If we believe the EA space benefits from wisdom of the crowd, then that wisdom is purer the easier it is for EAs to donate money to specific causes or projects they believe in.
I’m really not sure this is true. A market is one way of aggregating knowledge and preferences, but there are others (e.g. democracy). And as in a democracy, we expect many or most decisions to be better handled by a small group of people whose job it is. On the one hand this may not be a problem if one could delegate their voice/donation to others in some or all areas, or if grantmakers could handle a pool of donors, each with different preferences with different levels of granularity. On the other hand, maybe people will be too confident in their preferences (regarding altruism—so, other people’s needs and preferences).
Combining functions can allow organisations to develop internal synergies; separating functions can create overhead… Having said that, splitting organisations needn’t remove close cooperation or even physical proximity between their former departments—it just makes it an option, rather than a necessity.
First of all, relevant xkcd. Secondly, this may be true in some aspects but not in others, and I’d still expect overhead to increase, or some things to become much more challenging.
As an example, whenever I fill a CEA form, there are some options to choose from regarding who my data can be shared with. If I don’t want my data connected with that from another EA org, or seen by my friends at some software providing org, this could be much harder to accomplish once functions are split out.
I’m really not sure this is true. A market is one way of aggregating knowledge and preferences, but there are others (e.g. democracy). And as in a democracy, we expect many or most decisions to be better handled by a small group of people whose job it is.
This doesn’t sound like most people’s view on democracy to me. Normally it’s more like ‘we have to relinquish control over our lives to someone, so it gives slightly better incentives if we have a fractional say in who that someone is’.
I’m reminded of Scott Siskind on prediction markets—while there might be some grantmakers who I happen to trust, EA prioritisation is exceptionally hard, and I think ‘have the community have as representative a say in it as they want to have’ is a far better Schelling point than ‘appoint a handful of gatekeepers and encourage everyone to defer to them’.
First of all, relevant xkcd.
This seems like a cheap shot. What’s the equivalent of systemwide security risk in this analogy? Looking at the specific CEA form example, if you fill out a feedback form at the event, do CEA currently need to share it among their forum, community health, movement building departments? If not, then your privacy would actually increase post-split, since the minimum number of people you could usefully consent to sharing it with would have decreased.
Also, what’s the analogy where you end up with an increasing number of sandboxes? The worst case scenario in that respect seems to be ‘organisations realise splitting didn’t help and recombine to their original state’.
Secondly, this may be true in some aspects but not in others, and I’d still expect overhead to increase, or some things to become much more challenging.
I agree in the sense that overhead would increase in expectation, but a) the gains might outweigh it—IMO higher fidelity comparison is worth a lot and b) it also seems like there’s a <50% but plausible chance that movement-wide overhead would actually decrease, since you’d need shared services for helping establish small organisations. And that’s before considering things like efficiency of services, which I’m confident would increase for the reasons I gave here.
I’m really not sure this is true. A market is one way of aggregating knowledge and preferences, but there are others (e.g. democracy). And as in a democracy, we expect many or most decisions to be better handled by a small group of people whose job it is. On the one hand this may not be a problem if one could delegate their voice/donation to others in some or all areas, or if grantmakers could handle a pool of donors, each with different preferences with different levels of granularity. On the other hand, maybe people will be too confident in their preferences (regarding altruism—so, other people’s needs and preferences).
First of all, relevant xkcd. Secondly, this may be true in some aspects but not in others, and I’d still expect overhead to increase, or some things to become much more challenging.
As an example, whenever I fill a CEA form, there are some options to choose from regarding who my data can be shared with. If I don’t want my data connected with that from another EA org, or seen by my friends at some software providing org, this could be much harder to accomplish once functions are split out.
This doesn’t sound like most people’s view on democracy to me. Normally it’s more like ‘we have to relinquish control over our lives to someone, so it gives slightly better incentives if we have a fractional say in who that someone is’.
I’m reminded of Scott Siskind on prediction markets—while there might be some grantmakers who I happen to trust, EA prioritisation is exceptionally hard, and I think ‘have the community have as representative a say in it as they want to have’ is a far better Schelling point than ‘appoint a handful of gatekeepers and encourage everyone to defer to them’.
This seems like a cheap shot. What’s the equivalent of systemwide security risk in this analogy? Looking at the specific CEA form example, if you fill out a feedback form at the event, do CEA currently need to share it among their forum, community health, movement building departments? If not, then your privacy would actually increase post-split, since the minimum number of people you could usefully consent to sharing it with would have decreased.
Also, what’s the analogy where you end up with an increasing number of sandboxes? The worst case scenario in that respect seems to be ‘organisations realise splitting didn’t help and recombine to their original state’.
I agree in the sense that overhead would increase in expectation, but a) the gains might outweigh it—IMO higher fidelity comparison is worth a lot and b) it also seems like there’s a <50% but plausible chance that movement-wide overhead would actually decrease, since you’d need shared services for helping establish small organisations. And that’s before considering things like efficiency of services, which I’m confident would increase for the reasons I gave here.