There are rumours that [one of Atlas’ co-founders] is dating/dated [the grant investigator for Atlas as listed on this page]’s husband [...]. Is this true? Why was the grant investigator for Atlas Fellowship the co-founder’s boyfriend’s husband?
Urgh, I feel a bit like this is digging too much into people’s social lives, but I updated after the FTX situation that being more open about people’s relationship entanglements is probably good for the community (I was aware that Sam and Caroline were dating, and thought this was a pretty relevant aspect of modeling the FTX situation, but had norms against sharing that kind of information freely). I will experiment with being a bit more open about my knowledge here, though man, I don’t want this to set a huge precedent and currently do sure feel like I would want us to think more carefully about the norms here.
I think it’s accurate that there was/is a metamour-relationship between the Open Phil grant investigator for the grant and one of the Atlas co-founders. Pretty sure they are now no longer grant investigator on that grant and have handed it off to someone else (very likely because of the COI). I do think this kind of COI matters, though I do think second-degree things like this are much less important than first-degree relationships. I feel like the COI here has been handled fine, though I can’t speak with confidence (like, I don’t think it would be appropriate to have norms that force Open Phil employees to force their partners to not get close to anyone they were evaluating).
At a privacy level, I think (though man I am holding this very tentatively and am not intending to push back strongly in either direction) it’s better for the world if people feel comfortable discussing this stuff, while also taking some steps to not expose all of someone’s private and romantic life to the public. I think in the OP it would have been better to say “I have heard rumours that the primary grant investigator for Atlas had a metamour-relationship with one of the Atlas co-founders”, like I’ve done in this comment, which I think would have almost all the relevant info across while giving people a bit more privacy. But again, no strong push in either direction, and I would be interested in discussing the norms here more.
In-particular, I think outing someone as polyamorous can have consequences that are similarly bad to outing someone as gay, and can have pretty similar social stigma attached, and I think I am currently quite strongly in favor of not outing people who are gay without their consent.
Sorry, I didn’t intend to imply that being a metamour is only as significant as being a friend of a friend. Seems definitely more intense/distortive/COIy to me.
I think it’s accurate that there was/is a metamour-relationship between the Open Phil grant investigator for the grant and one of the Atlas co-founders. Pretty sure they are now no longer grant investigator on that grant and have handed it off to someone else (very likely because of the COI).
I feel like the COI here has been handled fine, though I can’t speak with confident
Do you know if the decision to hand off this grant was prior to the relationship or after it?
I know outing people who are gay can get them as far as murdered in places where homophobia is most rampant. On the other hand, polyamory seems to be a fairly popular model in the rich Bay Area community, often not kept secretive and without such repercussions. So I’m reserved whether this comparison is fair.
Yes, telling people in the Bay Area that someone is poly seems pretty fine, but e.g. many people are not openly poly towards their family, or have relatives in other states, and having you be easily outed as poly when googling you can have large adverse consequences for their relationships beyond the Bay Area.
To give a concrete example, my (non-EA) ex was from Europe, and she had a relative who both didn’t like that she had two partners, and that I was non-white. My understanding was that the “poly” dimension was seen as substantially worse than the racial dimension. The relative’s attitude didn’t particularly affect our relationship much (we both thought it was kind of funny). But at least in Western countries, I think your bar on outing poly people who don’t want to be outed should be at least as high as your bar for outing interracial couples who don’t want to be outed, given the relative levels of antipathy people in Western countries have between the two.
This comment impressed me a lot. It seems humble, vulnerable and wise. To be able to see the good in something that you are uncomfortable with is at least a little inspiring. I need to improve at this!
My instinct is that this conflict of interest may be a bit worse than you are painting it, although that’s just instinct. It’s unclear and may not be written in a rulebook. I think with all the scrutiny on EA stuff at the moment, orgs should be drawing up specific, clear and public conflict of interest policies—if they don’t have them already.
Urgh, I feel a bit like this is digging too much into people’s social lives, but I updated after the FTX situation that being more open about people’s relationship entanglements is probably good for the community (I was aware that Sam and Caroline were dating, and thought this was a pretty relevant aspect of modeling the FTX situation, but had norms against sharing that kind of information freely). I will experiment with being a bit more open about my knowledge here, though man, I don’t want this to set a huge precedent and currently do sure feel like I would want us to think more carefully about the norms here.
I think it’s accurate that there was/is a metamour-relationship between the Open Phil grant investigator for the grant and one of the Atlas co-founders. Pretty sure they are now no longer grant investigator on that grant and have handed it off to someone else (very likely because of the COI). I do think this kind of COI matters, though I do think second-degree things like this are much less important than first-degree relationships. I feel like the COI here has been handled fine, though I can’t speak with confidence (like, I don’t think it would be appropriate to have norms that force Open Phil employees to force their partners to not get close to anyone they were evaluating).
At a privacy level, I think (though man I am holding this very tentatively and am not intending to push back strongly in either direction) it’s better for the world if people feel comfortable discussing this stuff, while also taking some steps to not expose all of someone’s private and romantic life to the public. I think in the OP it would have been better to say “I have heard rumours that the primary grant investigator for Atlas had a metamour-relationship with one of the Atlas co-founders”, like I’ve done in this comment, which I think would have almost all the relevant info across while giving people a bit more privacy. But again, no strong push in either direction, and I would be interested in discussing the norms here more.
In-particular, I think outing someone as polyamorous can have consequences that are similarly bad to outing someone as gay, and can have pretty similar social stigma attached, and I think I am currently quite strongly in favor of not outing people who are gay without their consent.
I think we need a high bar of preemptively blasting a polycule graph onto the forum, and I don’t think the concerns in this post reach that bar.
If lack of polycule auditing has been bad for the movement, then we need a team who does these audits and shares them on a need to know basis.
I think being the grant investigator for a partner’s project would be worth addressing, though not sure if this happened here.
Fwiw I think metamour is much closer to like 1.5- order gap, or can be, than e.g. friend of a friend.
Sorry, I didn’t intend to imply that being a metamour is only as significant as being a friend of a friend. Seems definitely more intense/distortive/COIy to me.
Do you know if the decision to hand off this grant was prior to the relationship or after it?
I think the question of whether the relationship was ongoing during the time of the grant evaluation is important.
I know outing people who are gay can get them as far as murdered in places where homophobia is most rampant. On the other hand, polyamory seems to be a fairly popular model in the rich Bay Area community, often not kept secretive and without such repercussions. So I’m reserved whether this comparison is fair.
Yes, telling people in the Bay Area that someone is poly seems pretty fine, but e.g. many people are not openly poly towards their family, or have relatives in other states, and having you be easily outed as poly when googling you can have large adverse consequences for their relationships beyond the Bay Area.
To give a concrete example, my (non-EA) ex was from Europe, and she had a relative who both didn’t like that she had two partners, and that I was non-white. My understanding was that the “poly” dimension was seen as substantially worse than the racial dimension. The relative’s attitude didn’t particularly affect our relationship much (we both thought it was kind of funny). But at least in Western countries, I think your bar on outing poly people who don’t want to be outed should be at least as high as your bar for outing interracial couples who don’t want to be outed, given the relative levels of antipathy people in Western countries have between the two.
(I may want to delete this comment later).
This comment impressed me a lot. It seems humble, vulnerable and wise. To be able to see the good in something that you are uncomfortable with is at least a little inspiring. I need to improve at this!
My instinct is that this conflict of interest may be a bit worse than you are painting it, although that’s just instinct. It’s unclear and may not be written in a rulebook. I think with all the scrutiny on EA stuff at the moment, orgs should be drawing up specific, clear and public conflict of interest policies—if they don’t have them already.