I’m going to use “you have failed” here as a stand-in for all of “you’re power hungry / abusive”, “you’re incompetent / overconfident”, and simply “this person feels deeply misled.” If you object to that term, feel free to suggest a different one, and then read the post as though I had used that term instead.
1) What is your exit strategy if a single individual feels you have failed? (note that asking such a person to find a replacement roommate is clearly not viable—no decent, moral person should be pushing someone in to that environment)
2) What is your exit strategy if a significant minority of participants feels you have failed? (i.e. enough to make the rent hit significant on you, not enough to outvote you)
3) What is your exit strategy if a majority of participants feel you have failed? (I realize you addressed this one somewhere in the nest, but the original post doesn’t mention it, and says that you’re the top of the pack and the exception to an otherwise flat power structure, so it’s unclear if a simple majority vote actually overrules you)
4) What legal commitments are participants making? How do those commitments change if they decide you have failed? (i.e. are you okay with 25% of participants all dropping out of the program, but still living in the house? Under what conditions can you evict participants from their housing?)
5) What if someone wants to drop out, but can’t afford the cost of finding new housing?
6) It sounds like you’re doing this with a fairly local group, most of whom know each other. Since a large chunk of the community will be tied up in this, are you worried about peer pressure? What are you doing to address this? (i.e. if someone leaves the experiment, they’re also not going to see much of their friends, who are still tied up spending 20+ hours a week on this)
Questions I think you’re more likely to object to
(Please disregard if you consider these disrespectful, but I think they are valid and legitimate questions to ask of someone who is planning to assume not just leadership, but a very Authoritarian leadership role)
7) You seem to encounter significant distress in the face of people who are harshly critical of you. How do you think you’ll handle it if a participant freaks out and feels like they are trapped in an abusive situation?
8) In this thread, you’ve often placed your self-image and standards of respect/discourse as significantly more important than discussion of safety issues. Can you offer some reassurances that safety is, in fact, a higher priority than appearances?
I note for others reading this comment and wondering why it hasn’t been addressed that I’ve ceased replying to handoflixue and a couple of other posters on a policy level, for reasons surrounding norms of discourse, strawmanning, epistemic humility, presence or absence of good faith, etc. It’s possible that the above contains good questions or insights; if someone else chooses to repost/re-ask/rephrase sections of this, I’ll likely respond to them.
Genuine Safety Concerns
I’m going to use “you have failed” here as a stand-in for all of “you’re power hungry / abusive”, “you’re incompetent / overconfident”, and simply “this person feels deeply misled.” If you object to that term, feel free to suggest a different one, and then read the post as though I had used that term instead.
1) What is your exit strategy if a single individual feels you have failed? (note that asking such a person to find a replacement roommate is clearly not viable—no decent, moral person should be pushing someone in to that environment)
2) What is your exit strategy if a significant minority of participants feels you have failed? (i.e. enough to make the rent hit significant on you, not enough to outvote you)
3) What is your exit strategy if a majority of participants feel you have failed? (I realize you addressed this one somewhere in the nest, but the original post doesn’t mention it, and says that you’re the top of the pack and the exception to an otherwise flat power structure, so it’s unclear if a simple majority vote actually overrules you)
4) What legal commitments are participants making? How do those commitments change if they decide you have failed? (i.e. are you okay with 25% of participants all dropping out of the program, but still living in the house? Under what conditions can you evict participants from their housing?)
5) What if someone wants to drop out, but can’t afford the cost of finding new housing?
6) It sounds like you’re doing this with a fairly local group, most of whom know each other. Since a large chunk of the community will be tied up in this, are you worried about peer pressure? What are you doing to address this? (i.e. if someone leaves the experiment, they’re also not going to see much of their friends, who are still tied up spending 20+ hours a week on this)
Questions I think you’re more likely to object to
(Please disregard if you consider these disrespectful, but I think they are valid and legitimate questions to ask of someone who is planning to assume not just leadership, but a very Authoritarian leadership role)
7) You seem to encounter significant distress in the face of people who are harshly critical of you. How do you think you’ll handle it if a participant freaks out and feels like they are trapped in an abusive situation?
8) In this thread, you’ve often placed your self-image and standards of respect/discourse as significantly more important than discussion of safety issues. Can you offer some reassurances that safety is, in fact, a higher priority than appearances?
I note for others reading this comment and wondering why it hasn’t been addressed that I’ve ceased replying to handoflixue and a couple of other posters on a policy level, for reasons surrounding norms of discourse, strawmanning, epistemic humility, presence or absence of good faith, etc. It’s possible that the above contains good questions or insights; if someone else chooses to repost/re-ask/rephrase sections of this, I’ll likely respond to them.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/c1/wellkept_gardens_die_by_pacifism/