelp or Trustpilot for sexual harassment/abuse mediators. In contrast, I know a lawyer has my best interests in mind legally because I hired them and am paying them.