Let me separately register that I think it reflects poorly on the authors of the post that they didnât pause to acknowledge this commonsense point. Zealous legalism is pretty unpleasant to be around, and I would hate for this sort of thing (more witch-hunt than whistleblowing, IMO) to become a standard part of EA culture.
Whistleblowers should try to expose wrongdoing, not legalistic âgotchasâ. Headline references to âbreaking the lawâ strongly implicate that one is talking about serious, morally justified laws (like against murder, fraud, etc.). But I recall reading that there are so many obscure and arbitrary laws on the books that probably anyone has unwitting broken dozens of them without ever realizing it. So if youâre going to go after people for doing nothing wrong but for making themselves vulnerable to legalistic coercion, I think itâs important to be clear on this distinction.
At least in the US, these rules are reasonable and exist for a reasonâsee my top-level post for an explanation of how non-EA organizations have done shady stuff with buying an insiderâs books. Although I donât like the tone of the original post, I also donât think it is appropriate to imply that rules against private gain for charitable trustees are âobscure and arbitraryââmaterial on that topic is, or at least should be, in Being a Trustee/âDirector 101.
My read of the article is that it is alleging incompetence and/âor lack of regard for laws rather than alleging wrongdoing. Iâm a trustee of a number of UK charities myself and the Charity Commission sends all trustees basic information on manging conflicts of interest and data protection. They are by no means âobscure and arbitraryâ and I think we as a community need to be extra careful to comply with the letter and spirit of every law given the recent FTX events.
Let me separately register that I think it reflects poorly on the authors of the post that they didnât pause to acknowledge this commonsense point. Zealous legalism is pretty unpleasant to be around, and I would hate for this sort of thing (more witch-hunt than whistleblowing, IMO) to become a standard part of EA culture.
Whistleblowers should try to expose wrongdoing, not legalistic âgotchasâ. Headline references to âbreaking the lawâ strongly implicate that one is talking about serious, morally justified laws (like against murder, fraud, etc.). But I recall reading that there are so many obscure and arbitrary laws on the books that probably anyone has unwitting broken dozens of them without ever realizing it. So if youâre going to go after people for doing nothing wrong but for making themselves vulnerable to legalistic coercion, I think itâs important to be clear on this distinction.
At least in the US, these rules are reasonable and exist for a reasonâsee my top-level post for an explanation of how non-EA organizations have done shady stuff with buying an insiderâs books. Although I donât like the tone of the original post, I also donât think it is appropriate to imply that rules against private gain for charitable trustees are âobscure and arbitraryââmaterial on that topic is, or at least should be, in Being a Trustee/âDirector 101.
My read of the article is that it is alleging incompetence and/âor lack of regard for laws rather than alleging wrongdoing. Iâm a trustee of a number of UK charities myself and the Charity Commission sends all trustees basic information on manging conflicts of interest and data protection. They are by no means âobscure and arbitraryâ and I think we as a community need to be extra careful to comply with the letter and spirit of every law given the recent FTX events.