I don’t see how, if this system had been popularised five years ago, this would have actually prevented the recent problems. At best, we might have gotten a few reports of slightly alarming behaviour. Maybe one or two people would have thought “Hmm, maybe we should think about that”, and then everyone would have been blindsided just as hard as we actually were.
Also...have you ever actually been in a system that operated like this? Let’s go over a story of how this might go.
You’re a socially anxious 20-year-old who’s gone to an EA meeting or two. You’re nervous, you want people to like you, but things are mostly going well. Maybe you’re a bit awkward, but who’s not? You hear about this EA reporting thing, and being a decent and conscientious person, you ask to receive all anonymized data about you, so you can see if there are any problems.
Turns out, there is! It’s only a vague report—after all, we wanted it to be simplified, so people can use the system. Someone reported you under the category “intolerant”. Why? What did you say? Did you say something offensive? Did someone overhear half a conversation? You have no idea what you did, who reported you, or how you can improve. Nobody’s told you that it’s not a big deal to get one or two reports, and besides, you’re an anxious person at the best of times, you’d never believe them anyway. Given this problem, what should you do? Well, you have no idea what behaviour of yours caused the report, so you don’t know. Your only solution is to be guarded at all times and very carefully watch what you say. This does not make it easy to enjoy yourself and make friends, and you always feel somewhat out of place. Eventually, you make excuses to yourself and just stop showing up for meetings.
This is definitely a made up story, but almost exactly this happened to me in my first year at my first job—I had an anonymous, non-specific complaint given to me by my manager, the only one I’ve ever received. I asked what I was supposed to do about that, and my manager had no good answer. Somewhat annoyed, I said maybe the best solution would be to just not make friends at work, and my manager actually agreed with me. Needless to say, I had much more cordial relationships with most colleagues after that. I was also older than 20 and I didn’t actually care about being liked at my job much. I wanted to do well because it was my first job, but they were never my people. Eventually I grew up, got over it, and realised shit happens, but that takes time. I can imagine that if I were younger and amongst people whose ideology I admired, it would have stung far worse.
And...let’s remember the first paragraph here. Why would such a system have actually worked? SBF gets some complaints about being rude or demanding in his job, and what? EA stops taking his money and refuses to take grants from the FTX Future Fund? I don’t think such a system would ever have led to the kind of actions that would have discovered this ahead of time or significantly mitigated its effects on us.
If we’re going to propose a system that encourages people to worry about any minor interaction being recorded as a black mark on them for several years within the community, imposing high costs on the type of socially anxious people who are highly unlikely to be predatory in the first place...well, let’s at least make sure such a system solves the problem.
Main issueOne of the main issues with FTX is taking super high risks. It was unacceptable long ago. If reporting would have been the norm, it seems likely that someone who seen the decision making process (and decisions made), would have made private disclosures to EA management (reported many times for many decisions). Would this information have prevented EA management from still taking a lot of money, or taking this seriously? I am leaning towards the answer of ‘yes’, because internal information is more valuable than public rumors. The action will surely be taken from this point onwards after being burned by this already. Your point about them being reported as “rude” in this situation is not the best example:)
And personalized stories you shared are important, I will take time to think more about such situations.
I don’t see how, if this system had been popularised five years ago, this would have actually prevented the recent problems. At best, we might have gotten a few reports of slightly alarming behaviour. Maybe one or two people would have thought “Hmm, maybe we should think about that”, and then everyone would have been blindsided just as hard as we actually were.
Also...have you ever actually been in a system that operated like this? Let’s go over a story of how this might go.
You’re a socially anxious 20-year-old who’s gone to an EA meeting or two. You’re nervous, you want people to like you, but things are mostly going well. Maybe you’re a bit awkward, but who’s not? You hear about this EA reporting thing, and being a decent and conscientious person, you ask to receive all anonymized data about you, so you can see if there are any problems.
Turns out, there is! It’s only a vague report—after all, we wanted it to be simplified, so people can use the system. Someone reported you under the category “intolerant”. Why? What did you say? Did you say something offensive? Did someone overhear half a conversation? You have no idea what you did, who reported you, or how you can improve. Nobody’s told you that it’s not a big deal to get one or two reports, and besides, you’re an anxious person at the best of times, you’d never believe them anyway. Given this problem, what should you do? Well, you have no idea what behaviour of yours caused the report, so you don’t know. Your only solution is to be guarded at all times and very carefully watch what you say. This does not make it easy to enjoy yourself and make friends, and you always feel somewhat out of place. Eventually, you make excuses to yourself and just stop showing up for meetings.
This is definitely a made up story, but almost exactly this happened to me in my first year at my first job—I had an anonymous, non-specific complaint given to me by my manager, the only one I’ve ever received. I asked what I was supposed to do about that, and my manager had no good answer. Somewhat annoyed, I said maybe the best solution would be to just not make friends at work, and my manager actually agreed with me. Needless to say, I had much more cordial relationships with most colleagues after that. I was also older than 20 and I didn’t actually care about being liked at my job much. I wanted to do well because it was my first job, but they were never my people. Eventually I grew up, got over it, and realised shit happens, but that takes time. I can imagine that if I were younger and amongst people whose ideology I admired, it would have stung far worse.
And...let’s remember the first paragraph here. Why would such a system have actually worked? SBF gets some complaints about being rude or demanding in his job, and what? EA stops taking his money and refuses to take grants from the FTX Future Fund? I don’t think such a system would ever have led to the kind of actions that would have discovered this ahead of time or significantly mitigated its effects on us.
If we’re going to propose a system that encourages people to worry about any minor interaction being recorded as a black mark on them for several years within the community, imposing high costs on the type of socially anxious people who are highly unlikely to be predatory in the first place...well, let’s at least make sure such a system solves the problem.
Nice points as always.
Main issueOne of the main issues with FTX is taking super high risks. It was unacceptable long ago. If reporting would have been the norm, it seems likely that someone who seen the decision making process (and decisions made), would have made private disclosures to EA management (reported many times for many decisions). Would this information have prevented EA management from still taking a lot of money, or taking this seriously? I am leaning towards the answer of ‘yes’, because internal information is more valuable than public rumors. The action will surely be taken from this point onwards after being burned by this already. Your point about them being reported as “rude” in this situation is not the best example:)And personalized stories you shared are important, I will take time to think more about such situations.