I’m disappointed that I was able to point out so many things I wish the author had done better in this document. If there had only been a couple errors, it would have been plausibly deniable that anything fishy was going on here. But with as many errors as I’ve pointed out, which all point in the direction of making EA Funds look better than it is, things don’t look good.
From my point of view, the context for the first section was to explain why we updated in favor of EA Funds persisting past the three-month trial before the trial was over. This was important to communicate because several people expressed confusion about our endorsement of EA Funds while the project was still technically in beta. This is why the first section highlights mostly positive information about EA Funds whereas later sections highlight challenges, mistakes etc.
I think the update that your comment is suggesting is that I should have made the first section longer and should have provided a more detailed discussion of the considerations for and against concluding that EA Funds has been well-received so far. Is that what you think or do you think I should make a different update?
A more detailed discussion of the considerations for and against concluding that EA Funds had been well received would have been helpful if the added detail was spent examining people’s concerns re: conflicts of interest, and centralization of power, i.e. concerns which were commonly expressed but not resolved.
I’m concerned with the framing that you updated towards it being correct for EA Funds to persist past the three month trial period. If there was support to start out with and you mostly didn’t gather more support later on relative to what one would expect, then your prior on whether EA Funds is well received should be stronger but you shouldn’t update in favor of it being well received based on more recent data. This may sound like a nitpick, but it is actually a crucially important consideration if you’ve framed things as if you’ll continue on with the project only if you update in the direction of having more public support than before.
I also dislike that you emphasize that some people “expressed confusion at your endorsement of EA Funds”. Some people may have felt that way, but your choice of wording both downplays the seriousness of some people’s disagreements with EA Funds, while also implying that critics are in need of figuring something out that others have already settled (which itself socially implies they’re less competent than others who aren’t confused). This is a part of what some of us mean when we talk about a tax on criticism in EA.
I also dislike that you emphasize that some people “expressed confusion at your endorsement of EA Funds”. Some people may have felt that way, but your choice of wording both downplays the seriousness of some people’s disagreements with EA Funds, while also implying that critics are in need of figuring something out that others have already settled (which itself socially implies they’re less competent than others who aren’t confused).
I definitely perceived the sort of strong exclusive endorsement and pushing EA Funds got as a direct contradiction of what I’d been told earlier, privately and publicly—that this was an MVP experiment to gauge interest and feasibility, to be reevaluated after three months. If I’m confused, I’m confused about how this wasn’t just a lie. My initial response was “HOW IS THIS OK???” (verbatim quote). I’m willing to be persuaded, of course. But, barring an actual resolution of the issue, simply describing this as confusion is a pretty substantial understatement.
ETA: I’m happy with the update to the OP and don’t think I have any unresolved complaint on this particular wording issue.
I’m concerned with the framing that you updated towards it being correct for EA Funds to persist past the three month trial period. If there was support to start out with and you mostly didn’t gather more support later on relative to what one would expect...
In the OP Kerry wrote:
The donation amounts we’ve received so far are greater than we expected, especially given that donations typically decrease early in the year after ramping up towards the end of the year.
CEA’s original expectation of donations could just have been wrong, of course. But I don’t see a failure of logic here.
Re. your last paragraph, Kerry can confirm or deny but I think he’s referring to the fact that a bunch of people were surprised to see (e.g.? Not sure if there were other cases.) GWWC start recommending the EA funds and closing down the GWWC trust recently when CEA hadn’t actually officially given the funds a ‘green light’ yet. So not referring to the same set of criticisms you are talking about. I think ‘confusion at GWWC’s endorsement of EA funds’ is a reasonable description of how I felt when I received this e-mail, at the very least*; I like the funds but prominently recommending something that is in beta and might be discontinued at any minute seemed odd.
*I got the e-mail from GWWC announcing this on 11th April. I got CEA’s March 2017 update saying they’d decided to continue with the funds later on the same day, but I think that goes to a much narrower list and in the interim I was confused and was going to ask someone about it. Checking now it looks like CEA actually announced this on their blog on 10th April (see below link), but again presumably lots of GWWC members don’t read that.
Kerry can confirm or deny but I think he’s referring to the fact that a bunch of people were surprised to see (e.g.? Not sure if there were other cases.) GWWC start recommending the EA funds and closing down the GWWC trust recently when CEA hadn’t actually officially given the funds a ‘green light’ yet.
Correct. We had updated in favor of EA Funds internally but hadn’t communicated that fact in public. When we started linking to EA Funds on the GWWC website, people were justifiably confused.
I’m concerned with the framing that you updated towards it being correct for EA Funds to persist past the three month trial period. If there was support to start out with and you mostly didn’t gather more support later on relative to what one would expect, then your prior on whether EA Funds is well received should be stronger but you shouldn’t update in favor of it being well received based on more recent data.
The money moved is the strongest new data point.
It seemed quite plausible to me that we could have the community be largely supportive of the idea of EA Funds without actually using the product. This is more or less what happened with EA Ventures—lots of people thought it was a good idea, but not many promising projects showed up and not many funders actually donated to the projects we happened to find.
Do you feel that the post as currently written still overhypes the communities perception of the project? If so, what changes would you suggest to bring it more in line with the observable evidence?
This is more or less what happened with EA Ventures—lots of people thought it was a good idea, but not many promising projects showed up and not many funders actually donated to the projects we happened to find.
It seems like the character of the EA movement needs to be improved somehow, (probably, as always, there are marginal improvements to the implementation too) but especially the character of the movement because arguably if EA could spawn many projects, its impact would be increased many-fold.
From my point of view, the context for the first section was to explain why we updated in favor of EA Funds persisting past the three-month trial before the trial was over. This was important to communicate because several people expressed confusion about our endorsement of EA Funds while the project was still technically in beta. This is why the first section highlights mostly positive information about EA Funds whereas later sections highlight challenges, mistakes etc.
I think the update that your comment is suggesting is that I should have made the first section longer and should have provided a more detailed discussion of the considerations for and against concluding that EA Funds has been well-received so far. Is that what you think or do you think I should make a different update?
A more detailed discussion of the considerations for and against concluding that EA Funds had been well received would have been helpful if the added detail was spent examining people’s concerns re: conflicts of interest, and centralization of power, i.e. concerns which were commonly expressed but not resolved.
I’m concerned with the framing that you updated towards it being correct for EA Funds to persist past the three month trial period. If there was support to start out with and you mostly didn’t gather more support later on relative to what one would expect, then your prior on whether EA Funds is well received should be stronger but you shouldn’t update in favor of it being well received based on more recent data. This may sound like a nitpick, but it is actually a crucially important consideration if you’ve framed things as if you’ll continue on with the project only if you update in the direction of having more public support than before.
I also dislike that you emphasize that some people “expressed confusion at your endorsement of EA Funds”. Some people may have felt that way, but your choice of wording both downplays the seriousness of some people’s disagreements with EA Funds, while also implying that critics are in need of figuring something out that others have already settled (which itself socially implies they’re less competent than others who aren’t confused). This is a part of what some of us mean when we talk about a tax on criticism in EA.
I definitely perceived the sort of strong exclusive endorsement and pushing EA Funds got as a direct contradiction of what I’d been told earlier, privately and publicly—that this was an MVP experiment to gauge interest and feasibility, to be reevaluated after three months. If I’m confused, I’m confused about how this wasn’t just a lie. My initial response was “HOW IS THIS OK???” (verbatim quote). I’m willing to be persuaded, of course. But, barring an actual resolution of the issue, simply describing this as confusion is a pretty substantial understatement.
ETA: I’m happy with the update to the OP and don’t think I have any unresolved complaint on this particular wording issue.
In the OP Kerry wrote:
CEA’s original expectation of donations could just have been wrong, of course. But I don’t see a failure of logic here.
Re. your last paragraph, Kerry can confirm or deny but I think he’s referring to the fact that a bunch of people were surprised to see (e.g.? Not sure if there were other cases.) GWWC start recommending the EA funds and closing down the GWWC trust recently when CEA hadn’t actually officially given the funds a ‘green light’ yet. So not referring to the same set of criticisms you are talking about. I think ‘confusion at GWWC’s endorsement of EA funds’ is a reasonable description of how I felt when I received this e-mail, at the very least*; I like the funds but prominently recommending something that is in beta and might be discontinued at any minute seemed odd.
*I got the e-mail from GWWC announcing this on 11th April. I got CEA’s March 2017 update saying they’d decided to continue with the funds later on the same day, but I think that goes to a much narrower list and in the interim I was confused and was going to ask someone about it. Checking now it looks like CEA actually announced this on their blog on 10th April (see below link), but again presumably lots of GWWC members don’t read that.
https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/blog/cea-update-march-2017/
Correct. We had updated in favor of EA Funds internally but hadn’t communicated that fact in public. When we started linking to EA Funds on the GWWC website, people were justifiably confused.
The money moved is the strongest new data point.
It seemed quite plausible to me that we could have the community be largely supportive of the idea of EA Funds without actually using the product. This is more or less what happened with EA Ventures—lots of people thought it was a good idea, but not many promising projects showed up and not many funders actually donated to the projects we happened to find.
Do you feel that the post as currently written still overhypes the communities perception of the project? If so, what changes would you suggest to bring it more in line with the observable evidence?
It seems like the character of the EA movement needs to be improved somehow, (probably, as always, there are marginal improvements to the implementation too) but especially the character of the movement because arguably if EA could spawn many projects, its impact would be increased many-fold.