EA - A List of Things EAs should and shouldn't do, attempt 2 by Nathan Young

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: A List of Things EAs should and shouldn't do, attempt 2, published by Nathan Young on September 16, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.A week ago @Rockwell wrote this list of things she thought EAs shoudn't do. I am glad this discussion is happening. I ran a poll (results here) and here is my attempt at a list more people can agree with: .We can do better, so someone feel free to write version 3.The listThese are not norms for what it is to be a good EA, but rather some boundaries around things that would damage trust. When someone doesn't do these things we widely agree it is a bad signEAs should report relevant conflicts of interestEas should not date coworkers they report to or who report to themEAs should not use sexist or racist epithetsEAs should not date their funders/granteesEAs should not retain someone as a full-time contractor or grant recipient for the long term, where this is illegalEAs should not promote illegal drug use to their colleagues who report to themCommentaryBeyond racism, crime and conflicts of interest the clear theme is "take employment power relations seriously".Some people might want other things on this list, but I don't think there is widespread enough agreement to push those things as norms. Some examples:Illegal drugs - "EAs should not promote illegal drug use to their colleagues" - 41% agreed, 20% disagreed, 35% said "it's complicated", 4% skippedRomance during business hours - "EA, should in general, be as romanceless a place as possible during business hours" - 40% Agreed, 21% disagreed, 36% said "it's complicated", 2% skippedHousing - "EAs should not offer employer-provided housing for more than a predefined and very short period of time" - 27% Agreed 37% Disagreed 31% said "it's complicated", 6% skipped.I know not everyone loves my use of polls or my vibes as a person. But consensus is a really useful tool for moving forward. Sure we can push aside those who disagree, put if we find things that are 70% + agreed, then that tends to move forward much more quickly and painlessly. And it builds trust that we don't steamroll opposition.So I suggest that rather a big list of things that some parts of the community think are obvious and others think are awful, we try and get a short list of things that most people think are pretty good/fine/obvious.Once we have a "checkpoint" that is widely agreed, we can tackle some thornier questions.Full poll resultsThanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org