The magnitude of the problem is that OpenPhil chose to spend an amount of money that could literally save thousands of lives on buying a fancy building for EVF.
If you consider Open Phil, GiveWell, and Good Ventures as one entity: they’ve had the ability to fill AMF et al’s funding gap for years, but have chosen not to, for reasons they consider good (this came out in 2015, I don’t know if there are more recent statements). Since they could easily afford both and in fact seem to have a deficit of projects they want to fund, this purchase is irrelevant. Their reasons for not fully funding bed nets should be evaluated on their own merits.
I respectfully disagree. A decision to not help others in a specific way is more or less problematic depending on the actual alternative chosen. When that alternative is something as aimed at making EAs and rich westerners enjoy themselves as buying a “castle” to host them in, it puts the funders’ judgment in a very different light.
It’s not that I’m convinced that buying a conference venue is actually that terrible a decision. But to justify this, OpenPhil and EVF need to work much harder than saying they’ll use it to host a vague collection of conferences and workshops, and explain why they even think all these events are really impactful enough, and how they’re sure no self-serving bias came into the decision.
The same is true of any overhead costs, right? Should they be running conferences at all? How much should CEOs of EA organizations be paid?
I think this decision was poorly communicated and helps highlight the potential for schism in EA, but it’s not a unique issue, either. It also highlights that, while they often fund EA causes, it’s ridiculous at this point for anyone to consider OpenPhil an effective altruism organization itself or even one strongly influenced by effective altruism (it might be petty, but capital-EA versus lowercase is a simple way to highlight one distinction, too).
Edit: I’m apparently insufficiently familiar with discussion norms here, and would appreciate a reply on the strength of disagreement with this comment.
Disagreevotes don’t signal that you broke a discussion norm, just that people disagree. I am one of them, because
The analogy to operating costs is flawed; an organization cannot operate without paying people and wants to attract talented people. It’s unlikely that Wytham Abbey is in the same “existential need” category. Even supporters of the purchase don’t claim that.
Why is it ridiculous to consider Open Phil an EA organization?
Disagreevotes don’t signal that you broke a discussion norm, just that people disagree.
I see the appeal for the separate voting values, but I haven’t noticed a situation where a comment ends up with “this is a quality comment but I disagree,” which is what I would think as the valuable quadrant of having the separate scores. While it does take more time I appreciate having elaboration for the disagreement. So, thank you for replying!
Operating costs is flawed, yes, but not entirely inaccurate. Wytham isn’t an existential need, but it is intended to attract and (temporarily) house talented people, and part of the justification was long-term savings compared to short-term venue rentals. Defenders in the original posts suggested it would assist in attracting better talent and generate better ideas/discussion/etc. Much discussion has been made over the years on the tradeoffs regarding CEO pay to attract talent versus funding going to the causes instead. It’s not existential operating costs, but it’s … optional? Fringe? Preferred? operating costs.
I likely could have phrased it more clearly; after further reflection, the question I should’ve asked may have been better put as “Considering these grounds for disagreement with the purchase, would that also suggest that organized EA should also reduce emphasis on conferences more generally?”
Ridiculous is likely a bit strong, and rooted in my old-school considerations of “effective,” but it was the criminal justice reform and subsequent spinoff that convinced me that OpenPhil is not an EA organization even though it often funds EA. I agree criminal justice reform is a good cause, a—ha—just cause, but I can’t imagine anyone honestly thinking it would be within two or three orders of magnitude of a cost-effective cause. As the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and keeping them under the “EA umbrella,” can make it seem like everything they do is “effective altruism.”
That’s not to say that OpenPhil shouldn’t fund that kind of thing; it’s not my money and they can fund what they want. But many of the same people running OpenPhil run the organizations telling EAs which organizations are “most effective,” and some of these decisions call into question those other recommendations. How much trust gets spent each time one of these decisions is made, and how long can they coast on reserves before the community gets too skeptical? I imagine it’s been discussed here before, but I just recently came upon this essay by Benjamin Ross Hoffman raising similar concerns years ago.
Edit: Laziness is not a virtue; I checked, and yes, that essay was cross-posted here around the time it was published.
The magnitude of the problem is that OpenPhil chose to spend an amount of money that could literally save thousands of lives on buying a fancy building for EVF.
If you consider Open Phil, GiveWell, and Good Ventures as one entity: they’ve had the ability to fill AMF et al’s funding gap for years, but have chosen not to, for reasons they consider good (this came out in 2015, I don’t know if there are more recent statements). Since they could easily afford both and in fact seem to have a deficit of projects they want to fund, this purchase is irrelevant. Their reasons for not fully funding bed nets should be evaluated on their own merits.
I respectfully disagree. A decision to not help others in a specific way is more or less problematic depending on the actual alternative chosen. When that alternative is something as aimed at making EAs and rich westerners enjoy themselves as buying a “castle” to host them in, it puts the funders’ judgment in a very different light.
It’s not that I’m convinced that buying a conference venue is actually that terrible a decision. But to justify this, OpenPhil and EVF need to work much harder than saying they’ll use it to host a vague collection of conferences and workshops, and explain why they even think all these events are really impactful enough, and how they’re sure no self-serving bias came into the decision.
The same is true of any overhead costs, right? Should they be running conferences at all? How much should CEOs of EA organizations be paid?
I think this decision was poorly communicated and helps highlight the potential for schism in EA, but it’s not a unique issue, either. It also highlights that, while they often fund EA causes, it’s ridiculous at this point for anyone to consider OpenPhil an effective altruism organization itself or even one strongly influenced by effective altruism (it might be petty, but capital-EA versus lowercase is a simple way to highlight one distinction, too).
Edit: I’m apparently insufficiently familiar with discussion norms here, and would appreciate a reply on the strength of disagreement with this comment.
Disagreevotes don’t signal that you broke a discussion norm, just that people disagree. I am one of them, because
The analogy to operating costs is flawed; an organization cannot operate without paying people and wants to attract talented people. It’s unlikely that Wytham Abbey is in the same “existential need” category. Even supporters of the purchase don’t claim that.
Why is it ridiculous to consider Open Phil an EA organization?
I see the appeal for the separate voting values, but I haven’t noticed a situation where a comment ends up with “this is a quality comment but I disagree,” which is what I would think as the valuable quadrant of having the separate scores. While it does take more time I appreciate having elaboration for the disagreement. So, thank you for replying!
Operating costs is flawed, yes, but not entirely inaccurate. Wytham isn’t an existential need, but it is intended to attract and (temporarily) house talented people, and part of the justification was long-term savings compared to short-term venue rentals. Defenders in the original posts suggested it would assist in attracting better talent and generate better ideas/discussion/etc. Much discussion has been made over the years on the tradeoffs regarding CEO pay to attract talent versus funding going to the causes instead. It’s not existential operating costs, but it’s … optional? Fringe? Preferred? operating costs.
I likely could have phrased it more clearly; after further reflection, the question I should’ve asked may have been better put as “Considering these grounds for disagreement with the purchase, would that also suggest that organized EA should also reduce emphasis on conferences more generally?”
Ridiculous is likely a bit strong, and rooted in my old-school considerations of “effective,” but it was the criminal justice reform and subsequent spinoff that convinced me that OpenPhil is not an EA organization even though it often funds EA. I agree criminal justice reform is a good cause, a—ha—just cause, but I can’t imagine anyone honestly thinking it would be within two or three orders of magnitude of a cost-effective cause. As the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and keeping them under the “EA umbrella,” can make it seem like everything they do is “effective altruism.”
That’s not to say that OpenPhil shouldn’t fund that kind of thing; it’s not my money and they can fund what they want. But many of the same people running OpenPhil run the organizations telling EAs which organizations are “most effective,” and some of these decisions call into question those other recommendations. How much trust gets spent each time one of these decisions is made, and how long can they coast on reserves before the community gets too skeptical? I imagine it’s been discussed here before, but I just recently came upon this essay by Benjamin Ross Hoffman raising similar concerns years ago.
Edit: Laziness is not a virtue; I checked, and yes, that essay was cross-posted here around the time it was published.