It seems as plausible to me that we live in this world as the world you suggest. Seems far easier to try and bend towards Elon or Theil bucks than unnanmed philanthropists I haven’t heard of.
Even if Elon and Thiel’s philanthropic priorities were driven mainly by whether people associated with the organization offended enough people (which seems unlikely, looking at what they do spend most of their money on, which incidentally isn’t EA despite Elon at least being very aware, and somewhat aligned on AI safety) it seems unlikely their willingness and ability to fund it exceeds everybody else.
Seems untrue. FTX and the Time article sexual harassment stuff seem like the two biggest reputational factors and neither of those got the “we shouldn’t care about optics” defence
I’d agree those were bigger overall than the more regular drama on here I was referring to, but they’re also actions people generally didn’t try to defend or dismiss at all. Whereas the stuff that comes up here about Person X saying offensive stuff or Organization Y having alleged conflicts of interest or Grant Z looking frivolous frequently do get dismissed on the basis that optics shouldn’t be a consideration.
Even if Elon and Thiel’s philanthropic priorities were driven mainly by whether people associated with the organization offended enough people (which seems unlikely, looking at what they do spend most of their money on, which incidentally isn’t EA despite Elon at least being very aware, and somewhat aligned on AI safety) it seems unlikely their willingness and ability to fund it exceeds everybody else.
I’d agree those were bigger overall than the more regular drama on here I was referring to, but they’re also actions people generally didn’t try to defend or dismiss at all. Whereas the stuff that comes up here about Person X saying offensive stuff or Organization Y having alleged conflicts of interest or Grant Z looking frivolous frequently do get dismissed on the basis that optics shouldn’t be a consideration.