You mention having a second office in “the city proper”: Would that be referring to Bellingham and Peekskill or Seattle and NYC? Alternatively would working from home some days of the week be viable for many employees?
I ask this because to me these would make the difference for the viability of living mainly in Seattle/NYC and spending 3 days a week at the campus, as opposed to the reverse case of living mainly near the campus and going into the city on weekends.
This isn’t a huge difference from the perspective of doing things on weekends, but it makes a difference for having a significant other who lives in the city and going to meetups. It means if you want to live with someone who has to commute from the city you get to spend 5⁄7 evenings a week with them instead of 3⁄7, which to me seems like a pretty big difference, and I suspect would seem like a big difference to prospective partners as well. I also find weekly meetups like OBNYC to be a great foundation for a social life, and taking the train both ways for them would be a bit much. So given OBNYC Meetups are on Tuesdays, any MIRI employees living in NYC that spent Wed/Thurs/Fri on campus would be free to attend them.
Personally, dating and socializing concerns mean that I’d find the “live in NYC, spend 3 days a week on a campus in nature” option rather appealing, but the “live on campus, spend weekends at partner’s place or hotel in NYC” much less appealing.
“The city proper” meaning Bellingham / Peekskill.
If we moved to Bellingham, I (speculatively) imagine MIRI organizing trips to Seattle or Vancouver once every week or two, including trips to the big universities in those cities, including big-university meetups once or twice a year. I haven’t heard discussion of how much rationalists would personally want to hop back and forth between the cities, and I haven’t heard a MIRI employee say they’d prefer to live in Seattle and commute. Having to regularly commute from Seattle to Bellingham sounds doable but pretty unpleasant to me. (Maybe better if you’re working weird hours, so you can avoid the worst traffic.)
If we moved to Peekskill, I imagine more interaction than that with NYC. (Partly because NYC has more attractions than Seattle/Vancouver; partly because Peekskill has fewer attractions than Bellingham; and partly because the regular trains make it so much more convenient to travel between Peekskill and NYC.)
I can more easily imagine worlds where some MIRI staff lived and worked in NYC itself, though I think MIRI’s first-pass goal would be to have as many staff as possible working in the Peekskill area.
Alternatively would working from home some days of the week be viable for many employees?
I already do MIRI work from home a lot in Berkeley. (Well, I did pre-COVID; my living arrangement is weird now.) I think MIRI is pretty pragmatic and case-specific about this, rather than having top-down rules. (Though all else equal, having people in the same place where they can readily interact face-to-face seems better to me.)
I can more easily imagine worlds where some MIRI staff lived and worked in NYC itself, though I think MIRI’s first-pass goal would be to have as many staff as possible working in the Peekskill area.
You may be underestimating the mental health benefits of being immersed in a larger community. If you apply the “Comfort In. Dump Out” model of emotional support to the stress of MIRI, having strong relationships with people with less stressful lives is really important. If MIRIans are living in a little bubble with no one to dump on but each other, stress just builds.
If you apply the “Comfort In. Dump Out” model of emotional support to the stress of MIRI, having strong relationships with people with less stressful lives is really important.
Eh? What is stressful about MIRI?
I haven’t worked there personally, but I’ve been doing (I think) similar work for over a year now, and it’s far and away the most fun and lowest-stress job I’ve ever had.
You mention having a second office in “the city proper”: Would that be referring to Bellingham and Peekskill or Seattle and NYC? Alternatively would working from home some days of the week be viable for many employees?
I ask this because to me these would make the difference for the viability of living mainly in Seattle/NYC and spending 3 days a week at the campus, as opposed to the reverse case of living mainly near the campus and going into the city on weekends.
This isn’t a huge difference from the perspective of doing things on weekends, but it makes a difference for having a significant other who lives in the city and going to meetups. It means if you want to live with someone who has to commute from the city you get to spend 5⁄7 evenings a week with them instead of 3⁄7, which to me seems like a pretty big difference, and I suspect would seem like a big difference to prospective partners as well. I also find weekly meetups like OBNYC to be a great foundation for a social life, and taking the train both ways for them would be a bit much. So given OBNYC Meetups are on Tuesdays, any MIRI employees living in NYC that spent Wed/Thurs/Fri on campus would be free to attend them.
Personally, dating and socializing concerns mean that I’d find the “live in NYC, spend 3 days a week on a campus in nature” option rather appealing, but the “live on campus, spend weekends at partner’s place or hotel in NYC” much less appealing.
“The city proper” meaning Bellingham / Peekskill.
If we moved to Bellingham, I (speculatively) imagine MIRI organizing trips to Seattle or Vancouver once every week or two, including trips to the big universities in those cities, including big-university meetups once or twice a year. I haven’t heard discussion of how much rationalists would personally want to hop back and forth between the cities, and I haven’t heard a MIRI employee say they’d prefer to live in Seattle and commute. Having to regularly commute from Seattle to Bellingham sounds doable but pretty unpleasant to me. (Maybe better if you’re working weird hours, so you can avoid the worst traffic.)
If we moved to Peekskill, I imagine more interaction than that with NYC. (Partly because NYC has more attractions than Seattle/Vancouver; partly because Peekskill has fewer attractions than Bellingham; and partly because the regular trains make it so much more convenient to travel between Peekskill and NYC.)
I can more easily imagine worlds where some MIRI staff lived and worked in NYC itself, though I think MIRI’s first-pass goal would be to have as many staff as possible working in the Peekskill area.
I already do MIRI work from home a lot in Berkeley. (Well, I did pre-COVID; my living arrangement is weird now.) I think MIRI is pretty pragmatic and case-specific about this, rather than having top-down rules. (Though all else equal, having people in the same place where they can readily interact face-to-face seems better to me.)
You may be underestimating the mental health benefits of being immersed in a larger community. If you apply the “Comfort In. Dump Out” model of emotional support to the stress of MIRI, having strong relationships with people with less stressful lives is really important. If MIRIans are living in a little bubble with no one to dump on but each other, stress just builds.
Eh? What is stressful about MIRI?
I haven’t worked there personally, but I’ve been doing (I think) similar work for over a year now, and it’s far and away the most fun and lowest-stress job I’ve ever had.