Put it this way, I don’t think this post will settle the nerves of the charity commission, who are currently investigating EV. It makes the organisation seem unserious, and the timing seems to me preposterously ill-chosen for reasons that are too obvious to state.
A lot of leading EAs have mentioned being anxious about even mentioning EA too much at the moment
‘EA implicated in one of largest frauds ever’. This just seems to me clearly true in the sense that SBF was one of the first and most prominent EAs and he used EA ideas to justify his fraud, was motivated to set up the fraudulent organisations by EA ideas, and one of the organisations involved in the fraud was initially set up, staffed, and funded by EAs.
Ok, including ‘at least one’ leading figure then. Two if you count jacy Reese. I don’t know whether some of those rationalist people count.
CEA needs a new Executive Director not because of the desire to keep morale low in recent months but rather because the last one quit due to having mental health problems from having to deal with the fallout from one of the biggest frauds of all time by one of the most famous EAs in the world and the collapse of the largest EA foundation, the burnout and resignation of multiple leading EAs and an ensuing avalanche of negative media attention. Succession memes are one way to respond to this but not the best way.
I think if your mood or morale is low, there are better ways to cheer yourself up than to look out for memes on the EA Forum
Thanks for the feedback John! If your threat model is “the UK Charity Commission is more likely to censure EV UK because I (someone who doesn’t work for EV UK[1]) made a post on a small forum with memes” then I don’t think you are modeling them well, for what that’s worth.
I also just really want to use the Forum to communicate with EAs authentically. I’m not so naïve that I am going to ignore the possibility that some journalist or government agency takes my words out of context, but I really really do not want to be optimizing for that scenario at the expense of everything else.
(My sense is that people feeling like they can only share things on the Forum which pass some sort of PR filter has made it harder for us to actually solve the problems you list. But that’s perhaps a bigger discussion.)
I don’t blame a casual observer for mixing up EV US and EV UK, but the charity commission is not a casual observer. More info on our structure can be found here.
I don’t blame a casual observer for mixing up EV US and EV UK, but the charity commission is not a casual observer. More info on our structure can be found here.
FWIW the org chart does not make it clear (to me, admittedly a casual-ish observer) that you do not in fact report to the board of EV UK.
It also seems to me that the structure is that Ben reports to Howie (EV UK CEO) and Zach (EV US CEO) who report to their respective boards. And the charity commission would be likely to care about what Ben does because he’s running CEA, one of the largest EVF projects?
Yeah, in retrospect I regret including that parenthetical. The important piece was that the Charity Commission doesn’t care about memes; me being a UK employee or not isn’t that important, and distracted from the more important bit.
Put it this way, I don’t think this post will settle the nerves of the charity commission, who are currently investigating EV. It makes the organisation seem unserious, and the timing seems to me preposterously ill-chosen for reasons that are too obvious to state.
A lot of leading EAs have mentioned being anxious about even mentioning EA too much at the moment
‘EA implicated in one of largest frauds ever’. This just seems to me clearly true in the sense that SBF was one of the first and most prominent EAs and he used EA ideas to justify his fraud, was motivated to set up the fraudulent organisations by EA ideas, and one of the organisations involved in the fraud was initially set up, staffed, and funded by EAs.
Ok, including ‘at least one’ leading figure then. Two if you count jacy Reese. I don’t know whether some of those rationalist people count.
CEA needs a new Executive Director not because of the desire to keep morale low in recent months but rather because the last one quit due to having mental health problems from having to deal with the fallout from one of the biggest frauds of all time by one of the most famous EAs in the world and the collapse of the largest EA foundation, the burnout and resignation of multiple leading EAs and an ensuing avalanche of negative media attention. Succession memes are one way to respond to this but not the best way.
I think if your mood or morale is low, there are better ways to cheer yourself up than to look out for memes on the EA Forum
Thanks for the feedback John! If your threat model is “the UK Charity Commission is more likely to censure EV UK because I (someone who doesn’t work for EV UK[1]) made a post on a small forum with memes” then I don’t think you are modeling them well, for what that’s worth.
I also just really want to use the Forum to communicate with EAs authentically. I’m not so naïve that I am going to ignore the possibility that some journalist or government agency takes my words out of context, but I really really do not want to be optimizing for that scenario at the expense of everything else.
(My sense is that people feeling like they can only share things on the Forum which pass some sort of PR filter has made it harder for us to actually solve the problems you list. But that’s perhaps a bigger discussion.)
I don’t blame a casual observer for mixing up EV US and EV UK, but the charity commission is not a casual observer. More info on our structure can be found here.
FWIW the org chart does not make it clear (to me, admittedly a casual-ish observer) that you do not in fact report to the board of EV UK.
Yes actually this is quite strange to me. How does accountability work here?
The CEA UK staff are managed by the CEO of CEA, who is legally part of EV US.
Responsibility for the CEA UK staff ultimately falls on the UK Trustees.
However, the UK Trustees have no ability to exercise oversight over the CEO, because he is in the US.
It also seems to me that the structure is that Ben reports to Howie (EV UK CEO) and Zach (EV US CEO) who report to their respective boards. And the charity commission would be likely to care about what Ben does because he’s running CEA, one of the largest EVF projects?
Yeah, in retrospect I regret including that parenthetical. The important piece was that the Charity Commission doesn’t care about memes; me being a UK employee or not isn’t that important, and distracted from the more important bit.
How are we in the “midst of a sexual harassment scandal” involving Jacy? There was something in 2019 but has there been anything more recent?
Yep fair enough
Especially because there is already a group for that.