In response to the recent articles about sexual misconduct in EA and Rationalism, a lot of discussion has ended up being about around whether the level of misconduct is “worse than average”. I think this is focusing on the wrong thing. EA is a movement that should be striving for excellence. Merely being “average” is not good enough.
I agree “average” is not a good benchmark. However, I would say EA should be striving for excellence in terms of impact. This does not mean solving 100 % of each problem. For example, reducing the number of drownings to 0 is excellent in the sense of minimising deaths from drownings, but would require spending resourses quite wastefully (the amount of resources required to eliminate the last death could do way more good spent elsewhere).
So I think the question is how much resources should be spent addressing sexual misconduct and related issues. If the problem was worse than the “average” in the general population, then there would be a strong case for the current level of resources not being sufficient. The better the situation is relative to the “average”, the weaker is the case, and there is a point beyond which it would make sense to spend less resources on the margin.
Indeed, the only way to 100% ensure no misconduct ever would be to shut down the society entirely. But i’ll note that none of the actions we took in our club cost any money, really it’s mostly a culture and norms thing. EA does pay the community health team, but I would guess it gets back far more than it spends, in terms of recruitment, reducing PR disasters, etc.
I’ll note that high standards are important in general as EA becomes more powerful. EA may have a strong voice in writing the value systems of AI, for example, so it’s important that the people doing so are not ethically compromised.
Thanks for writing this post.
I agree “average” is not a good benchmark. However, I would say EA should be striving for excellence in terms of impact. This does not mean solving 100 % of each problem. For example, reducing the number of drownings to 0 is excellent in the sense of minimising deaths from drownings, but would require spending resourses quite wastefully (the amount of resources required to eliminate the last death could do way more good spent elsewhere).
So I think the question is how much resources should be spent addressing sexual misconduct and related issues. If the problem was worse than the “average” in the general population, then there would be a strong case for the current level of resources not being sufficient. The better the situation is relative to the “average”, the weaker is the case, and there is a point beyond which it would make sense to spend less resources on the margin.
Indeed, the only way to 100% ensure no misconduct ever would be to shut down the society entirely. But i’ll note that none of the actions we took in our club cost any money, really it’s mostly a culture and norms thing. EA does pay the community health team, but I would guess it gets back far more than it spends, in terms of recruitment, reducing PR disasters, etc.
I’ll note that high standards are important in general as EA becomes more powerful. EA may have a strong voice in writing the value systems of AI, for example, so it’s important that the people doing so are not ethically compromised.
I see your formulation (that I just saw, after publishing my own) is both more succinct and probably less confrontational that my own. Support.