I think if we had refrained from criticizing their initial statement, their final, formal statement would be a lot worse, so if anything, we did them a favour.
I don’t think you have internalized the point: there was no misconduct. If their initial statement was insufficient to convince us of this, that is on us, not on them. Their job as a charity is not to manage a public persona so that you or me continue to look good by affiliation, it’s to actually do good. Accusing them of secretly financing nazis because we’re weak and afraid of being tarred by association is the exact reverse polar opposite of doing them a “favor”.
First, I’ll state that allowing the grant to get past the vetting stage may not have been malicious, but it was incompetent. Tegmark has admitted as such, and proposed changes to remedy this. Finding out at least some of the insidious nature of the newspaper would have only have taken half an hour of googling.
The initial responses suggested either incompetence or malice on the part of FLI. I think assuming it was malice was uncalled for and wrong, but it was at the very least a possibility.
Their job as a charity is not to manage a public persona so that you or me continue to look good by affiliation
Charities rely on donors. Donors do not like being associated with neo-nazis, however unfairly. Doing basic research on your funding partners is part of a charities job, to avoid exactly this situation.
I don’t think you have internalized the point: there was no misconduct. If their initial statement was insufficient to convince us of this, that is on us, not on them. Their job as a charity is not to manage a public persona so that you or me continue to look good by affiliation, it’s to actually do good. Accusing them of secretly financing nazis because we’re weak and afraid of being tarred by association is the exact reverse polar opposite of doing them a “favor”.
First, I’ll state that allowing the grant to get past the vetting stage may not have been malicious, but it was incompetent. Tegmark has admitted as such, and proposed changes to remedy this. Finding out at least some of the insidious nature of the newspaper would have only have taken half an hour of googling.
The initial responses suggested either incompetence or malice on the part of FLI. I think assuming it was malice was uncalled for and wrong, but it was at the very least a possibility.
Charities rely on donors. Donors do not like being associated with neo-nazis, however unfairly. Doing basic research on your funding partners is part of a charities job, to avoid exactly this situation.
It did not make it past the vetting stage.
They did not award the grant.
FWIW, by FLI’s own admission this is false—though perhaps you would call stage 5 (see below) the vetting stage.
In section 4) What was the meaning of FLI’s letter of intent? FLI lay out 7 general stages for grant decision-making.
They say “This proposal made it through 4) in August, then was rejected in November during 5), never reaching 6) or 7).”
Where Stage 2 was: 2) Evaluation and vetting
And Stage 5 was: 5) Further due diligence on grantee
So it would be more accurate to say that it made it past initial vetting, but not further due diligence, and no grant was awarded.
Ah, I hadn’t meant to use “vetting stage” as a term of art.