Although CFAR noted it needed to greatly improve re. âLack of focus on safetyâ and âInsufficient Institutional safeguardsâ, evidence these have improved or whether they are now adequate remains scant. Noting âwe have reformed various thingsâ in an old update is not good enough.
Whether anything would be âgood enoughâ is a fair question. If I, with (mostly) admirable candour, describe a series of grossly incompetent mistakes during my work as a doctor, the appropriate response may still be to disqualify me from future medical practice (there are sidelines re. incentives, but they donât help). The enormity of fucking up as badly as (e.g.[!!!]):
Of the interactions CFAR had with Brent, we consider the decision to let him assist at ESPRâa program we helped run for high school studentsâto have been particularly unwise. While we were not aware of any allegations of abuse at the time of that decision, many of us did feel that his behavior was sometimes manipulative, and that he was often dismissive of standard ethical norms. We consider it an obvious error to have ignored these behaviors when picking staff for a youth program.
Once the allegations about Brent became public, we notified ESPR students and their parents about them. We do not believe any students were harmed. However, Brent did invite a student (a minor) to leave camp early to join him at Burning Man. Beforehand, Brent had persuaded a CFAR staff member to ask the camp director for permission for Brent to invite the student. Multiple other staff members stepped in to prevent this, by which time the student had decided against attending anyway.
This student does not believe they were harmed. Nevertheless, we consider this invitation to have been a clear violation of common sense ethics. After this incident, CFAR made sure not to invite Brent back to any further youth programs, but we now think it was a mistake not to have gone further and banned Brent from all CFAR events. Additionally, while we believe the staff memberâs action resulted mostly from Brentâs influence causing them not to register the risks, we and they nonetheless agreed that it would be best to part ways, in light both of this incident and a general shared sense of heading in different directions. They left CFARâs employment in November 2018; they will not be in any staff or volunteer roles going forward, but they remain a welcome member of the alumni community.
Should be sufficient to disqualify CFAR from running âintensiveâ residential retreats, especially given the âinner workâ and âmutual vulnerabilityâ they (at least used to) have.
I would also hope a healthy EA community would warn its members away from things like this. Regardless, I can do my part: for heavenâs sake, just donât go.
I strongly disagree with Greg. I think CFAR messed up very badly, but I think the way they messed up is totally consistent with also being able to add value in some situations.
We have data I find convincing suggesting a substantial fraction of top EAs got value from CFAR. ~ 5 years have passed since I went to a CFAR workshop, and I still value what I learned and think itâs been useful for my work. I would encourage other people who are curious to go (again, with the caveat that I donât know much about the new program), if they feel like theyâre in a place of relative strength and can take a discerning eye to what theyâre taught.
If I, with (mostly) admirable candour, describe a series of grossly incompetent mistakes during my work as a doctor, the appropriate response may still be to disqualify me from future medical practice (there are sidelines re. incentives, but they donât help)
I think doctor is a really disanalogous example to use; doctors are in one of the relatively few professions where screwups regularly lead to death; we want to some somewhat risk-averse, with respect to doctors (and e.g. pilots or school bus drivers), at least if the screwups are the very dangerous kind (as opposed to like, being terrible at filing oneâs paperwork), and arenât based on a reasonable CBA (e.g. enrolling patients in a clinical trial with a drug that looked promising but turned out to be dangerous). For lots of other professions, this example looks way less compelling; e.g. I doubt people would think that a startup founder or movie director or author who had a bunch of failures but also some big wins should be banned from their profession or ostracized in their community. I think in-person overnight events about psychology are in a pretty in-between risk category.
I donât find said data convincing re. CFAR, for reasons I fear youâve heard me rehearse ad nauseum. But this is less relevant: if it were just âCFAR, as an intervention, sucksâ Iâd figure (and have figured over the last decade) that folks donât need me to make up their own mind. The worst case, if that was true, is wasting some money and a few days of their time.
The doctor case was meant to illustrate that sufficiently consequential screw-ups in an activity can warrant disqualification from doing it againâeven if one is candid and contrite about them. I agree activities vary in the prevalence of their âfailure intolerableâ tasks (medicine and aviation have a lot, creating a movie or a company very few). But most jobs which involve working with others have some things for which failure tolerance is ~zero, and these typically involve safety and safeguarding. For example, a teacher who messes up their lesson plans obviously shouldnât be banned from their profession as a first resort; yet disqualification looks facially appropriate for one who allows their TA to try and abscond with one of their students on a field trip.
CFARâs track record includes a litany of awful mistakes re. welfare and safeguarding where each taken alone would typically warrant suspension or disqualification, and in concert should guarantee the latter as it demonstratesârather than (e.g.) âgrave mistake which is an aberration from their usually excellent standardsââa pattern of gross negligence and utter corporate incompetence. Whatever degree of intermediate risk attending these workshops constitute is unwise to accept (or to encourage others accepting), given CFAR realising these risks is already well-established.
To build on Gregâs example, I think in normal circumstances, if eg a school was linked with a summer camp for high schoolers, and the summer camp made the errors outlined in the post linked to, then the school would correctly sever ties with the summer camp.
The mistakes made seem to me to be outrageously badâthey put teenagers in the custody of someone they had lots of evidence was an unethical sociopath, and they even let him ask a minor to go to Burning Man with him, and after that still didnât ban him from their events (!). Although apparently little harm was done, this seems to me to have been very lucky, and if the minor had agreed (which CFAR apparently would not have prevented) this most likely would have ended extremely badly. If the minor had agreed and it had ended extremely badly, would you think that should disqualify them from running future events? If yes, why should the good fortune of the minor turning down the invitation make any difference to how we treat CFAR?
From accounts I heard later (I was not at the camp, but did hear a lot about it from folks who were), Iâm basically certain CFAR would have interfered with the minor going even if the minor had agreed. Multiple CFAR staff members stepped in to attempt to prevent the minor from going (as mentioned in e.g. https://ââwww.rationality.org/ââresources/ââupdates/ââ2019/ââcfars-mistakes-regarding-brent, and as I also remember from closer to time) much fuss was correctly made at the time, etc. I agree that many bad mistakes were made, then and previously and afterwards, however.
Also, after we eventually understood what the deal had been with Brent, we gave up running programs for minors. We continue to run programs for adults. My feeling is that adults should indeed not expect that we are vetting a particularly careful or safe environment particularly reliably, but that this is often not the crux for whether an adult wishes to attend a CFAR workshop.
Hi Gregory, I will be running these workshops together with John, so Iâd like to respond to your comments.
I think that it is fair for you to post your warning/ârecommendation but as far as I can tell, todayâs CFAR is quite different from the organization that you say demonstrated âgross negligence and utter corporate incompetenceâ in the past. You say that the evidence is sparse that anything has changed and Iâm not sure about that but Iâm also not the person to make that case because Iâm not CFARâIâm a CFAR developer running a project with other CFAR developers and a couple of CFAR core staff.
I can only speak for myself as one of the co-leads of this project and what I can say is that we see the skulls. Theyâre a bit hard to ignore since theyâre everywhere! But that is exactly why we think we have enough of an understanding of what happened and how to learn from it. We are very much aware of the previous mistakes and believe that we can do better. And we want to try because we think these workshops are good and important and that we can do them well.
I generally think that people and organizations deserve second chances but ultimately it is for the people to decide. We will be fulfilling our role as event organizers by mitigating risks to our participants, to the extent that we reasonably can (based on CFARâs past mistakes and also based on our own experience and judgment). And our participants will decide if they trust us enough to come to an immersive workshop with a bunch of other humans who they will interact with for 4.5 days.
âWe will be fulfilling our role as event organizers by mitigating risks to our participants, to the extent that we reasonably can (based on CFARâs past mistakes and also based on our own experience and judgment). And our participants will decide if they trust us enough to come to an immersive workshop with a bunch of other humans who they will interact with for 4.5 days.â I was recently asked for recommendations of people who might like to attend. I would find it more useful to know what safeguards, if any, are now in place to avoid similar situations in the future. There feels like a big difference between consenting to attend an event with no safeguards versus one with them (EAG-style Code of Conduct, appointed persons to deal with concerns, etc.) If you have time, can you elaborate? Thanks very much.
CFARâs mistakes regarding Brent
Although CFAR noted it needed to greatly improve re. âLack of focus on safetyâ and âInsufficient Institutional safeguardsâ, evidence these have improved or whether they are now adequate remains scant. Noting âwe have reformed various thingsâ in an old update is not good enough.
Whether anything would be âgood enoughâ is a fair question. If I, with (mostly) admirable candour, describe a series of grossly incompetent mistakes during my work as a doctor, the appropriate response may still be to disqualify me from future medical practice (there are sidelines re. incentives, but they donât help). The enormity of fucking up as badly as (e.g.[!!!]):
Should be sufficient to disqualify CFAR from running âintensiveâ residential retreats, especially given the âinner workâ and âmutual vulnerabilityâ they (at least used to) have.
I would also hope a healthy EA community would warn its members away from things like this. Regardless, I can do my part: for heavenâs sake, just donât go.
I strongly disagree with Greg. I think CFAR messed up very badly, but I think the way they messed up is totally consistent with also being able to add value in some situations.
We have data I find convincing suggesting a substantial fraction of top EAs got value from CFAR. ~ 5 years have passed since I went to a CFAR workshop, and I still value what I learned and think itâs been useful for my work. I would encourage other people who are curious to go (again, with the caveat that I donât know much about the new program), if they feel like theyâre in a place of relative strength and can take a discerning eye to what theyâre taught.
I think doctor is a really disanalogous example to use; doctors are in one of the relatively few professions where screwups regularly lead to death; we want to some somewhat risk-averse, with respect to doctors (and e.g. pilots or school bus drivers), at least if the screwups are the very dangerous kind (as opposed to like, being terrible at filing oneâs paperwork), and arenât based on a reasonable CBA (e.g. enrolling patients in a clinical trial with a drug that looked promising but turned out to be dangerous). For lots of other professions, this example looks way less compelling; e.g. I doubt people would think that a startup founder or movie director or author who had a bunch of failures but also some big wins should be banned from their profession or ostracized in their community. I think in-person overnight events about psychology are in a pretty in-between risk category.
I donât find said data convincing re. CFAR, for reasons I fear youâve heard me rehearse ad nauseum. But this is less relevant: if it were just âCFAR, as an intervention, sucksâ Iâd figure (and have figured over the last decade) that folks donât need me to make up their own mind. The worst case, if that was true, is wasting some money and a few days of their time.
The doctor case was meant to illustrate that sufficiently consequential screw-ups in an activity can warrant disqualification from doing it againâeven if one is candid and contrite about them. I agree activities vary in the prevalence of their âfailure intolerableâ tasks (medicine and aviation have a lot, creating a movie or a company very few). But most jobs which involve working with others have some things for which failure tolerance is ~zero, and these typically involve safety and safeguarding. For example, a teacher who messes up their lesson plans obviously shouldnât be banned from their profession as a first resort; yet disqualification looks facially appropriate for one who allows their TA to try and abscond with one of their students on a field trip.
CFARâs track record includes a litany of awful mistakes re. welfare and safeguarding where each taken alone would typically warrant suspension or disqualification, and in concert should guarantee the latter as it demonstratesârather than (e.g.) âgrave mistake which is an aberration from their usually excellent standardsââa pattern of gross negligence and utter corporate incompetence. Whatever degree of intermediate risk attending these workshops constitute is unwise to accept (or to encourage others accepting), given CFAR realising these risks is already well-established.
To build on Gregâs example, I think in normal circumstances, if eg a school was linked with a summer camp for high schoolers, and the summer camp made the errors outlined in the post linked to, then the school would correctly sever ties with the summer camp.
The mistakes made seem to me to be outrageously badâthey put teenagers in the custody of someone they had lots of evidence was an unethical sociopath, and they even let him ask a minor to go to Burning Man with him, and after that still didnât ban him from their events (!). Although apparently little harm was done, this seems to me to have been very lucky, and if the minor had agreed (which CFAR apparently would not have prevented) this most likely would have ended extremely badly. If the minor had agreed and it had ended extremely badly, would you think that should disqualify them from running future events? If yes, why should the good fortune of the minor turning down the invitation make any difference to how we treat CFAR?
From accounts I heard later (I was not at the camp, but did hear a lot about it from folks who were), Iâm basically certain CFAR would have interfered with the minor going even if the minor had agreed. Multiple CFAR staff members stepped in to attempt to prevent the minor from going (as mentioned in e.g. https://ââwww.rationality.org/ââresources/ââupdates/ââ2019/ââcfars-mistakes-regarding-brent, and as I also remember from closer to time) much fuss was correctly made at the time, etc. I agree that many bad mistakes were made, then and previously and afterwards, however.
Also, after we eventually understood what the deal had been with Brent, we gave up running programs for minors. We continue to run programs for adults. My feeling is that adults should indeed not expect that we are vetting a particularly careful or safe environment particularly reliably, but that this is often not the crux for whether an adult wishes to attend a CFAR workshop.
Hi Gregory, I will be running these workshops together with John, so Iâd like to respond to your comments.
I think that it is fair for you to post your warning/ârecommendation but as far as I can tell, todayâs CFAR is quite different from the organization that you say demonstrated âgross negligence and utter corporate incompetenceâ in the past. You say that the evidence is sparse that anything has changed and Iâm not sure about that but Iâm also not the person to make that case because Iâm not CFARâIâm a CFAR developer running a project with other CFAR developers and a couple of CFAR core staff.
I can only speak for myself as one of the co-leads of this project and what I can say is that we see the skulls. Theyâre a bit hard to ignore since theyâre everywhere! But that is exactly why we think we have enough of an understanding of what happened and how to learn from it. We are very much aware of the previous mistakes and believe that we can do better. And we want to try because we think these workshops are good and important and that we can do them well.
I generally think that people and organizations deserve second chances but ultimately it is for the people to decide. We will be fulfilling our role as event organizers by mitigating risks to our participants, to the extent that we reasonably can (based on CFARâs past mistakes and also based on our own experience and judgment). And our participants will decide if they trust us enough to come to an immersive workshop with a bunch of other humans who they will interact with for 4.5 days.
âWe will be fulfilling our role as event organizers by mitigating risks to our participants, to the extent that we reasonably can (based on CFARâs past mistakes and also based on our own experience and judgment). And our participants will decide if they trust us enough to come to an immersive workshop with a bunch of other humans who they will interact with for 4.5 days.â
I was recently asked for recommendations of people who might like to attend. I would find it more useful to know what safeguards, if any, are now in place to avoid similar situations in the future. There feels like a big difference between consenting to attend an event with no safeguards versus one with them (EAG-style Code of Conduct, appointed persons to deal with concerns, etc.) If you have time, can you elaborate? Thanks very much.