I appreciate you taking this on at a difficult time.
However, fwiw given the fact that EA is in existential danger, is implicated in one of the largest frauds in history, is in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal involving leading figures in EA, and morale is at an all-time low, I don’t think now is the right time for the head of CEA to make loads of gags and memes. This might have been a permissible move when all this wasn’t happening (I still think not) but it is definitely not now.
Seems kinda strong given this paragraph from Ben: “Perhaps surprisingly, recent polling data from Rethink Priorities indicates that most people still don’t know what EA is, those that do are positive towards it as a brand, overall affect scores haven’t noticeably changed post FTX collapse, and only a few percent of respondents mentioned FTX when asked about EA open-ended. It seems like these results hold both in the general US population and amongst students at “elite universities”.”
EA...is implicated in one of the largest frauds in history
Seems kinda strong given that it was one EA and two(?) other EAs who went along with it.
is in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal involving leading figures in EA
Seems kinda strong given that I can only think of one leading figure and I’m not even sure I’d call him that.
morale is at an all-time low
Right?? Many of us have been depressed for months, but that’s just not a sustainable reaction. EA has reached a size and level of visibility now that is sure to keep it continuously embroiled in various controversies and scandals from now on. We can’t just mourn and hang our heads in shame for the rest of our lives.
Obviously official public statements should not make light of fraud or sexual harassment. And it is unfortunate that the main channel EA leaders have for communicating with the rest of the community is a public gold mine for critics and journalists.
But it felt like such a relief to me to see a community leader dare to make a few jokes about other things. I feel like it’s giving me some permission to stop despairing, accept that to some extent this is the new normal, and start letting myself do things for fun every now and then. Even dark humour is a valid coping mechanism in many situations, but more broadly I’ve been wondering recently, “When will EAs be allowed to smile again?” I also wonder how much of the reason CEA needs a new Executive Director in the first place is due to how determined this community has been to keep morale down in recent months.
[Editing for tone:] And if it’s optics you’re worried about, I don’t think summarising EA’s current challenges in such an exaggerated way is helping either. (I’ve seen this kind of mistake a lot recently, e.g. EAs publicly attacking CEA with words like, “I can’t believe how you thought buying a castle that the Queen lived in would not be bad for optics??” and then dismissing people who point out that it’s not a castle and the Queen didn’t live there for being pedantic.)
EA has reached a size and level of visibility now that is sure to keep it continuously embroiled in various controversies and scandals from now on. We can’t just mourn and hang our heads in shame for the rest of our lives.
One animal welfare advocate told me something like “You EA’s are such babies. There are entire organizations devoted to making animal advocacy look bad, sending “undercover investigators” into organizations to destroy trust, filing frivolous claims and lawsuits to waste time, placing stories in the media which paint us in the worst light possible, etc. Yet EA has a couple of bad months in the press and you all want to give up?”
I really like this frame. I feel like EAs are somewhat too quick to roll over and accept attacks from dishonest bad actors who hate us for whatever unrelated reason.
Yeah I noticed a huge difference between EAs and my politically active right wing friends, for whom disingenuous media articles calling you racist are just an occupational hazard. I think especially a lot of younger EA straight out of college are used to affiliating with moral-language coded condemnation and find being the recipient, or adjacent to the recipient, very disorientating.
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.
enormous strong disagree...it is now the exact time for some lightheartedness...humor toward oneself is a sign of humility and people that can do it usually have a strong empathy ability...now is a time for EA to be humble and seek a new vision for it’s path forward. Have you ever been to a funeral so full of pain and grief, and a lighthearted word at the right time is tremendously healing and life giving. Outsider in particular will appreciate it.
I appreciate you taking this on at a difficult time.
However, fwiw given the fact that EA is in existential danger, is implicated in one of the largest frauds in history, is in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal involving leading figures in EA, and morale is at an all-time low, I don’t think now is the right time for the head of CEA to make loads of gags and memes. This might have been a permissible move when all this wasn’t happening (I still think not) but it is definitely not now.
Strong disagree.
Seems kinda strong given this paragraph from Ben: “Perhaps surprisingly, recent polling data from Rethink Priorities indicates that most people still don’t know what EA is, those that do are positive towards it as a brand, overall affect scores haven’t noticeably changed post FTX collapse, and only a few percent of respondents mentioned FTX when asked about EA open-ended. It seems like these results hold both in the general US population and amongst students at “elite universities”.”
Seems kinda strong given that it was one EA and two(?) other EAs who went along with it.
Seems kinda strong given that I can only think of one leading figure and I’m not even sure I’d call him that.
Right?? Many of us have been depressed for months, but that’s just not a sustainable reaction. EA has reached a size and level of visibility now that is sure to keep it continuously embroiled in various controversies and scandals from now on. We can’t just mourn and hang our heads in shame for the rest of our lives.
Obviously official public statements should not make light of fraud or sexual harassment. And it is unfortunate that the main channel EA leaders have for communicating with the rest of the community is a public gold mine for critics and journalists.
But it felt like such a relief to me to see a community leader dare to make a few jokes about other things. I feel like it’s giving me some permission to stop despairing, accept that to some extent this is the new normal, and start letting myself do things for fun every now and then. Even dark humour is a valid coping mechanism in many situations, but more broadly I’ve been wondering recently, “When will EAs be allowed to smile again?” I also wonder how much of the reason CEA needs a new Executive Director in the first place is due to how determined this community has been to keep morale down in recent months.
[Editing for tone:] And if it’s optics you’re worried about, I don’t think summarising EA’s current challenges in such an exaggerated way is helping either. (I’ve seen this kind of mistake a lot recently, e.g. EAs publicly attacking CEA with words like, “I can’t believe how you thought buying a castle that the Queen lived in would not be bad for optics??” and then dismissing people who point out that it’s not a castle and the Queen didn’t live there for being pedantic.)
One animal welfare advocate told me something like “You EA’s are such babies. There are entire organizations devoted to making animal advocacy look bad, sending “undercover investigators” into organizations to destroy trust, filing frivolous claims and lawsuits to waste time, placing stories in the media which paint us in the worst light possible, etc. Yet EA has a couple of bad months in the press and you all want to give up?”
I found that a helpful reframe.
I really like this frame. I feel like EAs are somewhat too quick to roll over and accept attacks from dishonest bad actors who hate us for whatever unrelated reason.
Yeah I noticed a huge difference between EAs and my politically active right wing friends, for whom disingenuous media articles calling you racist are just an occupational hazard. I think especially a lot of younger EA straight out of college are used to affiliating with moral-language coded condemnation and find being the recipient, or adjacent to the recipient, very disorientating.
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.
enormous strong disagree...it is now the exact time for some lightheartedness...humor toward oneself is a sign of humility and people that can do it usually have a strong empathy ability...now is a time for EA to be humble and seek a new vision for it’s path forward. Have you ever been to a funeral so full of pain and grief, and a lighthearted word at the right time is tremendously healing and life giving. Outsider in particular will appreciate it.
I don’t have a problem with jokes but they should be a complement to content in cases like this, not a substitute.
Do you think they’re a complement or substitute in this case?