I’m wary of trying to treat Open Phil as 70% responsible for the community for a few reasons:
In practice, I can see this ending up as something more like 95%. Everyone else feels like they’re not responsible because they’re not mainly responsible.
Funding movement-building isn’t the only way to have responsibility for EA. If someone has never donated to movement-building, do they have zero responsibility? Even if they’re an associated public figure or talking about EA to the press or advocating for EA-aligned policy changes etc? The whole picture is actually pretty complex.
I think on the whole, EAs should move more in the direction of taking responsibility than pointing fingers (for reasons the OP mentions e.g. I think the attitude of “Open Phil’s got X covered” would generally make EA worse). I think it’s a bad sign that the first comment on this post is essentially, ”...So can we blame Open Phil?”
Having said that, I am surprised at how little people have been pointing fingers at Open Phil relative to EVF in recent months. I suspect that’s partly because a lot of people didn’t have a good sense of the funding landscape, so perhaps that 70% is a good stat to highlight.
FWIW, Open Phil is also largely responsible for non-movement building EA funding, but the rest of your comment still seems to stand replacing “movement-building” with “EA organizations/work”.
I think nuance is important here. Who should take what kind of responsibility? There should be responsibility to take at multiple levels (within an organization, the board, etc.), but Open Phil has the opportunity to deny funding and pressure organizations and individuals in different directions. Other than funding and Open Phil, there are internal decisions/processes, legal processes, shaming and disinvitations from EA events, maybe others. Even if those fail, don’t happen or don’t apply, we can still put pressure on their funding. If Open Phil is a major source of their funding, this will largely fall on Open Phil.
And Open Phil has a responsibility to do at least some due diligence, too.
Yes, sorry, nuance is important, I haven’t done the hard work of figuring out the details, and if you want to make EA better then it’s important to be aware of the key levers currently at play.
I’m just trying to push back on what I see as an unhealthy trend in EA away from the mindset of “How can we do better for the world?” towards “How can you do better for the world?” or even “How can you do better for me?” (Although I need to keep remembering that this phenomenon seems much more pronounced on this forum than IRL!)
I’m wary of trying to treat Open Phil as 70% responsible for the community for a few reasons:
In practice, I can see this ending up as something more like 95%. Everyone else feels like they’re not responsible because they’re not mainly responsible.
Funding movement-building isn’t the only way to have responsibility for EA. If someone has never donated to movement-building, do they have zero responsibility? Even if they’re an associated public figure or talking about EA to the press or advocating for EA-aligned policy changes etc? The whole picture is actually pretty complex.
I think on the whole, EAs should move more in the direction of taking responsibility than pointing fingers (for reasons the OP mentions e.g. I think the attitude of “Open Phil’s got X covered” would generally make EA worse). I think it’s a bad sign that the first comment on this post is essentially, ”...So can we blame Open Phil?”
Having said that, I am surprised at how little people have been pointing fingers at Open Phil relative to EVF in recent months. I suspect that’s partly because a lot of people didn’t have a good sense of the funding landscape, so perhaps that 70% is a good stat to highlight.
FWIW, Open Phil is also largely responsible for non-movement building EA funding, but the rest of your comment still seems to stand replacing “movement-building” with “EA organizations/work”.
I think nuance is important here. Who should take what kind of responsibility? There should be responsibility to take at multiple levels (within an organization, the board, etc.), but Open Phil has the opportunity to deny funding and pressure organizations and individuals in different directions. Other than funding and Open Phil, there are internal decisions/processes, legal processes, shaming and disinvitations from EA events, maybe others. Even if those fail, don’t happen or don’t apply, we can still put pressure on their funding. If Open Phil is a major source of their funding, this will largely fall on Open Phil.
And Open Phil has a responsibility to do at least some due diligence, too.
Yes, sorry, nuance is important, I haven’t done the hard work of figuring out the details, and if you want to make EA better then it’s important to be aware of the key levers currently at play.
I’m just trying to push back on what I see as an unhealthy trend in EA away from the mindset of “How can we do better for the world?” towards “How can you do better for the world?” or even “How can you do better for me?” (Although I need to keep remembering that this phenomenon seems much more pronounced on this forum than IRL!)