in addition to all of this, the statement compounds the already existent trust problem EA has. It was already extremely bad in the aftermath of FTX that people were running to journos to leak them screenshots from private EA governance channels (vide that New Yorker piece). You can’t trust people in an organization or culture who all start briefing the press against each other the minute the chips are down! Now we have CEA publicly knifing a long-term colleague and movement founder figure with this unbelievably short and brutal statement, more or less a complete disowning, when really they needed to say nothing at all, or at least nothing right now.
When your whole movement is founded on the idea of utility maximizing, trust is already impaired because you forever feel that you’re only going to be backed for as long as you’re perceived useful: virtues such as loyalty and friendship are not really important in the mainstream EA ethical framework. It’s already discomfiting enough to feel that EAs might slit your throat in exchange for the lives of a million chickens, but when they appear to metaphorically be quite prepared to slit each other’s throats for much less, it’s even worse!
Sabs—I agree. EAs need to learn much better PR crisis management skills, and apply them carefully, soberly, carefully, and expertly.
Putting out very short, reactive, panicked statements that publicly disavow key founders of our movement is not a constructive strategy for defending a movement against hostile outsiders, or promoting trust within the movement, or encouraging ethical self-reflection among movement members.
I’ve seen this error again, and again, and again, in academia—when administrators panic about some public blowback about something someone has allegedly done. We should be better than that.
Agree. At a meta-level, I was disappointed by the seemingly panicked and reactive nature of the statement. The statement is bad, and so, it seems, is the process that produced it.
Hm, I don’t much agree with this because I think the statement is basically consistent with Bostrom’s own apology. (Though it can still be rough to have other people agree with your criticisms of yourself).
Trust does not mean circling the wagons and remaining silent about seriously bad behavior. That kind of “trust” would be toxic to community health because it would privilege the comfort of the leader who made a racist comment over maintaining a safe, healthy community for everyone else.
Being a leader means accepting more scrutiny and criticism of your actions, not getting a pass because you’re a “long-term colleague and movement founder figure.”
in addition to all of this, the statement compounds the already existent trust problem EA has. It was already extremely bad in the aftermath of FTX that people were running to journos to leak them screenshots from private EA governance channels (vide that New Yorker piece). You can’t trust people in an organization or culture who all start briefing the press against each other the minute the chips are down! Now we have CEA publicly knifing a long-term colleague and movement founder figure with this unbelievably short and brutal statement, more or less a complete disowning, when really they needed to say nothing at all, or at least nothing right now.
When your whole movement is founded on the idea of utility maximizing, trust is already impaired because you forever feel that you’re only going to be backed for as long as you’re perceived useful: virtues such as loyalty and friendship are not really important in the mainstream EA ethical framework. It’s already discomfiting enough to feel that EAs might slit your throat in exchange for the lives of a million chickens, but when they appear to metaphorically be quite prepared to slit each other’s throats for much less, it’s even worse!
Sabs—I agree. EAs need to learn much better PR crisis management skills, and apply them carefully, soberly, carefully, and expertly.
Putting out very short, reactive, panicked statements that publicly disavow key founders of our movement is not a constructive strategy for defending a movement against hostile outsiders, or promoting trust within the movement, or encouraging ethical self-reflection among movement members.
I’ve seen this error again, and again, and again, in academia—when administrators panic about some public blowback about something someone has allegedly done. We should be better than that.
Agree. At a meta-level, I was disappointed by the seemingly panicked and reactive nature of the statement. The statement is bad, and so, it seems, is the process that produced it.
Hm, I don’t much agree with this because I think the statement is basically consistent with Bostrom’s own apology. (Though it can still be rough to have other people agree with your criticisms of yourself).
Trust does not mean circling the wagons and remaining silent about seriously bad behavior. That kind of “trust” would be toxic to community health because it would privilege the comfort of the leader who made a racist comment over maintaining a safe, healthy community for everyone else.
Being a leader means accepting more scrutiny and criticism of your actions, not getting a pass because you’re a “long-term colleague and movement founder figure.”