In the thread you linked to defending the purchase of Wytham Abbey, it’s suggested that CEA shouldn’t be criticized for the Wytham Abbey purchase as it was carried out by a separate organization in EVF. It’s then suggested EVF shouldn’t be criticized because EVF merely accepted a gift from a third party organization.
My understanding of the the sequence of events is:
Owen, a trustee of EVF, acting in his capacity as an advisor to the CEA (an organization under the control of EVF), asked fellow EVF Trustee Claire Zabel to fund the purchase of Wytham Abbey through Open Phil. Once funding was secured, Owen brought the purchase to the other three EVF Trustees of for approval.
In response to commentary on Wytham Abbey, Owen provides: “So EVF made two decisions here: they approved fiscal sponsorship, agreeing to take funds for this new project; and they then followed through and bought the property with the funds that had been earmarked for that. The second of these is technically a decision to buy the building (and was done by a legal entity at the time called CEA), but at that point it was fulfilling an obligation to the donor, so it would have been wild to decide anything else.”
Separate from any analysis of if Wytham Abbey was a worthwhile investment, the organizational concerns the Wytham Abbey purchase highlighted seem important to discuss.
Between the organizational conflation of CEA and EVF, and multiple EVF Trustees working in multiple capacities, I don’t even understand who is supposed to be subject to criticism.
Between the organizational conflation of CEA and EVF, and multiple EVF Trustees working in multiple capacities, I don’t even understand who is supposed to be subject to criticism.
I think both Owen and Claire have stuck their necks out on the line, and have opened themselves up to criticisms. I think if you believe their actions have not benefited the good, you should feel encouraged to sharply criticize their professional decisions for it (within typical discussion norms of not being extremely mean, avoiding personal attacks, etc).
There’s also a case to be made for criticizing their funders (Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna). I feel slightly bad about the implied incentive mechanism (“if you give lots of money to EA stuff, then any time a loud fraction of EAs disagree with the donations made by your team, you’d be loudly criticized for it”). However, given that insufficient criticism of EA funders was identified as a large, potentially catastrophic, mistake in the past, I tentatively feel better about erring a lot in the direction of more criticism of funders.
I think it’s helpful in discussion sometimes not to focus on who is subject to criticism. Even if there are one or two or a handful of people who might have made the critical decision, perhaps in some cases it’s better to discuss the pros and cons of the issues at hand, rather than pinpointing who exactly might be responsible.
I find the discourse on this quite confusing.
In the thread you linked to defending the purchase of Wytham Abbey, it’s suggested that CEA shouldn’t be criticized for the Wytham Abbey purchase as it was carried out by a separate organization in EVF. It’s then suggested EVF shouldn’t be criticized because EVF merely accepted a gift from a third party organization.
My understanding of the the sequence of events is:
Owen, a trustee of EVF, acting in his capacity as an advisor to the CEA (an organization under the control of EVF), asked fellow EVF Trustee Claire Zabel to fund the purchase of Wytham Abbey through Open Phil. Once funding was secured, Owen brought the purchase to the other three EVF Trustees of for approval.
In response to commentary on Wytham Abbey, Owen provides: “So EVF made two decisions here: they approved fiscal sponsorship, agreeing to take funds for this new project; and they then followed through and bought the property with the funds that had been earmarked for that. The second of these is technically a decision to buy the building (and was done by a legal entity at the time called CEA), but at that point it was fulfilling an obligation to the donor, so it would have been wild to decide anything else.”
Separate from any analysis of if Wytham Abbey was a worthwhile investment, the organizational concerns the Wytham Abbey purchase highlighted seem important to discuss.
Between the organizational conflation of CEA and EVF, and multiple EVF Trustees working in multiple capacities, I don’t even understand who is supposed to be subject to criticism.
I think both Owen and Claire have stuck their necks out on the line, and have opened themselves up to criticisms. I think if you believe their actions have not benefited the good, you should feel encouraged to sharply criticize their professional decisions for it (within typical discussion norms of not being extremely mean, avoiding personal attacks, etc).
There’s also a case to be made for criticizing their funders (Dustin Moskovitz and Cari Tuna). I feel slightly bad about the implied incentive mechanism (“if you give lots of money to EA stuff, then any time a loud fraction of EAs disagree with the donations made by your team, you’d be loudly criticized for it”). However, given that insufficient criticism of EA funders was identified as a large, potentially catastrophic, mistake in the past, I tentatively feel better about erring a lot in the direction of more criticism of funders.
I think it’s helpful in discussion sometimes not to focus on who is subject to criticism. Even if there are one or two or a handful of people who might have made the critical decision, perhaps in some cases it’s better to discuss the pros and cons of the issues at hand, rather than pinpointing who exactly might be responsible.