Woah! That’s like 10x more effort than I expect >90% of difficult-to-communicate-with people will go through.
Kudos to Nate for that.
There are things that I really like about the document, but I feel like I’d need to know more about its reason for being created to say whether this deserves kudos.
It seems plausible that the story went something like this: “Nate had so much social standing that he was allowed/enabled to do what most ‘difficult to interact with’ people couldn’t, namely to continue in their mannerisms without making large changes, and still not suffer from a reduction of social standing. Partly to make this solution palatable to others and to proactively address future PR risks and instances of making people sad (since everyone already expected/was planning for more such instances to come up), Nate wrote this document.”
If an org is going to have this sort of approach to its most senior researcher, it’s still better to do it with a document of this nature than without.
But is this overall a great setup and strategy? I’m doubtful. (Not just for the org as a whole, but also long-term for Nate himself.)
There was never an ask for reciprocal documents from employees. “Here’s a document describing how to communicate with me. I’d appreciate you sending me pointers on how to communicate with you, since I am aware of my communication issues.” was never considered.
There are multiple independent examples of people in various capacities, including his girlfriend, expressing that their opinions were not valued, and a clear hierarchical model was in play.
The more humble “my list of warnings” was highlighted immediately as justification but never broadcast broadly, and there seems to be no cognizance that it’s not something anyone else would ever take upon themselves to share.
So on one hand… your bullet-points there are maybe pointing in a helpful direction. And I think my overall take right now is “however much effort Nate has previously put into improving on his communications or comms-onboarding, probably he (or MIRI) should put more.”
But, your phrasing here feels a bit like a weird demand for exceptional rigor.
Like, although I think Nate is pretty high on “can feel intense to interact with”, it’s not that weird for a company to have an intense manager, and I’ve never heard of companies-with-intense-managers having this sort of doc at all. And I know a bunch of people who are intense to interact with in regular, interpersonal interactions (i.e. while dating), and they also often don’t have docs explaining that.
So, it feels pretty weird (and not particularly “revealing” of anything) that Nate made a pretty novel type of doc… and didn’t (yet) do some additional followup steps with it.
Like, although I think Nate is pretty high on “can feel intense to interact with”, it’s not that weird for a company to have an intense manager, and I’ve never heard of companies-with-intense-managers having this sort of doc at all. And I know a bunch of people who are intense to interact with
But, your phrasing here feels a bit like a weird demand for exceptional rigor.
No—the opposite. I was implying that there’s clearly a deeper underpinning to these patterns that any amount of rigor will be insufficient in solving, but my point has been articulated within KurtB’s excellent later comment, and solutions in the earlier comment by jsteinhardt.
it’s not that weird for a company to have an intense manager
I agree; that’s very true. However, this usually occurs in companies that are chasing zero-sum goals. Employees treated in this manner might often resort to a combination of complaining to HR, being bound by NDAs, or biting the bullet while waiting for their paydays. It’s just particularly disheartening to hear of this years-long pattern, especially given the induced discomfort in speaking out and the efforts to downplay, in an organization that publicly aims to save the world.
There are things that I really like about the document, but I feel like I’d need to know more about its reason for being created to say whether this deserves kudos.
It seems plausible that the story went something like this: “Nate had so much social standing that he was allowed/enabled to do what most ‘difficult to interact with’ people couldn’t, namely to continue in their mannerisms without making large changes, and still not suffer from a reduction of social standing. Partly to make this solution palatable to others and to proactively address future PR risks and instances of making people sad (since everyone already expected/was planning for more such instances to come up), Nate wrote this document.”
If an org is going to have this sort of approach to its most senior researcher, it’s still better to do it with a document of this nature than without.
But is this overall a great setup and strategy? I’m doubtful. (Not just for the org as a whole, but also long-term for Nate himself.)
I think we now have an experimental verification that the document, no matter how impressive, doesn’t always achieve its intended goal.
So, the strategy needs an update.
Three points that might be somewhat revealing:
There was never an ask for reciprocal documents from employees. “Here’s a document describing how to communicate with me. I’d appreciate you sending me pointers on how to communicate with you, since I am aware of my communication issues.” was never considered.
There are multiple independent examples of people in various capacities, including his girlfriend, expressing that their opinions were not valued, and a clear hierarchical model was in play.
The more humble “my list of warnings” was highlighted immediately as justification but never broadcast broadly, and there seems to be no cognizance that it’s not something anyone else would ever take upon themselves to share.
So on one hand… your bullet-points there are maybe pointing in a helpful direction. And I think my overall take right now is “however much effort Nate has previously put into improving on his communications or comms-onboarding, probably he (or MIRI) should put more.”
But, your phrasing here feels a bit like a weird demand for exceptional rigor.
Like, although I think Nate is pretty high on “can feel intense to interact with”, it’s not that weird for a company to have an intense manager, and I’ve never heard of companies-with-intense-managers having this sort of doc at all. And I know a bunch of people who are intense to interact with in regular, interpersonal interactions (i.e. while dating), and they also often don’t have docs explaining that.
So, it feels pretty weird (and not particularly “revealing” of anything) that Nate made a pretty novel type of doc… and didn’t (yet) do some additional followup steps with it.
(I think that “intense” is euphemizing.)
No—the opposite. I was implying that there’s clearly a deeper underpinning to these patterns that any amount of rigor will be insufficient in solving, but my point has been articulated within KurtB’s excellent later comment, and solutions in the earlier comment by jsteinhardt.
I agree; that’s very true. However, this usually occurs in companies that are chasing zero-sum goals. Employees treated in this manner might often resort to a combination of complaining to HR, being bound by NDAs, or biting the bullet while waiting for their paydays. It’s just particularly disheartening to hear of this years-long pattern, especially given the induced discomfort in speaking out and the efforts to downplay, in an organization that publicly aims to save the world.