For various reasons, there may be a difference between returning all that is legally required and returning every penny received (we don’t know yet). From an optics perspective, I think there is very much a reputational hit for any charity—EA or not—that does not return an amount equal to what it got. But that hit is magnified if it then spends money in a way that seems to benefit insiders more than the charitable mission.
I wasn’t intending to restate the debate over whether monies used to fund meta things would be better spent on direct work—I have my opinions on that (which would favor no free alcohol for the reasons you imply), but I don’t presume that I have anything to add to what has been said in the past on the meta/direct tradeoff more generally.
On the broader scale, I think one of the greatest long-term existential risks to any charitable organization or movement is a slow, nearly inperceptible drift to decisions being made based on the interests of insiders as opposed to beneficiaries. It’s happened too many times to count with other charities/movement, and is in my mind a likely outcome for any charity/movement that does not maintain constant vigilance surrounding its culture. So in addition to the optics question and the question you posed, I would ask: “Does incurring this expense create a risk of subtly moving culture and expectations away from a beneficiary-focused mission, in which meta is a means to an end and not an ultimate end in itself?”
For various reasons, there may be a difference between returning all that is legally required and returning every penny received (we don’t know yet). From an optics perspective, I think there is very much a reputational hit for any charity—EA or not—that does not return an amount equal to what it got. But that hit is magnified if it then spends money in a way that seems to benefit insiders more than the charitable mission.
I wasn’t intending to restate the debate over whether monies used to fund meta things would be better spent on direct work—I have my opinions on that (which would favor no free alcohol for the reasons you imply), but I don’t presume that I have anything to add to what has been said in the past on the meta/direct tradeoff more generally.
On the broader scale, I think one of the greatest long-term existential risks to any charitable organization or movement is a slow, nearly inperceptible drift to decisions being made based on the interests of insiders as opposed to beneficiaries. It’s happened too many times to count with other charities/movement, and is in my mind a likely outcome for any charity/movement that does not maintain constant vigilance surrounding its culture. So in addition to the optics question and the question you posed, I would ask: “Does incurring this expense create a risk of subtly moving culture and expectations away from a beneficiary-focused mission, in which meta is a means to an end and not an ultimate end in itself?”