FYI Event Horizon in the Bay does this (mostly focused on logistics stuff rather than community manager type stuff AFAICT, although I don’t live there so I’m not sure)
Yup, and it turns out the idea proposed in the OP is actually way more complicated than it sounds. For one thing, it’s unlikely that a single person would be very well-suited for all of the jobs listed (e.g. I am good at the ops/logistics stuff but shy away strongly from the conflict resolution type stuff). But more importantly, it’s unlikely that everyone in the house would be happy enough with every decision the housekeeper made that they would be able to function as autonomously as described. This happens even if the housekeeper is entirely competent at all of their tasks, because people will just have conflicting tastes about things like decorating—this is basically inevitable in a larger house.
I also think it helps people have buy-in to their house if not literally all of the tasks are assigned to one person. At Event Horizon, the ‘housekeeper’ isn’t in charge of cooking house dinner or running events, which lets more people do something tangible for the house as a whole (besides just a chore), and leads to a diversity of events tailored to what different subgroups in the house want to do. We also have monthly ‘virtues’ which just means that everyone volunteers to do something nice for the house, which can range from ‘replace some light bulbs’ to ‘draft a proposal for a new house system’ to ‘make it so we have a library.’ I think this is pretty important.
Bottom line I agree that some version of this thing is likely a good idea for most larger houses, but it’s a part of working out systems for house governance, which is a really complicated task. I’m hoping to write a mini-sequence in the coming year on what I’ve learned about running a rationalist house, but I don’t currently feel equipped to write an authoritative section on house governance systems because we are still very much in the middle of working that out.
(I will note for completeness sake that though running Event Horizon is definitely enough work to be someone’s full-time job, it’s never been paid enough for that to be practical for anyone, so I’m not totally sure what house leadership would look like if someone was putting all of their working effort towards it.)
It was 16 when I took over the house a little over a year ago, currently down to 10 permanent residents, which is the lowest it’s ever been while I’ve been here.
We gave the lowest floor of the house to REACH, which I think is the biggest difference.
The second part is that I think the house now has on average people with more stable lives and more stable financial situations, which makes less people interested in stacking themselves like sardines into rooms to get around high rent prices.
When I was at Event Horizon, I was one of the people voting that we should spend more on the house manager, but also at the time about a third (maybe even half?) of residents of Event Horizon were living on runway, and so a 10% increase in rent would mean 9% less time to lift off. And with 10 people (the size of a more normal house), this just covers rent for the house manager; being able to pay them a somewhat reasonable salary looks more like a 20% or 30% increase in rent.
FYI Event Horizon in the Bay does this (mostly focused on logistics stuff rather than community manager type stuff AFAICT, although I don’t live there so I’m not sure)
Yup, and it turns out the idea proposed in the OP is actually way more complicated than it sounds. For one thing, it’s unlikely that a single person would be very well-suited for all of the jobs listed (e.g. I am good at the ops/logistics stuff but shy away strongly from the conflict resolution type stuff). But more importantly, it’s unlikely that everyone in the house would be happy enough with every decision the housekeeper made that they would be able to function as autonomously as described. This happens even if the housekeeper is entirely competent at all of their tasks, because people will just have conflicting tastes about things like decorating—this is basically inevitable in a larger house.
I also think it helps people have buy-in to their house if not literally all of the tasks are assigned to one person. At Event Horizon, the ‘housekeeper’ isn’t in charge of cooking house dinner or running events, which lets more people do something tangible for the house as a whole (besides just a chore), and leads to a diversity of events tailored to what different subgroups in the house want to do. We also have monthly ‘virtues’ which just means that everyone volunteers to do something nice for the house, which can range from ‘replace some light bulbs’ to ‘draft a proposal for a new house system’ to ‘make it so we have a library.’ I think this is pretty important.
Bottom line I agree that some version of this thing is likely a good idea for most larger houses, but it’s a part of working out systems for house governance, which is a really complicated task. I’m hoping to write a mini-sequence in the coming year on what I’ve learned about running a rationalist house, but I don’t currently feel equipped to write an authoritative section on house governance systems because we are still very much in the middle of working that out.
(I will note for completeness sake that though running Event Horizon is definitely enough work to be someone’s full-time job, it’s never been paid enough for that to be practical for anyone, so I’m not totally sure what house leadership would look like if someone was putting all of their working effort towards it.)
How many people are at Event Horizon?
It was 16 when I took over the house a little over a year ago, currently down to 10 permanent residents, which is the lowest it’s ever been while I’ve been here.
Why do you think it’s fallen down to 10?
We gave the lowest floor of the house to REACH, which I think is the biggest difference.
The second part is that I think the house now has on average people with more stable lives and more stable financial situations, which makes less people interested in stacking themselves like sardines into rooms to get around high rent prices.
Was the name “Event Horizon” chosen specifically in reference to what happens when you pack things as densely into a small space as you can?
It’s had a huge range, from about a dozen to just over twenty.
When I was at Event Horizon, I was one of the people voting that we should spend more on the house manager, but also at the time about a third (maybe even half?) of residents of Event Horizon were living on runway, and so a 10% increase in rent would mean 9% less time to lift off. And with 10 people (the size of a more normal house), this just covers rent for the house manager; being able to pay them a somewhat reasonable salary looks more like a 20% or 30% increase in rent.