The issue with CEA “representing” EA in some way goes far deeper than the name. They curate and run: a conference called EA Global (the only major EA conference), effectivealtruism.org (including this forum), and other projects branded as Effective Altruism (not as the Centre for Effective Altruism).
In my opinion, this is fundamentally at tension with the stated position that “CEA, however, doesn’t appear to think of itself as the leader of the EA community”. Unless they cede control of these major parts of EA infrastructure (which could include them continuing to own them but having some kind of democratic governance) then they will continue to be the de facto leaders of the movement.
I think there are a couple of things you’re pointing out which are different issues than the one I’m trying to suggest a resolution to, or I disagree with.
1) I don’t think CEA *is* ‘the de facto leader’ of the EA movement. So I find it problematic that branding/communication issues are leading to people in the community thinking that it is the case.
2) I don’t have an issue per se with CEA solely running EA Global or the forum, or doing other things—it’s just that there needs to be a clearer understanding (through reiteration and visibility) within the community of what CEA is and is not. Sure, CEA may be disproportionately prominent (mostly through being visible) but at most that makes them one of leading organisations in the EA movement, not the leader. (also I assume when you mean the movement, you’re talking about meta-EA or community building stuff, as I don’t think you’d really endorse the idea that CEA is in charge ofall of this?)
3) I think
“Unless they cede control of these major parts of EA infrastructure then they will continue to be the de facto leaders of the movement”.
raises an interesting question/points to a weird way you think about leadership? I wouldn’t consider the richest Americans/the Americans who own the most stuff to be the leaders of America. Maybe you’re suggesting they control the movement or dictate what EA does, but I would suggest EA’s main/only substantive funder, and the 5-20 individuals who decide where its money goes, fills that role, not CEA.
I don’t think I’m on board with all the ‘democratise EA’ cries which have been made over the past year, but I think I’m sentimentally in agreement with you about centralised control—and that it’s not great that decision making, through funding, is currently monopolised.
What I mean is that they have control over most of the things that get to define what EA means and what it contains. Eg: who attends and speaks at EAG, what content is on effectivealtruism.com, moderation policies on the forum.
The problem isn’t branding or communication, CEA objectively have a large amount of power over the movement. I accept that “leader” might not be the correct choice of words, and that they’re not exclusive in this role (as you observe, Open Phil similarly have a lot of power).
I’m also unconvinced that democratising is the way forward. But I think CEA either needs to take steps in this direction or stop making statements such as “we do not think of ourselves as having or wanting control over the EA community”.
Hi Joshua, I think you’re pointing at something important about CEA representing EA through programs like EAG and the Forum, and I want to acknowledge that that is something we do and that it’s a responsibility we take seriously. (I work in the Exec Office at CEA.)
These two posts give more detail about our approach:
My view is that our approach is consistent with not having or wanting control over the community, or being its de facto leader. Quite possibly you already agree with this based on your most recent comment above, but I wanted to share these resources in case you or other readers were not aware of them.
Thank you for those links. The decisions explained in the moderation and content curation policies are, in my view, extremely important and determine where a lot of EA discourse is. This happens either directly (eg: EAG speaking slots) or indirectly (eg: who gets filtered out when following EA intro materials). I do not think taking those decisions is compatiable with the idea that “we [CEA] do not think of ourselves as having or wanting control over the EA community”.
I appreciate the transparency of those policies being written down. However, they are still policies that are largely dictated to the community (eg: relying on experts determined by CEA more heavily than EA surveys).
I wouldn’t consider the richest Americans/the Americans who own the most stuff to be the leaders of America
The US federal government controls most US infrastructure, either directly or indirectly through regulation, and is generally considered to be leading America.
The US federal government controls most US infrastructure, either directly or indirectly through regulation, and is generally considered to be leading America.
Okay yes that’s true, the government owns a lot of stuff. But aren’t they considered ‘the leader’ because they were/ it was democratically elected to lead?
I guess I should have more accurately said “I wouldn’t consider the richest Americans/the Americans who own the most stuff to be the leaders of America solely because they own the most stuff”.
The Chinese government wasn’t democratically elected, but they still are the leader of China, because they own/control most of the infrastructure. Elections are only important for becoming leader if they give you control over key infrastructure.
I agree that the richest individual Americans are not therefore the leaders of America, but that’s because their power/control over key infrastructure is very small compared to the federal government.
They curate and run a conference called EA Global, effectivealtruism.org (including this forum)… Unless they cede control of these major parts of EA infrastructure… then they will continue to be the de facto leaders of the movement.
I don’t think this is true, necessarily. They can run this infrastructure without leading the movement; for example, the website could be descriptive rather than prescriptive, and they could run the conferences just by renting event spaces and then inviting speakers from whichever orgs are the current thought leaders.
I agree in the abstract. However, I think in practice this is pretty hard to do, because there’s a lot of subjective judgement in deciding how to describe a movement or who the current thought leaders are.
I’d say more towards the former (unless there’s a lot of moderation going on that I’m unaware of). The forum is largely self-regulating by the use of up/downvoting, which isn’t possible in other avenues. There are obviously, and necessarily, some exceptions to this (eg: seperating out the community tag, the digest has a lot more curation).
The issue with CEA “representing” EA in some way goes far deeper than the name. They curate and run: a conference called EA Global (the only major EA conference), effectivealtruism.org (including this forum), and other projects branded as Effective Altruism (not as the Centre for Effective Altruism).
In my opinion, this is fundamentally at tension with the stated position that “CEA, however, doesn’t appear to think of itself as the leader of the EA community”. Unless they cede control of these major parts of EA infrastructure (which could include them continuing to own them but having some kind of democratic governance) then they will continue to be the de facto leaders of the movement.
I think there are a couple of things you’re pointing out which are different issues than the one I’m trying to suggest a resolution to, or I disagree with.
1) I don’t think CEA *is* ‘the de facto leader’ of the EA movement. So I find it problematic that branding/communication issues are leading to people in the community thinking that it is the case.
2) I don’t have an issue per se with CEA solely running EA Global or the forum, or doing other things—it’s just that there needs to be a clearer understanding (through reiteration and visibility) within the community of what CEA is and is not. Sure, CEA may be disproportionately prominent (mostly through being visible) but at most that makes them one of leading organisations in the EA movement, not the leader. (also I assume when you mean the movement, you’re talking about meta-EA or community building stuff, as I don’t think you’d really endorse the idea that CEA is in charge of all of this?)
3) I think
raises an interesting question/points to a weird way you think about leadership? I wouldn’t consider the richest Americans/the Americans who own the most stuff to be the leaders of America. Maybe you’re suggesting they control the movement or dictate what EA does, but I would suggest EA’s main/only substantive funder, and the 5-20 individuals who decide where its money goes, fills that role, not CEA.
I don’t think I’m on board with all the ‘democratise EA’ cries which have been made over the past year, but I think I’m sentimentally in agreement with you about centralised control—and that it’s not great that decision making, through funding, is currently monopolised.
What I mean is that they have control over most of the things that get to define what EA means and what it contains. Eg: who attends and speaks at EAG, what content is on effectivealtruism.com, moderation policies on the forum.
The problem isn’t branding or communication, CEA objectively have a large amount of power over the movement. I accept that “leader” might not be the correct choice of words, and that they’re not exclusive in this role (as you observe, Open Phil similarly have a lot of power).
I’m also unconvinced that democratising is the way forward. But I think CEA either needs to take steps in this direction or stop making statements such as “we do not think of ourselves as having or wanting control over the EA community”.
Hi Joshua, I think you’re pointing at something important about CEA representing EA through programs like EAG and the Forum, and I want to acknowledge that that is something we do and that it’s a responsibility we take seriously. (I work in the Exec Office at CEA.)
These two posts give more detail about our approach:
Core EA Principles
Moderation and Content Curation
My view is that our approach is consistent with not having or wanting control over the community, or being its de facto leader. Quite possibly you already agree with this based on your most recent comment above, but I wanted to share these resources in case you or other readers were not aware of them.
Thank you for those links. The decisions explained in the moderation and content curation policies are, in my view, extremely important and determine where a lot of EA discourse is. This happens either directly (eg: EAG speaking slots) or indirectly (eg: who gets filtered out when following EA intro materials). I do not think taking those decisions is compatiable with the idea that “we [CEA] do not think of ourselves as having or wanting control over the EA community”.
I appreciate the transparency of those policies being written down. However, they are still policies that are largely dictated to the community (eg: relying on experts determined by CEA more heavily than EA surveys).
The US federal government controls most US infrastructure, either directly or indirectly through regulation, and is generally considered to be leading America.
Okay yes that’s true, the government owns a lot of stuff. But aren’t they considered ‘the leader’ because they were/ it was democratically elected to lead?
I guess I should have more accurately said “I wouldn’t consider the richest Americans/the Americans who own the most stuff to be the leaders of America solely because they own the most stuff”.
The Chinese government wasn’t democratically elected, but they still are the leader of China, because they own/control most of the infrastructure. Elections are only important for becoming leader if they give you control over key infrastructure.
I agree that the richest individual Americans are not therefore the leaders of America, but that’s because their power/control over key infrastructure is very small compared to the federal government.
I don’t think this is true, necessarily. They can run this infrastructure without leading the movement; for example, the website could be descriptive rather than prescriptive, and they could run the conferences just by renting event spaces and then inviting speakers from whichever orgs are the current thought leaders.
I agree in the abstract. However, I think in practice this is pretty hard to do, because there’s a lot of subjective judgement in deciding how to describe a movement or who the current thought leaders are.
I’d be curious to hear your impression on where the Forum team is on the scale of “just running infrastructure” or “leading the movement.”
I’d say more towards the former (unless there’s a lot of moderation going on that I’m unaware of). The forum is largely self-regulating by the use of up/downvoting, which isn’t possible in other avenues. There are obviously, and necessarily, some exceptions to this (eg: seperating out the community tag, the digest has a lot more curation).