“Ben Delo’s involvement with EA just quietly stopped being talked about without any kind of public reflection on what could be done better moving forwards.”
“Failing to share information because you suspect it will make me less supportive or more critical of your views, decisions, or actions smells of overconfidence and makes you difficult to trust, and this has regularly happened to me in my engagement with EA.”
Yes, exactly. Thank you! EA Berkeley had to remove their leader just two years ago, for reasons that none of the membership there is willing to even mention—which makes it sound particularly bad, which means that ‘the fact that EA is keeping that bad stuff hidden’ is even worse.
Similarly, EA Berkeley members were targeted by a higher-up for blacklisting, and mentioned such in emails to me, only to go silent on the matter until I brought-up the blacklisting as an issue on their slack. At that point, they mentioned that “we’ve been in private talks with the Blacklister, asking them to stop their behavior”—nothing public until absolutely necessary.
The EA houses in Berkeley, who are a magnet for EA Berkeley campus members to move-into (most residents are post-grads who were EA Berkeley prior to graduation and moving into the EA house), had repeatedly splurged unnecessarily, and when I pointed this out, the near-universal response on the EA Berkeley slack was ‘well, that’s them, not us. We’re not responsible for anyone else in our org if they’re committing petty fraud.’ The slack poster Charles He even suggested that I be banned from their slack, for ‘disrupting’ things by bringing-up their bad behavior!
Further: when I have posted new ideas on this forum, I was repeatedly strawmanned by EA members until other members eventually pointed-out that I was being strawmanned, and those who did so never admitted and apologized; they just downvoted every comment I made, as a team. EA protects the trolls who downvote-mafia and misrepresent, while looking for reasons to exclude ‘non-aligned views’.
I also wonder about the hiring for AI Safety, here in the Bay: after talking to people who struggled to get hired as a PA in AI Safety, despite a background in CS and an interest in AI and safety for 5 years… while a pretty girl with a psych background got hired as PA immediately, multiple offers? It sounds like the nerds at Berkeley are hoping to hire-in a Bankman-sized polycule as PAs.
I also wonder about the hiring for AI Safety, here in the Bay: after talking to people who struggled to get hired as a PA in AI Safety, despite a background in CS and an interest in AI and safety for 5 years… while a pretty girl with a psych background got hired as PA immediately, multiple offers? It sounds like the nerds at Berkeley are hoping to hire-in a Bankman-sized polycule as PAs.
Please don’t assume a woman only got a job as a PA because she is pretty rather than anything to do with her skills. A CS background vs a psych background is a very weak case for making this assumption and I think you should err against this type of reasoning in any case given how insulting it is.
Especially given your final sentence (I don’t think I even need to explain how that one is extremely rude and unnecessary).
I’d also like to ask clarification about your last sentence: I said ‘nerds’, and that may be what you found particularly offensive, there; or, that I hypothesize that men in those organizations are hiring hoping for a date? I am not attempting to ‘blame a woman’ for getting a job, by the way—I am pointing to the people who are doing the hiring for potentially selfish reasons.
Well, there’s a simple empirical measure, rather than relying on whether an argument is approved-of or not: Do any of them date? Are they hoping to keep that fact hidden?
Does that absolve EA of the other points? Finding a flaw with the speaker or one of their points, to ignore the rest of the argument, seems to be a pattern amongst forum-commenters here—followed by mass downvotes.
Okay I’ll address the rest of the argument. You’re also not giving a lot of context. It’s hard to understand but based on your whole comment I can also see it being possible that you bumped into situations where people were trying to sort out interpersonal issues privately, and you got wind of it and tried to make it public.
There is a world of difference between those situations and situations where people are not intellectually honest, which is most of the situations OP describes and discusses.
And it makes the last part of your comment even more uncalled for.
“I can also see it being possible that you bumped into situations where people were trying to sort out interpersonal issues privately, and you got wind of it and tried to make it public.”
Thank you for responding! And, no, that is not accurate. The leader of EA Berkeley was ousted; that’s not an ‘interpersonal issue, privately’. That’s the organization wanting to protect a brand by leaving their problems unmentioned, which is exactly the dishonesty part. I believe I’ve rebutted your argument—unless you have more to add?
Additionally, I understand if you took offense that I said ‘nerd’ - I’m happy to apologize to anyone in the Berkeley group who was offended or hurt, in person, with anyone else present they wish. Unfortunately, with Bankman’s incestuous corporate structure updating my assumptions, I do believe it is right to ask: are they dating their PAs? That’s a question for internal review, privacy, yet the statistical results should be public.
Unfortunately, with Bankman’s incestuous corporate structure updating my assumptions, I do believe it is right to ask: are they dating their PAs?
So are you saying that because people at a company that donated a lot of money to EA causes seem to have dated each other in ways that caused conflicts of interest, it’s right for you to ask on a public forum: Did this woman only get a PA job working for EAs in Berkeley because she’s dating the person who hired her?
Oh, no—not ‘because-dating-already’, nor as a favor, nor her aspiring to use beauty, or being unqualified. Rather, if people doing the hiring are selecting among excellent candidates, yet their selection favors people who those same authorities hope to try dating. It’s the hirer, not the one hired, who I call into question; as I said originally “hoping to hire-in” which places agency and blame with those being biased in their hiring.
Also, I don’t expect a flat ‘gender disparity’ to be indicative of this sort of hiring—rather, internal measure of co-worker and boss relationships would show if the social graph is incestuous. And, though it isn’t reasonable to say “the funder of a charity was hiring inappropriately, so the charity must also be doing so,”—and, at the same time, “a bunch of young college kids with money who all live and hang out together, dating each other,” is the shared characteristic that I argue warrants inclusion of that risk.
Behaving decently is nice; that doesn’t remove the point I was asking about: ignoring the other arguments I brought-up. It seems, repeatedly, that the call of appropriateness is used to ignore the substance of the other arguments; which continues to be the case, in this thread.
I just re-read your comment and I can understand your frustration more now. Maybe I was too harsh and blunt, my apologies. I think it’s totally fair for people to not want to engage with someone until they stop being so rude. But if this happens nearly every time you say the slightest thing wrong, that seems like a problem. (For my part, I often just comment on one part of a comment/post when I don’t feel I have much to add regarding the other parts. I didn’t mean to imply that the other parts aren’t worth people engaging with simply because you were rude in one part. But as I said, I do understand why they might not want to.)
Thank you! You are welcome to check—the dismissals had begun, in multiple threads, before a peep from me; they were the initial replies. I became hot in response, only then, which your forum abhors—and I understand that I am downvoted for it! I don’t expect you to give me a soap-box in your living room, when I keep offending you.
I can also drop my guise, which I understand if you find doubly offensive: a troll-trap.
After being misrepresented repeatedly, this time I intentionally included the word ‘nerd’, to see if that would be enough to ignore the other points—YET! I didn’t expect that you would take my critique of hiring as a strike against the woman, who is a thoughtful and diligent member of your community, and would definitely do an excellent job assisting! I’m glad to speak in her favor—the question was why, with her quick hire, others languished in comparison? And I pointed to the risk of men in power pulling a 1950′s-style ‘I get $90k as researcher, and I date my $50k secretary’. THAT is where my heart-strings leapt to shout!
In other threads, my arguments were repeatedly misrepresented or unaddressed, while comments consisted of ‘we shouldn’t fund this, it’s not appropriate’ when I specified at the outset that I was not seeking funding; ‘this should be posted somewhere else’, etc. And only in a few instances, out of dozens of responses, have EA commenters addressed the substance of what I wrote.
“Ben Delo’s involvement with EA just quietly stopped being talked about without any kind of public reflection on what could be done better moving forwards.”
“Failing to share information because you suspect it will make me less supportive or more critical of your views, decisions, or actions smells of overconfidence and makes you difficult to trust, and this has regularly happened to me in my engagement with EA.”
Yes, exactly. Thank you! EA Berkeley had to remove their leader just two years ago, for reasons that none of the membership there is willing to even mention—which makes it sound particularly bad, which means that ‘the fact that EA is keeping that bad stuff hidden’ is even worse.
Similarly, EA Berkeley members were targeted by a higher-up for blacklisting, and mentioned such in emails to me, only to go silent on the matter until I brought-up the blacklisting as an issue on their slack. At that point, they mentioned that “we’ve been in private talks with the Blacklister, asking them to stop their behavior”—nothing public until absolutely necessary.
The EA houses in Berkeley, who are a magnet for EA Berkeley campus members to move-into (most residents are post-grads who were EA Berkeley prior to graduation and moving into the EA house), had repeatedly splurged unnecessarily, and when I pointed this out, the near-universal response on the EA Berkeley slack was ‘well, that’s them, not us. We’re not responsible for anyone else in our org if they’re committing petty fraud.’ The slack poster Charles He even suggested that I be banned from their slack, for ‘disrupting’ things by bringing-up their bad behavior!
EA definitely has a brand they’re protecting, and other posters seem to be bumping into other icky spots under the surface, too! (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eoLwR3y2gcZ8wgECc/hubris-and-coldness-within-ea-my-experience) & “Power dynamics: What procedures exist for protecting parties in asymmetric power relationships? Are there adequate opportunities for anonymous complaints or concerns to be raised? How are high-status individuals held accountable in the event of wrongdoing?” from (https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sEpWkCvvJfoEbhnsd/the-ftx-crisis-highlights-a-deeper-cultural-problem-within)
Further: when I have posted new ideas on this forum, I was repeatedly strawmanned by EA members until other members eventually pointed-out that I was being strawmanned, and those who did so never admitted and apologized; they just downvoted every comment I made, as a team. EA protects the trolls who downvote-mafia and misrepresent, while looking for reasons to exclude ‘non-aligned views’.
I also wonder about the hiring for AI Safety, here in the Bay: after talking to people who struggled to get hired as a PA in AI Safety, despite a background in CS and an interest in AI and safety for 5 years… while a pretty girl with a psych background got hired as PA immediately, multiple offers? It sounds like the nerds at Berkeley are hoping to hire-in a Bankman-sized polycule as PAs.
Please don’t assume a woman only got a job as a PA because she is pretty rather than anything to do with her skills. A CS background vs a psych background is a very weak case for making this assumption and I think you should err against this type of reasoning in any case given how insulting it is.
Especially given your final sentence (I don’t think I even need to explain how that one is extremely rude and unnecessary).
I’d also like to ask clarification about your last sentence: I said ‘nerds’, and that may be what you found particularly offensive, there; or, that I hypothesize that men in those organizations are hiring hoping for a date? I am not attempting to ‘blame a woman’ for getting a job, by the way—I am pointing to the people who are doing the hiring for potentially selfish reasons.
Well, there’s a simple empirical measure, rather than relying on whether an argument is approved-of or not: Do any of them date? Are they hoping to keep that fact hidden?
I was really confused by all your downvotes. Until I read your last paragraph
Does that absolve EA of the other points? Finding a flaw with the speaker or one of their points, to ignore the rest of the argument, seems to be a pattern amongst forum-commenters here—followed by mass downvotes.
Okay I’ll address the rest of the argument. You’re also not giving a lot of context. It’s hard to understand but based on your whole comment I can also see it being possible that you bumped into situations where people were trying to sort out interpersonal issues privately, and you got wind of it and tried to make it public.
There is a world of difference between those situations and situations where people are not intellectually honest, which is most of the situations OP describes and discusses.
And it makes the last part of your comment even more uncalled for.
“I can also see it being possible that you bumped into situations where people were trying to sort out interpersonal issues privately, and you got wind of it and tried to make it public.”
Thank you for responding! And, no, that is not accurate. The leader of EA Berkeley was ousted; that’s not an ‘interpersonal issue, privately’. That’s the organization wanting to protect a brand by leaving their problems unmentioned, which is exactly the dishonesty part. I believe I’ve rebutted your argument—unless you have more to add?
Additionally, I understand if you took offense that I said ‘nerd’ - I’m happy to apologize to anyone in the Berkeley group who was offended or hurt, in person, with anyone else present they wish. Unfortunately, with Bankman’s incestuous corporate structure updating my assumptions, I do believe it is right to ask: are they dating their PAs? That’s a question for internal review, privacy, yet the statistical results should be public.
Thank you again for engaging with a rebuttal!
So are you saying that because people at a company that donated a lot of money to EA causes seem to have dated each other in ways that caused conflicts of interest, it’s right for you to ask on a public forum: Did this woman only get a PA job working for EAs in Berkeley because she’s dating the person who hired her?
Oh, no—not ‘because-dating-already’, nor as a favor, nor her aspiring to use beauty, or being unqualified. Rather, if people doing the hiring are selecting among excellent candidates, yet their selection favors people who those same authorities hope to try dating. It’s the hirer, not the one hired, who I call into question; as I said originally “hoping to hire-in” which places agency and blame with those being biased in their hiring.
Also, I don’t expect a flat ‘gender disparity’ to be indicative of this sort of hiring—rather, internal measure of co-worker and boss relationships would show if the social graph is incestuous. And, though it isn’t reasonable to say “the funder of a charity was hiring inappropriately, so the charity must also be doing so,”—and, at the same time, “a bunch of young college kids with money who all live and hang out together, dating each other,” is the shared characteristic that I argue warrants inclusion of that risk.
It’s our way of saying, “Come back and talk to us when you’re ready to behave decently.”
Behaving decently is nice; that doesn’t remove the point I was asking about: ignoring the other arguments I brought-up. It seems, repeatedly, that the call of appropriateness is used to ignore the substance of the other arguments; which continues to be the case, in this thread.
I just re-read your comment and I can understand your frustration more now. Maybe I was too harsh and blunt, my apologies. I think it’s totally fair for people to not want to engage with someone until they stop being so rude. But if this happens nearly every time you say the slightest thing wrong, that seems like a problem. (For my part, I often just comment on one part of a comment/post when I don’t feel I have much to add regarding the other parts. I didn’t mean to imply that the other parts aren’t worth people engaging with simply because you were rude in one part. But as I said, I do understand why they might not want to.)
Thank you! You are welcome to check—the dismissals had begun, in multiple threads, before a peep from me; they were the initial replies. I became hot in response, only then, which your forum abhors—and I understand that I am downvoted for it! I don’t expect you to give me a soap-box in your living room, when I keep offending you.
I can also drop my guise, which I understand if you find doubly offensive: a troll-trap.
After being misrepresented repeatedly, this time I intentionally included the word ‘nerd’, to see if that would be enough to ignore the other points—YET! I didn’t expect that you would take my critique of hiring as a strike against the woman, who is a thoughtful and diligent member of your community, and would definitely do an excellent job assisting! I’m glad to speak in her favor—the question was why, with her quick hire, others languished in comparison? And I pointed to the risk of men in power pulling a 1950′s-style ‘I get $90k as researcher, and I date my $50k secretary’. THAT is where my heart-strings leapt to shout!
In other threads, my arguments were repeatedly misrepresented or unaddressed, while comments consisted of ‘we shouldn’t fund this, it’s not appropriate’ when I specified at the outset that I was not seeking funding; ‘this should be posted somewhere else’, etc. And only in a few instances, out of dozens of responses, have EA commenters addressed the substance of what I wrote.