LessWrong (30+ Karma) Should you work with evil people?
Nov 29, 2025
The host explores the complexities of working with morally questionable individuals. They stress the importance of professional collaboration while rejecting passive tolerance of bad behavior. The conversation highlights the dangers of vigilante justice and emphasizes that infrastructure withdrawal can harm innocent people. Personal duty to call out wrongdoings is underscored, and heuristics for managing behavior in personal and professional settings are proposed. Ultimately, the host advocates for strong moral boundaries while maintaining necessary connections.
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Infrastructure Enables Social Specialization
- Civilization depends on shared infrastructure that lets strangers specialize and cooperate.
- Removing access to that infrastructure is a high-cost action with broad consequences.
Limit Infrastructure Policing To Relevant Wrongs
- Avoid punitive bans by infrastructure unless the user abuses that specific infrastructure.
- Let banks police fraud, hotels police property damage, and Amazon police fraudulent sellers.
Balance Calling Out With Due Process
- People should hold others to moral standards but also recognize their own limits and risk of error.
- Calling out wrongdoing spreads good norms but can be unfair without due process or skillful judgment.
