I will add: Have a very clear contract between the founding members of the house about who pays rent to the landlord (every tenant directly, or one tenant who is paid by other tenants), subletting rules, who is responsible for finding the sublets or successors for their own bedrooms when they leave, and especially:
whether founders remain responsible for finding successors for their own bedrooms after the mandatory lease period with the landlord is over (adding emphasis here!), or whether the founder (or founders) who stays longest is responsible for maintaining the finances and existence of the group house on their own
edit: or option (C), whether each successor to a room is expected to find their subsequent successors in turn, rather than the founding occupant of their room continuing to find successive occupants indefinitely -- and how it will be communicated and contractualized with those successors
Ideally, have this contract notarized. But definitely don't have a verbal agreement on it, and definitely don't make assumptions about what it means to have a joint intention to keep the house going into the future.
Thank you, you have responded very thoughtfully! Re "either they should have condemned it wholeheartedly, or said nothing," good on you to call out the implicature of non-statements. I think the dehumanizing nature of boilerplate-like speech goes generally unacknowledged.
It is calamitous that while candid critical questioning can be considered calm and composed, working within a parameter of imperative public positivity ends up sounding sarcastic if the scrutinizer isn't skilled at "the spin." The passive voice is not liked by anyone, and least of all by me.
Hi Amit, I think people might be downvoting you because they don't see James' comment as indicating support for CEA or a similarity in this area between GWWC and CEA.
I'm actually also not sure what part of his comment gave you that indication, but maybe you have some context you can share? I'm not able to weigh in.
Despite the leaf showing your profile is new, I get a hunch from your post history that you have some longer engagement with EA, not that you're an opp who has come from afar to criticize as much as possible about the movement. If something in your experience with EA has jaded you, I would value hearing your story.
I think at this time, we both come across as passive aggressive towards EA in general. If you're able to, I would recommend getting someone to review your posts/comments before you post them, so that they come across in a way that's more aligned with the tone of the forum. I would get feedback on my posts myself, but if I were to share my posts with the people in my life, I would not be able to answer their questions about why I am posting or what I am trying to change. So I am just trying to keep things as positive and indirect as I can. Judging from the karma on my comment a few days ago, I think I'm not really hitting the mark.
I would appreciate if people downvoting this could leave a comment about whether you disagree that these are potentially helpful policies, or if you are under the impression that I am choosing the most visibly supportive people to put on the hot-seat, or something else.
Just scrolling down the Community page and found this older quick take. I wanted to throw in an "agree from personal experience" comment. I wasn't targeted, i.e., I found EA organically by looking up related terms when I was 22. But I really wish I found it when I was 5-10 years older! I think I jumped the gun financially on some donations and personally-funded projects in ways that made me overly vulnerable and less effective.
I took on some debt to self-fund some of my philanthropy advising and career exploration, and that made an exit from an EA group house and an exit from an EA organization both much more stressful than they otherwise would have been. I naively ignored how my lack of financial power could affect these relationships because I generalized the community as "high trust." I accepted surprising things in both situations that were very unfavourable medium-term and long-term, because they were short-term safer financially during a period of several major overlapping stressors.
Even though I have a sense of urgency around effective cause areas and I want to move on them, I am making myself develop a stable financial position before I reengage -- at least as stable as the median highly-engaged EA.
Frances, thank you SO MUCH for coming forward with this, and for your detailed discussion of how such a prominent organization handled a case like this. I am not sure how many people are unable to write posts like this. I really, really appreciate it.
I am seeing this post a couple months late because I radically stepped back from the EA community in August. As much as this post has shaken me (literally), I am so grateful that it's here to read and that I got to read it.
On a personal note (which I'll circle back from), I miss everyone! There was a time last summer that I was bed-bound by a week-long anxiety-driven vasovagal episode that I told everyone was food poisoning. As much as I want to go back to EAGs and Slack channels, my body threatens me with something similar whenever I think about it. (To anyone whose emails I've ignored, I'm really sorry!) I even spent almost the entire Vancouver Summit hiding in a locked room, even though I helped host it in a building that's a second home to me. Like, the keys to that building are on my keychain every day, I have slept in it, I loved so many people at that event... but even there, I couldn't face anyone who might ask me what I've been up to and why it's not the same as it used to be.
Circling back, I don't know if you remember me from EAGs, but I remember meeting you "a few Bostons ago" at an afterparty. It's not just that you're a ray of sunshine, it's also that seeing you in a prominent position as a candid young woman gave me hope for what I might be able to do. I hope that energy propagates in the community... but I mostly hope you do really well going forward. Because to me, you've been a cornerstone of this community, and I think whichever communities have people like you in them will do good better. So if you have any difficulty engaging with the community in ways that remind you of what happened, I wish you all the healing, and I also know that any other directions you put your energy into instead will blossom.
Hi James S., this is a lovely comment. Please keep me updated on how GWWC's safeguarding, whistleblowing and harassment policies support and encourage things like seeking accountability and sharing courageously/honestly. I can't find them on the website very easily anymore, but I'm sure I just misplaced the link.
Could you let all of us know whether GWWC currently participates in any practises like:
external mediation or investigation of discrimination/harassment complaints
transparently discussing any suspected or alleged discrimination/harassment separately with each party to the issue before decisions
discussions with employees from experiences of trauma/marginalization/neurodivergence about how to proactively support them
as well as during any conflicts, asking whether experience with trauma/marginalization/neurodivergence is affecting their experience/communication and what equity would look like from their perspective
trauma-informed external training of supervisors on recognizing signs of mental health crises and referring exclusively to qualified, external support
a policy to flag and prevent internal conflicts of interest, including but not limited to coworkers also being each other's:
roommates
partners
family members
1-1 peer support providers
an internal policy against NDAs, or at least ones that
prevent a person from bringing forth claim's with their country's human rights tribunals
prevent a person from discussing any and all particulars of their situation with a licensed clinical counsellor, doctor, nurse, victim service provider, etc. in their region
never expire
(All of these NDA "not-best practises" are just taken from this proposed bill that I helped petition for at Vancouver Pride a couple of years ago when I was volunteering with the BC Greens under their leader at the time, the sponsor of this bill, Sonia Furstenau.)
(Also inspired by this resolution from the Canadian Bar Association which was carried, overwhelmingly, back in 2023.)
It would be great if you could address these potential strategies for preventing harassment and discrimination in our community.
James, you and Sjir were particularly supportive to me when I left GWWC, and I am very grateful for you both. I continue to structure my giving around the GWWC principles, even though I ended my pledge.
For good measure of course, it would be great to hear from CEA, AIM, and any other large orgs in our community about their policies regarding discrimination/harassment, training and support from external experts in supporting members of marginalized communities, COIs, and NDAs. But just seeing your supportive comment here, I am especially interested in all of us being able to hear about how GWWC models this.
Hi Peter, I found this old post in my bookmarks! I went through your post history and couldn't find the time when you clearly became more supportive of x-risk research, but you run IAPS now. I am still sympathetic to a lot of what you say in this old post, so I was wondering if you could describe when you became more supportive of x-risk work and why?
I've been in awe of your team these last couple years. Thank you for your great work. It meant so much to me that I got to meet with you personally when I took the pledge and became a GWWC Ambassador in 2022! Best of luck with your next steps.
Thank you for checking it out! I'll check the settings on this. I haven't been able to find a way to make this visible yet, and I think the best that Guided Track has to offer might be to click the previous section headings...
I will add: Have a very clear contract between the founding members of the house about who pays rent to the landlord (every tenant directly, or one tenant who is paid by other tenants), subletting rules, who is responsible for finding the sublets or successors for their own bedrooms when they leave, and especially:
whether founders remain responsible for finding successors for their own bedrooms after the mandatory lease period with the landlord is over (adding emphasis here!), or whether the founder (or founders) who stays longest is responsible for maintaining the finances and existence of the group house on their own
Ideally, have this contract notarized. But definitely don't have a verbal agreement on it, and definitely don't make assumptions about what it means to have a joint intention to keep the house going into the future.
Thank you, you have responded very thoughtfully! Re "either they should have condemned it wholeheartedly, or said nothing," good on you to call out the implicature of non-statements. I think the dehumanizing nature of boilerplate-like speech goes generally unacknowledged.
It is calamitous that while candid critical questioning can be considered calm and composed, working within a parameter of imperative public positivity ends up sounding sarcastic if the scrutinizer isn't skilled at "the spin." The passive voice is not liked by anyone, and least of all by me.
Hi Amit, I think people might be downvoting you because they don't see James' comment as indicating support for CEA or a similarity in this area between GWWC and CEA.
I'm actually also not sure what part of his comment gave you that indication, but maybe you have some context you can share? I'm not able to weigh in.
Despite the leaf showing your profile is new, I get a hunch from your post history that you have some longer engagement with EA, not that you're an opp who has come from afar to criticize as much as possible about the movement. If something in your experience with EA has jaded you, I would value hearing your story.
I think at this time, we both come across as passive aggressive towards EA in general. If you're able to, I would recommend getting someone to review your posts/comments before you post them, so that they come across in a way that's more aligned with the tone of the forum. I would get feedback on my posts myself, but if I were to share my posts with the people in my life, I would not be able to answer their questions about why I am posting or what I am trying to change. So I am just trying to keep things as positive and indirect as I can. Judging from the karma on my comment a few days ago, I think I'm not really hitting the mark.
I would appreciate if people downvoting this could leave a comment about whether you disagree that these are potentially helpful policies, or if you are under the impression that I am choosing the most visibly supportive people to put on the hot-seat, or something else.
Just scrolling down the Community page and found this older quick take. I wanted to throw in an "agree from personal experience" comment. I wasn't targeted, i.e., I found EA organically by looking up related terms when I was 22. But I really wish I found it when I was 5-10 years older! I think I jumped the gun financially on some donations and personally-funded projects in ways that made me overly vulnerable and less effective.
I took on some debt to self-fund some of my philanthropy advising and career exploration, and that made an exit from an EA group house and an exit from an EA organization both much more stressful than they otherwise would have been. I naively ignored how my lack of financial power could affect these relationships because I generalized the community as "high trust." I accepted surprising things in both situations that were very unfavourable medium-term and long-term, because they were short-term safer financially during a period of several major overlapping stressors.
Even though I have a sense of urgency around effective cause areas and I want to move on them, I am making myself develop a stable financial position before I reengage -- at least as stable as the median highly-engaged EA.
Frances, thank you SO MUCH for coming forward with this, and for your detailed discussion of how such a prominent organization handled a case like this. I am not sure how many people are unable to write posts like this. I really, really appreciate it.
I am seeing this post a couple months late because I radically stepped back from the EA community in August. As much as this post has shaken me (literally), I am so grateful that it's here to read and that I got to read it.
On a personal note (which I'll circle back from), I miss everyone! There was a time last summer that I was bed-bound by a week-long anxiety-driven vasovagal episode that I told everyone was food poisoning. As much as I want to go back to EAGs and Slack channels, my body threatens me with something similar whenever I think about it. (To anyone whose emails I've ignored, I'm really sorry!) I even spent almost the entire Vancouver Summit hiding in a locked room, even though I helped host it in a building that's a second home to me. Like, the keys to that building are on my keychain every day, I have slept in it, I loved so many people at that event... but even there, I couldn't face anyone who might ask me what I've been up to and why it's not the same as it used to be.
Circling back, I don't know if you remember me from EAGs, but I remember meeting you "a few Bostons ago" at an afterparty. It's not just that you're a ray of sunshine, it's also that seeing you in a prominent position as a candid young woman gave me hope for what I might be able to do. I hope that energy propagates in the community... but I mostly hope you do really well going forward. Because to me, you've been a cornerstone of this community, and I think whichever communities have people like you in them will do good better. So if you have any difficulty engaging with the community in ways that remind you of what happened, I wish you all the healing, and I also know that any other directions you put your energy into instead will blossom.
Hi James S., this is a lovely comment. Please keep me updated on how GWWC's safeguarding, whistleblowing and harassment policies support and encourage things like seeking accountability and sharing courageously/honestly. I can't find them on the website very easily anymore, but I'm sure I just misplaced the link.
Could you let all of us know whether GWWC currently participates in any practises like:
It would be great if you could address these potential strategies for preventing harassment and discrimination in our community.
James, you and Sjir were particularly supportive to me when I left GWWC, and I am very grateful for you both. I continue to structure my giving around the GWWC principles, even though I ended my pledge.
For good measure of course, it would be great to hear from CEA, AIM, and any other large orgs in our community about their policies regarding discrimination/harassment, training and support from external experts in supporting members of marginalized communities, COIs, and NDAs. But just seeing your supportive comment here, I am especially interested in all of us being able to hear about how GWWC models this.
Thanks so much!
Hi Peter, I found this old post in my bookmarks! I went through your post history and couldn't find the time when you clearly became more supportive of x-risk research, but you run IAPS now. I am still sympathetic to a lot of what you say in this old post, so I was wondering if you could describe when you became more supportive of x-risk work and why?
I've been in awe of your team these last couple years. Thank you for your great work. It meant so much to me that I got to meet with you personally when I took the pledge and became a GWWC Ambassador in 2022! Best of luck with your next steps.
Thank you for checking it out! I'll check the settings on this. I haven't been able to find a way to make this visible yet, and I think the best that Guided Track has to offer might be to click the previous section headings...