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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26707 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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While I don't endorse "come on, you should totally draw art for my product"–type behavior, I do think the position would have been appealing and appropriate for a certain type of person I am not far from. My monthly salary on top of room and board was significantly larger as a military enlistee, but I also wasn't traveling the world. I think they were realistically underpaying for what they wanted but also think "don't take the job" is an adequate remedy to that.

I take your point about the writing style, but for me it's secondary to the core impression that the investigation was very badly mishandled in a way that makes examining things now feel unfair. The initial report should not have been released as-is and it reflects poorly on the whole EA/LW-rationalist community that it was. Given the poor choices around its release, I don't feel inclined to focus too much on what really looks like mundane and predictable workplace/roommate drama.

I agree that it was badly mishandled. I think it's valuable to tell EAs that the "people will try to get you to take a job where they say you'll be paid in experience/exposure, be mindful of that dynamic" but singling out a single organization to that degree makes it sound like it's a problem specific to that organization (which it is not, even within the EA space I personally know of another org with similar dynamics, and I'm not even very involved with the space).

I personally still wouldn't work for nonlinear but then I also would have noped out in the initial hash-out-the-contract phase.

The problem is that even if Nonlinear is pure as the driven snow (and there seems to be some grounds to doubt that), it's operating in the EA sphere where 'put the majority of the money you earn to good causes, live sparely so you can give even more' is an acceptable community value, and where there are a lot of idealists willing to save the world if they can, and willing to be emotionally guilt-tripped into volunteering, doing way more work than they should be doing, and living on fresh air while doing that. Where scrupulosity is a known problem, and people do tie themselves into knots over paperclip maximisers.

It's not sustainable for anybody and it's very open to abuse.

Yeah. And honestly, there are worse things than being paid in exposure. I'd describe that as the primary compensation for my podcast job (my bosses pay me a perfectly fair hourly wage, but I'm certainly not doing it for the money). It's just worth being clear-eyed about precisely what that entails and when it's appropriate.

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