Donors contribute to these funds expecting rigorous analysis comparable to GiveWell’s standards, even for more speculative areas that rely on hypotheticals, hoping their money is not wasted, so they entrust that responsibility to EA fund managers, whom they assume make better and more informed decisions with their contributions.
I think it’s important that the author had this expectation. Many people initially got excited about EA because of the careful, thoughtful analysis of GiveWell. Those who are not deep in the community might reasonably see the branding “EA Funds” and have exactly the expectations set out in this quote.
I think it’s very plausible that EA Funds, or LTFF specifically, should rebrand to remove “EA” from the name. I think it’d be a bit of a loss because I view us as trying to do something fully central to what I believe to be the core of EA: trying to make the best decisions we can given the limited resources we have. But communication of what “EA” means to different people have been at best mixed, and it’s understandable if other people take a different position (eg if they believe that EA is about making high-quality decisions about altruistic activities with uniformly high rigor and transparency).
And this isn’t really a question with a truth of the matter. Words are made by men, etc.
So plausibly we should move away from that brand, for this and several other reasons.
IMO if EA funds isn’t representative of EA, I’m not sure what is. I think the different funds do a good job of accurately representing the broad diversity of viewpoints and approaches within the community, and I would personally be very sad if EA funds dropped the EA branding.
IMO if EA funds isn’t representative of EA, I’m not sure what is.
I think there’s a consistent view where EA is about doing careful, thoughtful, analysis with uniformly and transparently high rigor, to communicate that analyses transparently and legibly, and to (almost) always make decisions entirely according to such analyses as well as strong empirical evidence. Under that view GiveWell, and for that matter, JPAL, is much more representative of what EA ought to be about, than what at least LTFF tries to do in practice.
I don’t know how popular the view I described above is. But I definitely have sympathy towards it.
Right now, we already do quite a few things to manage expectations and make the speculative nature of our grants as upfront as possible. Do you have suggestions for how we can improve on that front?
I think it’s important that the author had this expectation. Many people initially got excited about EA because of the careful, thoughtful analysis of GiveWell. Those who are not deep in the community might reasonably see the branding “EA Funds” and have exactly the expectations set out in this quote.
I think it’s very plausible that EA Funds, or LTFF specifically, should rebrand to remove “EA” from the name. I think it’d be a bit of a loss because I view us as trying to do something fully central to what I believe to be the core of EA: trying to make the best decisions we can given the limited resources we have. But communication of what “EA” means to different people have been at best mixed, and it’s understandable if other people take a different position (eg if they believe that EA is about making high-quality decisions about altruistic activities with uniformly high rigor and transparency).
And this isn’t really a question with a truth of the matter. Words are made by men, etc.
So plausibly we should move away from that brand, for this and several other reasons.
IMO if EA funds isn’t representative of EA, I’m not sure what is. I think the different funds do a good job of accurately representing the broad diversity of viewpoints and approaches within the community, and I would personally be very sad if EA funds dropped the EA branding.
Thanks. I appreciate your kind words.
I think there’s a consistent view where EA is about doing careful, thoughtful, analysis with uniformly and transparently high rigor, to communicate that analyses transparently and legibly, and to (almost) always make decisions entirely according to such analyses as well as strong empirical evidence. Under that view GiveWell, and for that matter, JPAL, is much more representative of what EA ought to be about, than what at least LTFF tries to do in practice.
I don’t know how popular the view I described above is. But I definitely have sympathy towards it.
Right now, we already do quite a few things to manage expectations and make the speculative nature of our grants as upfront as possible. Do you have suggestions for how we can improve on that front?