Downvoted because I think this is too harsh and accusatory:
I cannot believe that some of you delete your posts simply because it ends up being downvoted.
Also because I disagree in the following ways:
Donating anonymously seems precisely opposed to transparency. At the very least, I donât think itâs obvious that donor anonymity works towards the values youâre expressing in your post. Personally I think being transparent about who is donating to what organizations is pretty important for transparency, and I think this is a common view.
I donât think FTXâs mistakes are particularly unique to crypto, but rather just normal financial chicanery.
âif the only way we aggregate how âgoodâ red-teaming is is by up-votes, that is flawedâ
IIRC the red-teaming contest did not explicitly consider up-votes in their process for granting awards, and the correlation between upvotes and prize-winners was weak.
âWhat makes EA, EA, what makes EA antifragile, is its ruthless transparency.â
For better or for worse, I donât think ruthless transparency is a focus or a strength of EA. I agree with your sentence right after that, but I donât think thatâs much related to transparency.
Sorry that the post came off as very harsh and accusatory tone. I mainly meant to express my exasperation with how the situation unfolded so quickly. Iâm worried about the coming months and how that will affect the community and in the long term. Clearly, revealing who is donating is good for transparency. However, if donations were anonymized from the perspective of the recipients, I think that would help mitigate conflicts of interest. I think there needs to be more dialogue about how we can mitigate conflicts of interest, regardless of whether we anonymize. (in fact, perhaps anonymizing is not the most feasible option) Regarding whether the crash is just normal financial chicanery, itâs kind of like saying the housing bubble wasnât due to mortgage backed securities per se, but just financial engineering. Clearly there is much at play here, and some attributes are unique to crypto being such a new unregulated area. Youâre right about redflagging. I more meant general posts critiquing EA. Thanks for correcting.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that the FTX problems are clearly related to crypto being such a new unregulated area, and I was wrong to try to downplay that causal link.
I donât think anonymized donations would help mitigate conflicts of interest. In fact I think it would encourage COIs, since donors could directly buy influence without anyone knowing they were doing so. Currently one of our only tools for identifying otherwise-undisclosed COIs is looking at flows of money. If billionaire A donates to org B, we have a norm that org B shouldnât do stuff that directly helps billionaire A. If that donation was anonymous, we wouldnât know that that was a situation in which the norm applied.
There are some benefits of some level of anonymity in donations. For example, I dislike the practice of universities putting a donorâs name on a building in exchange for a large donation. Seems like an impressive level of hubris. I have more respect for donors who donât aggressively publicize their name in this way. However, I do think that these donations should still be available in public records. Donation anonymousness ranges from âput my name on the buildingâ at one extreme to âactively obscure the source of the donationâ at the other.
I have more thoughts on donor transparency but Iâll leave it there for now.
Downvoted because I think this is too harsh and accusatory:
Also because I disagree in the following ways:
Donating anonymously seems precisely opposed to transparency. At the very least, I donât think itâs obvious that donor anonymity works towards the values youâre expressing in your post. Personally I think being transparent about who is donating to what organizations is pretty important for transparency, and I think this is a common view.
I donât think FTXâs mistakes are particularly unique to crypto, but rather just normal financial chicanery.
âif the only way we aggregate how âgoodâ red-teaming is is by up-votes, that is flawedâ
IIRC the red-teaming contest did not explicitly consider up-votes in their process for granting awards, and the correlation between upvotes and prize-winners was weak.
âWhat makes EA, EA, what makes EA antifragile, is its ruthless transparency.â
For better or for worse, I donât think ruthless transparency is a focus or a strength of EA. I agree with your sentence right after that, but I donât think thatâs much related to transparency.
Sorry that the post came off as very harsh and accusatory tone. I mainly meant to express my exasperation with how the situation unfolded so quickly. Iâm worried about the coming months and how that will affect the community and in the long term.
Clearly, revealing who is donating is good for transparency. However, if donations were anonymized from the perspective of the recipients, I think that would help mitigate conflicts of interest. I think there needs to be more dialogue about how we can mitigate conflicts of interest, regardless of whether we anonymize. (in fact, perhaps anonymizing is not the most feasible option)
Regarding whether the crash is just normal financial chicanery, itâs kind of like saying the housing bubble wasnât due to mortgage backed securities per se, but just financial engineering. Clearly there is much at play here, and some attributes are unique to crypto being such a new unregulated area.
Youâre right about redflagging. I more meant general posts critiquing EA. Thanks for correcting.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that the FTX problems are clearly related to crypto being such a new unregulated area, and I was wrong to try to downplay that causal link.
I donât think anonymized donations would help mitigate conflicts of interest. In fact I think it would encourage COIs, since donors could directly buy influence without anyone knowing they were doing so. Currently one of our only tools for identifying otherwise-undisclosed COIs is looking at flows of money. If billionaire A donates to org B, we have a norm that org B shouldnât do stuff that directly helps billionaire A. If that donation was anonymous, we wouldnât know that that was a situation in which the norm applied.
There are some benefits of some level of anonymity in donations. For example, I dislike the practice of universities putting a donorâs name on a building in exchange for a large donation. Seems like an impressive level of hubris. I have more respect for donors who donât aggressively publicize their name in this way. However, I do think that these donations should still be available in public records. Donation anonymousness ranges from âput my name on the buildingâ at one extreme to âactively obscure the source of the donationâ at the other.
I have more thoughts on donor transparency but Iâll leave it there for now.