As soon as you write down something formal, bad actors can abuse that process.
Bad actors can also abuse informal processes. If a process is informal, the key to winning is generally effective manipulation of public opinion. When rival factions fight to manipulate public opinion, that creates the kind of conflict that leads to bloody schisms.
If, as I argued above, this example doesn’t improve that our process is bad, where else can we look for evidence that its bad? One obvious place would be the reference class of other social movements. If other movements had panels like this and also had fewer problems with bad actors relative to their size, that would be moderately strong evidence in favour of it being a good idea.
This seems like a definitional argument to me. EA is a movement, movements don’t have panels, therefore EA shouldn’t have a panel. Such an argument doesn’t touch on the actual consequences of having a panel. If EA is a question, maybe the answer to that question is an “association” rather than a movement, and it’s not unusual for associations to have panels.
In some cases an association will be so closely identified with the area it works in that the two will seem almost synonymous. I understand that in the US, almost everyone who wants a job as an actuary takes exams administered by a group called the Society of Actuaries. This seems like the ideal case for EA. But even if there were multiple competing associations, or not everyone chose to be a part of the main one, I suspect this wouldn’t be very bad. (Some thoughts on competition between organizations in this comment.)
I’m not sure point (2) has much to do with this decision. People would still get gentle suggestions that they were harming the movement if there was a panel. The point is to have a process if gentle suggestions aren’t working.
Carl Shulman mentioned the value of transparency in another thread related to this, but it occurs to me that a person subject to disciplinary action might want to keep it private, and that could be reasonable in some cases.
Panels only work if (almost) everybody involved agrees that’s where authority lies.
I agree that authority is generally something other people grant you, not something you take for yourself. That’s part of why I’m trying to respond to the comments critical of this idea, since this sort of thing works best when almost everyone is on board.
Instead of compelling others to recognize its authority, the panel should work to earn its authority. They should say explicitly that if they’re not taking your suggestions, you’re free to vote with your feet and set up your own thing.
I think groups generally function better when they’re able to grant authority this way. I would guess that the scouting movement, which seems to have granted authority to a group called the World Organization of the Scout Movement, functions better than feminism/animal rights/environmentalism (though I will grant that the advocacy coming out of the latter three is more compelling).
Very speculatively, I wonder if an “association” is what you want when you’re trying to produce something, and a “movement” is what you want when you’re trying to change attitudes in a relatively untargeted way.
I think most people have a strong intuition that any such panel should be as diverse and be as broadly representative of the views of the EA movement at large as is reasonably possible given size constraints. I agree with this intuition.
I think this is mainly desirable because people will be more willing to grant authority to a panel that’s seen as representative of the entire movement. In terms of the actual decisions being made, I can imagine a panel that’s entirely unrepresentative of the EA movement (e.g. trained mediators from Japan, where EA has little presence) doing nearly as good of a job.
If a new cause area gains standing in the movement, by definition it’s achieved buy-in from people, which probably includes panel members. And even if none of them are very excited about it, if they have much in common with the EAs I’ve met, they are fair-minded enough for it not to interfere with their work significantly.
In many societies that do have such panels, the panels are elected by members of the society. We could do that, but this is extremely messy. It will get political. Some group x will end up feeling unfairly excluded from the inner group of power brokers. At that point you have a powder keg of resentment making to explode.
The more power the panel has, the more process there needs to be in selecting who will serve. My current guess is that the panel’s powers should be pretty limited. They should see their mission as “facilitating discussions about effective altruism”, or something like that, not “doing the most good”.
Bad actors can also abuse informal processes. If a process is informal, the key to winning is generally effective manipulation of public opinion. When rival factions fight to manipulate public opinion, that creates the kind of conflict that leads to bloody schisms.
This seems like a definitional argument to me. EA is a movement, movements don’t have panels, therefore EA shouldn’t have a panel. Such an argument doesn’t touch on the actual consequences of having a panel. If EA is a question, maybe the answer to that question is an “association” rather than a movement, and it’s not unusual for associations to have panels.
In some cases an association will be so closely identified with the area it works in that the two will seem almost synonymous. I understand that in the US, almost everyone who wants a job as an actuary takes exams administered by a group called the Society of Actuaries. This seems like the ideal case for EA. But even if there were multiple competing associations, or not everyone chose to be a part of the main one, I suspect this wouldn’t be very bad. (Some thoughts on competition between organizations in this comment.)
I think it’s pretty normal for professional associations, at least, to have a disciplinary process. Here’s the CFA institute on how they deal with ethics violations for instance.
I’m not sure point (2) has much to do with this decision. People would still get gentle suggestions that they were harming the movement if there was a panel. The point is to have a process if gentle suggestions aren’t working.
Carl Shulman mentioned the value of transparency in another thread related to this, but it occurs to me that a person subject to disciplinary action might want to keep it private, and that could be reasonable in some cases.
I agree that authority is generally something other people grant you, not something you take for yourself. That’s part of why I’m trying to respond to the comments critical of this idea, since this sort of thing works best when almost everyone is on board.
Instead of compelling others to recognize its authority, the panel should work to earn its authority. They should say explicitly that if they’re not taking your suggestions, you’re free to vote with your feet and set up your own thing.
I think groups generally function better when they’re able to grant authority this way. I would guess that the scouting movement, which seems to have granted authority to a group called the World Organization of the Scout Movement, functions better than feminism/animal rights/environmentalism (though I will grant that the advocacy coming out of the latter three is more compelling).
Very speculatively, I wonder if an “association” is what you want when you’re trying to produce something, and a “movement” is what you want when you’re trying to change attitudes in a relatively untargeted way.
I think this is mainly desirable because people will be more willing to grant authority to a panel that’s seen as representative of the entire movement. In terms of the actual decisions being made, I can imagine a panel that’s entirely unrepresentative of the EA movement (e.g. trained mediators from Japan, where EA has little presence) doing nearly as good of a job.
If a new cause area gains standing in the movement, by definition it’s achieved buy-in from people, which probably includes panel members. And even if none of them are very excited about it, if they have much in common with the EAs I’ve met, they are fair-minded enough for it not to interfere with their work significantly.
The more power the panel has, the more process there needs to be in selecting who will serve. My current guess is that the panel’s powers should be pretty limited. They should see their mission as “facilitating discussions about effective altruism”, or something like that, not “doing the most good”.