My guess is there must be some public stuff about this, though it wouldn’t surprise me if no one had made a coherent writeup of it on the internet (I also strongly reject the frame that people are only allowed to say that something ‘makes sense’ after having discussed the merits of it publicly. I have all kinds of crazy schemes for stuff that I think in-expectation beats GiveWell’s last dollar, and I haven’t written up anything close to a quarter of them, and likely never will).
Yeah, there could be some public stuff about this and I’m just not aware of it. And sorry, I wasn’t trying to say that people are only allowed to say that something ‘makes sense’ after having discussed the merits of it publicly. I was more trying to say that I would find it concerning for major spending decisions (billions of dollars in this case) to be made without any community consultation, only for people to justify it afterwards because at face value it “makes sense.” I’m not saying that I don’t see potential value in purchasing Twitter, but I don’t think a huge decision like that should be justified based on quick, post-hoc judgements. If SBF wanted to buy Twitter for non-EA reasons, that’s one thing, but if the idea here is that purchasingTwitter alongside Elon Musk is actually worth billions of dollars from an EA perspective, I would need to see way more analysis, much like significant analysis has been done for AI safety, biorisk, animal welfare, and global health and poverty. (We’re a movement that prides itself on using evidence and reason to make the world better, after all.)
Oh, to be clear, I think Will fucked up pretty badly here. I just don’t think any policy that tries to prevent even very influential and trusted people in EA talking to other people in private about their honest judgement of other people is possibly a good idea. I think you should totally see this as a mistake and update downwards on Will (as well as EAs willingness to have him be as close as possible to a leader as we have), but I think from an institutional perspective there is little that should have been done at this point (i.e. all the mistakes were made much earlier, in how Will ended up in a bad epistemic state, and maybe the way we delegate leadership in the first place).
Thanks for clarifying that—that makes more sense to me, and I agree that there was little that should have been done at that specific point. The lead-up to getting to that point is much more important.
If SBF wanted to buy Twitter for non-EA reasons, that’s one thing, but if the idea here is that purchasingTwitter alongside Elon Musk is actually worth billions of dollars from an EA perspective, I would need to see way more analysis, much like significant analysis has been done for AI safety, biorisk, animal welfare, and global health and poverty.
If you think investing in Twitter is close to neutral from an investment perspective (maybe reasonable at the time, definitely not by the time Musk was forced to close) then the opportunity cost isn’t really billions of dollars. Possibly this would have been an example of marginal charity.
I can see where you’re coming from with this, and I think purely financially you’re right, it doesn’t make sense to think of it as billions of dollars ‘down the drain.’
However, if I were to do a full analysis of this (in the framing of this being a decision based on an EA perspective), I would want to ask some non-financial questions too, such as:
Does the EA movement want to be further associated with Elon Musk than we already are, including any changes he might want to make with Twitter? What are the risks involved? (based on what we knew before the Twitter deal)
Does the EA movement want to be in the business of purchasing social media platforms? (In the past, we have championed causes like global health and poverty, reducing existencial risks, and animal welfare—this is quite a shift from those into a space that is more about power and politics, particularly given Musk’s stated political views/aims leading up to this purchase)
How might the EA movement shift because of this? (Some EAs may be on board, others may see it as quite surprising and not in line with their values.)
What were SBF’s personal/business motivations for wanting to acquire Twitter, and how would those intersect with EA’s vision for the platform?
What trade offs would be made that would impact other cause areas?
This is the bit I think was missed further up the thread. Regardless of whether buying a social media company could reasonably be considered EA, it’s fairly clear that Elon Musk’s goals both generally and with Twitter are not aligned with EA. MacAskill is allowed to do things that aren’t EA-aligned, but it seems to me to be another case of poor judgement by him (in addition to his association with SBF).
For what it’s worth connecting SBF and Musk might’ve been a time sensitive situation for a reason or another. There would’ve also still been time to debate the investment in the larger community before the deal would’ve actually gone through.
Seems quite implausible to me that this would have happened and unclear if it would have been good. (Assuming “larger EA community” implies more than private conversations between a few people. )
Yeah, there could be some public stuff about this and I’m just not aware of it. And sorry, I wasn’t trying to say that people are only allowed to say that something ‘makes sense’ after having discussed the merits of it publicly. I was more trying to say that I would find it concerning for major spending decisions (billions of dollars in this case) to be made without any community consultation, only for people to justify it afterwards because at face value it “makes sense.” I’m not saying that I don’t see potential value in purchasing Twitter, but I don’t think a huge decision like that should be justified based on quick, post-hoc judgements. If SBF wanted to buy Twitter for non-EA reasons, that’s one thing, but if the idea here is that purchasingTwitter alongside Elon Musk is actually worth billions of dollars from an EA perspective, I would need to see way more analysis, much like significant analysis has been done for AI safety, biorisk, animal welfare, and global health and poverty. (We’re a movement that prides itself on using evidence and reason to make the world better, after all.)
Thanks for clarifying that—that makes more sense to me, and I agree that there was little that should have been done at that specific point. The lead-up to getting to that point is much more important.
If you think investing in Twitter is close to neutral from an investment perspective (maybe reasonable at the time, definitely not by the time Musk was forced to close) then the opportunity cost isn’t really billions of dollars. Possibly this would have been an example of marginal charity.
I can see where you’re coming from with this, and I think purely financially you’re right, it doesn’t make sense to think of it as billions of dollars ‘down the drain.’
However, if I were to do a full analysis of this (in the framing of this being a decision based on an EA perspective), I would want to ask some non-financial questions too, such as:
Does the EA movement want to be further associated with Elon Musk than we already are, including any changes he might want to make with Twitter? What are the risks involved? (based on what we knew before the Twitter deal)
Does the EA movement want to be in the business of purchasing social media platforms? (In the past, we have championed causes like global health and poverty, reducing existencial risks, and animal welfare—this is quite a shift from those into a space that is more about power and politics, particularly given Musk’s stated political views/aims leading up to this purchase)
How might the EA movement shift because of this? (Some EAs may be on board, others may see it as quite surprising and not in line with their values.)
What were SBF’s personal/business motivations for wanting to acquire Twitter, and how would those intersect with EA’s vision for the platform?
What trade offs would be made that would impact other cause areas?
This is the bit I think was missed further up the thread. Regardless of whether buying a social media company could reasonably be considered EA, it’s fairly clear that Elon Musk’s goals both generally and with Twitter are not aligned with EA. MacAskill is allowed to do things that aren’t EA-aligned, but it seems to me to be another case of poor judgement by him (in addition to his association with SBF).
For what it’s worth connecting SBF and Musk might’ve been a time sensitive situation for a reason or another. There would’ve also still been time to debate the investment in the larger community before the deal would’ve actually gone through.
Seems quite implausible to me that this would have happened and unclear if it would have been good. (Assuming “larger EA community” implies more than private conversations between a few people. )