If what happened was that Max Tegmark or FLI gets many dubious grant applications, and this particular application made it a few steps through FLI’s processes before it was caught, expo.se’s story and the negative response you object to on the EA forum would be bad, destructive and false. If this was what happened, it would absolutely deserve your disapproval and alarm.
I don’t think this isn’t true. What we know is:
An established (though hostile) newspaper gave an account with actual quotes from Tegmark that contradict his apparent actions
The bespoke funding letter, signed by Tegmark, explicitly promising funding, “approved a grant” conditional on registration of the charity
The hiring of the lawyer by Tegmark
When Tegmark edited his comment with more content, I’m surprised by how positive the reception of this edit got, which simply disavowed funding extremist groups.
I’m further surprised by the reaction and changing sentiment on the forum in reaction of this post, which simply presents an exonerating story. This story itself is directly contradicted by the signed statement in the letter itself.
Contrary to the top level post, it is false that it is standard practice to hand out signed declarations of financial support, with wording like “approved a grant” if substantial vetting remains. Also, it’s extremely unusual for any non-profit to hire a lawyer to explain that a prospective grantee failed vetting in the application process. We also haven’t seen any evidence that FLI actually communicated a rejection. Expo.se seems to have a positive record—even accepting the aesthetic here that newspapers or journalists are untrustworthy, it’s costly for an outlet to outright lie or misrepresent facts.
There’s other issues with Tegmark’s/FLI statements (e.g. deflections about the lack of direct financial benefit to his brother, not addressing the material support the letter provided for registration/the reasonable suspicion this was a ploy to produce the letter).
There’s much more that is problematic that underpin this. If I had more time, I would start a long thread explaining how funding and family relationships could interact really badly in EA/longtermism for several reasons, and another about Tegmark’s insertions into geopolitical issues, which are clumsy at best.
Another comment said the EA forum reaction contributed to actual harm to Tegmark/FLI in amplifying the false narrative. I think a look at Twitter, or how the story, which continues and has been picked up in Vice, suggests to me this isn’t this is true. Unfortunately, I think the opposite is true.
Getting to one object level issue:
If what happened was that Max Tegmark or FLI gets many dubious grant applications, and this particular application made it a few steps through FLI’s processes before it was caught, expo.se’s story and the negative response you object to on the EA forum would be bad, destructive and false. If this was what happened, it would absolutely deserve your disapproval and alarm.
I don’t think this isn’t true. What we know is:
An established (though hostile) newspaper gave an account with actual quotes from Tegmark that contradict his apparent actions
The bespoke funding letter, signed by Tegmark, explicitly promising funding, “approved a grant” conditional on registration of the charity
The hiring of the lawyer by Tegmark
When Tegmark edited his comment with more content, I’m surprised by how positive the reception of this edit got, which simply disavowed funding extremist groups.
I’m further surprised by the reaction and changing sentiment on the forum in reaction of this post, which simply presents an exonerating story. This story itself is directly contradicted by the signed statement in the letter itself.
Contrary to the top level post, it is false that it is standard practice to hand out signed declarations of financial support, with wording like “approved a grant” if substantial vetting remains. Also, it’s extremely unusual for any non-profit to hire a lawyer to explain that a prospective grantee failed vetting in the application process. We also haven’t seen any evidence that FLI actually communicated a rejection. Expo.se seems to have a positive record—even accepting the aesthetic here that newspapers or journalists are untrustworthy, it’s costly for an outlet to outright lie or misrepresent facts.
There’s other issues with Tegmark’s/FLI statements (e.g. deflections about the lack of direct financial benefit to his brother, not addressing the material support the letter provided for registration/the reasonable suspicion this was a ploy to produce the letter).
There’s much more that is problematic that underpin this. If I had more time, I would start a long thread explaining how funding and family relationships could interact really badly in EA/longtermism for several reasons, and another about Tegmark’s insertions into geopolitical issues, which are clumsy at best.
Another comment said the EA forum reaction contributed to actual harm to Tegmark/FLI in amplifying the false narrative. I think a look at Twitter, or how the story, which continues and has been picked up in Vice, suggests to me this isn’t this is true. Unfortunately, I think the opposite is true.