The statement about pausing some exercises of soft power is rather indefinite:
For right now, I am also pausing other activities which may give me power:
Starting any new mentor relationships;
Recommending funding for anything or connecting people with funders;
Organizing events (in the immediate, I’ve stepped back from any decision-making for the Summit on Existential Security).
Again I’ll make decisions about when to resume these in consultation with my therapist.
There’s no timeframe on that (could it be a month?). There’s no meaningful external accountability or oversight of the decision to unpause (only “consultation” with a therapist who is bound by confidentiality).
Much better would be: I will not conduct these activities for a minimum of A months, and will not conduct them unless and until [pick one: B and C leaders / a independent therapist psychologist or other professional chosen by EVF / a community consultation on the Forum / someone other than Owen himself or his therapist] agrees it is appropriate for me to resume.
As a friend pointed out, relying on Owen’s own judgment regarding whether or when to restart mentorship, event organizing, and funding recommendations seems a really bad idea given that the problematic cases happened in the first place due to errors in Owen’s judgment. I think it should go without saying that these decisions should be made by a separate body.
(I don’t think these two types of judgments are perfectly correlated, but they seem somewhat correlated. Also I don’t mean to take a stance on whether/how Owen should be involved in the future; I think it’s good to consider the full range of options.)
Of course, funders and event organizers can collectively decide how long Owen’s pause from influence in those areas last. I’m wondering if it would be healthy for them to declare him essentially persona non grata for a period of time and until conditions were met. That would mean his recommendations made after last week would go unread, his attempts at connection would be ignored, and no one would ask him to organize events until the appointed time had passed and conditions had been met.
No one needs to justify their disagreevotes, but I’d be curious if anyone had another idea besides “Owen decides for himself how long the pause needs to be” and “funders/organizers who give him his soft power decide.”
There isn’t an EA Supreme Court to decide these questions.
Personally, I think it’s useful if this decision is made by people who competently investigate the case and gather all the information, not by people acting primarily based on public information like this post. Even though I know Owen well, I personally find it hard to say how likely Owen is to make mistakes again; it seems plausible to me that he can learn from his mistakes and continue to be highly involved in the community without causing any further issues, and it also seems possible that he would continue to make similar mistakes. It seems to me that the main way to find out would be by seeking out conversations and investigating.
I personally think the community health team (after implementing some improvements) would be suitable for deciding his future involvement. Even though they didn’t deal with this particular case well, I think overall their track record seems strong, and I think they can learn from this case. They have a lot more relevant context than external investigators.
Sure, you could add non-disqualified CH staff to the “pick one” I described upthread on who could clear his return. My point was that if Owen doesn’t propose an acceptable return-to-influence plan, it is ultimately the responsibility of those who give him that power to satisfy themselves that returning it is warranted.
I feel most confused why the therapist is important here. The therapist recs might be a necessary condition but clearly not sufficient. Therapist are not trained in this (it might be that his therapist is an expert in dealing with such situations, but then I expect he would have mentioned this).
The statement about pausing some exercises of soft power is rather indefinite:
There’s no timeframe on that (could it be a month?). There’s no meaningful external accountability or oversight of the decision to unpause (only “consultation” with a therapist who is bound by confidentiality).
Much better would be: I will not conduct these activities for a minimum of A months, and will not conduct them unless and until [pick one: B and C leaders / a independentchosen by EVF / a community consultation on the Forum / someone other than Owen himself or his therapist] agrees it is appropriate for me to resume.
therapistpsychologist or other professional(edited to: psychologist or other professional)
As a friend pointed out, relying on Owen’s own judgment regarding whether or when to restart mentorship, event organizing, and funding recommendations seems a really bad idea given that the problematic cases happened in the first place due to errors in Owen’s judgment. I think it should go without saying that these decisions should be made by a separate body.
(I don’t think these two types of judgments are perfectly correlated, but they seem somewhat correlated. Also I don’t mean to take a stance on whether/how Owen should be involved in the future; I think it’s good to consider the full range of options.)
Of course, funders and event organizers can collectively decide how long Owen’s pause from influence in those areas last. I’m wondering if it would be healthy for them to declare him essentially persona non grata for a period of time and until conditions were met. That would mean his recommendations made after last week would go unread, his attempts at connection would be ignored, and no one would ask him to organize events until the appointed time had passed and conditions had been met.
No one needs to justify their disagreevotes, but I’d be curious if anyone had another idea besides “Owen decides for himself how long the pause needs to be” and “funders/organizers who give him his soft power decide.”
There isn’t an EA Supreme Court to decide these questions.
Personally, I think it’s useful if this decision is made by people who competently investigate the case and gather all the information, not by people acting primarily based on public information like this post. Even though I know Owen well, I personally find it hard to say how likely Owen is to make mistakes again; it seems plausible to me that he can learn from his mistakes and continue to be highly involved in the community without causing any further issues, and it also seems possible that he would continue to make similar mistakes. It seems to me that the main way to find out would be by seeking out conversations and investigating.
I personally think the community health team (after implementing some improvements) would be suitable for deciding his future involvement. Even though they didn’t deal with this particular case well, I think overall their track record seems strong, and I think they can learn from this case. They have a lot more relevant context than external investigators.
Sure, you could add non-disqualified CH staff to the “pick one” I described upthread on who could clear his return. My point was that if Owen doesn’t propose an acceptable return-to-influence plan, it is ultimately the responsibility of those who give him that power to satisfy themselves that returning it is warranted.
I feel most confused why the therapist is important here. The therapist recs might be a necessary condition but clearly not sufficient. Therapist are not trained in this (it might be that his therapist is an expert in dealing with such situations, but then I expect he would have mentioned this).
Edited my comment to: psychologist or other professional chosen by EVF. Thanks!
At least in the US, some mental health professionals have relevant training in assessment, generally those are doctoral-level psychologists.