“Through careful management and deployment of our resources, and under the oversight of an internationally renowned board of directors, NTI has operated for more than 20 years to address existential threats to humanity and the planet. Over these two decades, and with the generous support of our donors, our work has created lasting impact to address catastrophic nuclear and biological threats. We intend to do so for many more years to come, as the mission challenges that NTI addresses are both urgent and multi-generational.
“In recent years, we have engaged in multiple discussions with SoGive and are grateful for the support they have provided. While we respect Sanjay Joshi’s right to express his opinions, we disagree with the premise of his piece and many of the statements made about NTI. We appreciated the opportunity to review his document before it was posted, but because it contained so many errors of fact, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations, we decided that addressing them line-by-line would not be productive.
“Ultimately, we believe donors should consider whether organizations with healthy balance sheets may be better positioned to make the long-term, sustained effort needed to address existential threats. We feel strongly that organizations like NTI, with long-term goals and projects, must operate with a multi-year focus to ensure the best problem-solving approaches and outcomes. This requires a strong fiscal foundation, sustained by dedicated resource development year-by-year. We are proud of our track record over more than two decades and believe it simply cannot be matched by smaller, shorter-term, less sustainable, and less financially flexible organizations working in the nuclear and biological threat-reduction space.
“We deeply value the Effective Altruism community, in particular our ongoing dialogue on nuclear threats and valuable engagement with our work to reduce catastrophic biological risks. We welcome future dialogue and collaboration with the EA community—and others—about NTI’s mission, program work, and impact.”
we disagree with the premise of his piece and many of the statements made about NTI
[the document] contained so many errors of fact, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations, we decided that addressing them line-by-line would not be productive.
Sounds like it would add a lot to address a few important mistakes, even if not all of them?
(unless that already happened and I missed it. If so: oops)
I really don’t like the comment “it contained so many errors of fact, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations, we decided that addressing them line-by-line would not be productive.” as this casts serious dispersions on the original post while it gives us no clear specific information as to what the issues are.
This kind of comment seems at odds with the open and clear communication I have come to know and love on this forum, so I’m genuinely surprised this reply has so much positive karma.
Can someone explain why this reply might have s much positive karma while the mode of communication seems so at odds with the norms of the forum?
It’s generally desirable for an organization’s response to criticism to be at or near the top of the comment heap, and karma is heavily weighted in comment sorting.
Thanks that’s a really good point, perhaps you are right no matter what the response is it should be up high. Perhaps even official responses from an org to a specific criticism response could just be pinned by the mod to the top?
(Can mods validate the commenter’s affiliation with NTI? I don’t have any reason to doubt it, but I think it’s a best practice for accounts with little activity that post a statement on behalf of an org.)
I can confirm that the username looks like it’s associated with someone I know at NTI, and that the wording looks consistent with wording that I’ve seen from NTI, and overall I judge it very very likely that this is a legitimate comment from NTI.
I am posting on behalf of NTI:
“Through careful management and deployment of our resources, and under the oversight of an internationally renowned board of directors, NTI has operated for more than 20 years to address existential threats to humanity and the planet. Over these two decades, and with the generous support of our donors, our work has created lasting impact to address catastrophic nuclear and biological threats. We intend to do so for many more years to come, as the mission challenges that NTI addresses are both urgent and multi-generational.
“In recent years, we have engaged in multiple discussions with SoGive and are grateful for the support they have provided. While we respect Sanjay Joshi’s right to express his opinions, we disagree with the premise of his piece and many of the statements made about NTI. We appreciated the opportunity to review his document before it was posted, but because it contained so many errors of fact, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations, we decided that addressing them line-by-line would not be productive.
“Ultimately, we believe donors should consider whether organizations with healthy balance sheets may be better positioned to make the long-term, sustained effort needed to address existential threats. We feel strongly that organizations like NTI, with long-term goals and projects, must operate with a multi-year focus to ensure the best problem-solving approaches and outcomes. This requires a strong fiscal foundation, sustained by dedicated resource development year-by-year. We are proud of our track record over more than two decades and believe it simply cannot be matched by smaller, shorter-term, less sustainable, and less financially flexible organizations working in the nuclear and biological threat-reduction space.
“We deeply value the Effective Altruism community, in particular our ongoing dialogue on nuclear threats and valuable engagement with our work to reduce catastrophic biological risks. We welcome future dialogue and collaboration with the EA community—and others—about NTI’s mission, program work, and impact.”
Sounds like it would add a lot to address a few important mistakes, even if not all of them?
(unless that already happened and I missed it. If so: oops)
I really don’t like the comment “it contained so many errors of fact, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations, we decided that addressing them line-by-line would not be productive.” as this casts serious dispersions on the original post while it gives us no clear specific information as to what the issues are.
This kind of comment seems at odds with the open and clear communication I have come to know and love on this forum, so I’m genuinely surprised this reply has so much positive karma.
Can someone explain why this reply might have s much positive karma while the mode of communication seems so at odds with the norms of the forum?
Thanks!
It’s generally desirable for an organization’s response to criticism to be at or near the top of the comment heap, and karma is heavily weighted in comment sorting.
Thanks that’s a really good point, perhaps you are right no matter what the response is it should be up high. Perhaps even official responses from an org to a specific criticism response could just be pinned by the mod to the top?
I thought the bottom half was an OK response.- ‘We have long term plans and value healthy funding’ (paraphrasing)
(Can mods validate the commenter’s affiliation with NTI? I don’t have any reason to doubt it, but I think it’s a best practice for accounts with little activity that post a statement on behalf of an org.)
I can confirm that the username looks like it’s associated with someone I know at NTI, and that the wording looks consistent with wording that I’ve seen from NTI, and overall I judge it very very likely that this is a legitimate comment from NTI.