Interesting post! I’ve just been talking to some friends about how there’s not enough protection against sexual harassment taking place in EA spaces (i.e. Julia Wise can’t be physically present in every conference and local group). Not to mention sex scandals.
But on one specific point—could you give an example of successful institutions and their rules about fraternisation?
Most of the Wikipedia article talks about the military, and there’s some talk about education, while I think of EA more like a workplace, and for those the Wiki article mostly talks about legality of restrictions.
In my country it’s extremely uncommon to have restrictions like these in a workplace. It’s also a cultural thing—I’ve heard (correct me if I’m wrong) that in the US there are very strong social norms against talking to (or having lunch with) your manager’s manager, while here in Israel there are none, and I don’t see any damage from that.
But maybe I’m just misunderstanding, which is why I’m asking for examples.
Great question! When I write fraternization I mean any personal relationship, romantic or platonic. I realize the Wiki article is misleading in this regard, here’s an example where the term is used to mean romantic relationships. Romantic interactions generally pose the most risk so policies around this are common. This is the lowest-hanging fruit for EA as far as I’m concerned.
You probably already know this though and are referring to platonic interactions?
I agree that having lunch here and there with someone is fine. The issue is when close friends can influence EA activities (like access to events, grants, jobs etc.). Here Apple defines close friendships as a “significant personal relationship” and therefore “do not conduct Apple business” with them.
With appropriate conflict of interest norms, I don’t think EA will need to do anything close to trying to regulate normal friendships. I’m mostly referring to the often intense social scene that emerges around EA communities and events. An example cited in this post “Open EA Global”:
Waking up hungover, again, trying to make sense of the fact the most serious partying in my life now happens at conferences of people who talk obsessively about doing the most good.
This seems unprecedented for a mission-driven organization. The American Psychiatric Association probably doesn’t have a policy around raging parties because there is a 0% chance that raging parties would be a fixture of APA conferences.
What I would like to see is for EA to professionalize a little bit and implement some movement-protecting norms around 1) romantic relationships and 2) certain social gatherings, which would be most of the relevant risk mitigation.
Sorry to be the fun-police, I just think the riskiest sorts of fun should happen a bit further from EA.
Interesting post! I’ve just been talking to some friends about how there’s not enough protection against sexual harassment taking place in EA spaces (i.e. Julia Wise can’t be physically present in every conference and local group). Not to mention sex scandals.
But on one specific point—could you give an example of successful institutions and their rules about fraternisation?
Most of the Wikipedia article talks about the military, and there’s some talk about education, while I think of EA more like a workplace, and for those the Wiki article mostly talks about legality of restrictions.
In my country it’s extremely uncommon to have restrictions like these in a workplace. It’s also a cultural thing—I’ve heard (correct me if I’m wrong) that in the US there are very strong social norms against talking to (or having lunch with) your manager’s manager, while here in Israel there are none, and I don’t see any damage from that.
But maybe I’m just misunderstanding, which is why I’m asking for examples.
Great question! When I write fraternization I mean any personal relationship, romantic or platonic. I realize the Wiki article is misleading in this regard, here’s an example where the term is used to mean romantic relationships. Romantic interactions generally pose the most risk so policies around this are common. This is the lowest-hanging fruit for EA as far as I’m concerned.
You probably already know this though and are referring to platonic interactions?
I agree that having lunch here and there with someone is fine. The issue is when close friends can influence EA activities (like access to events, grants, jobs etc.). Here Apple defines close friendships as a “significant personal relationship” and therefore “do not conduct Apple business” with them.
With appropriate conflict of interest norms, I don’t think EA will need to do anything close to trying to regulate normal friendships. I’m mostly referring to the often intense social scene that emerges around EA communities and events. An example cited in this post “Open EA Global”:
This seems unprecedented for a mission-driven organization. The American Psychiatric Association probably doesn’t have a policy around raging parties because there is a 0% chance that raging parties would be a fixture of APA conferences.
What I would like to see is for EA to professionalize a little bit and implement some movement-protecting norms around 1) romantic relationships and 2) certain social gatherings, which would be most of the relevant risk mitigation.
Sorry to be the fun-police, I just think the riskiest sorts of fun should happen a bit further from EA.
Thanks for the detailed reply! All those suggestions seem reasonable to me, after your clarifications.