I think we have a lot of agreement in what we want. I want more community infrastructure to exist, recruiting to be labeled as recruiting, and more people figuring out what they think is right rather than deferring to authorities.
I don’t think any of these need to wait on proving open phil’s power is unjustified. People can just want to do them, and then do them. The cloud of deference might make that harder[1], but I don’t think arguing about the castle from a position of entitlement makes things better. I think it’s more likely to make things worse.
Acting as if every EA has standing to direct open phil’s money reifies two things I’d rather see weakened. First it reinforces open phil’s power, and promotes deference to it (because arguing with someone implies their approval is necessary). But worse, it reinforces the idea that the deciding body is the EA cloud, and not particular people making their own decisions to do particular things[2]. If open phil doesn’t get to make its own choices without community ratification, who does?
I remember reading a post about a graveyard of projects CEA had sniped from other people and then abandoned. I can’t find that post and it’s a serious accusation so I don’t want to make it without evidence, but if it is true, I consider it an extremely serious problem and betrayal of trust.
narrow is meant to be neutral to positive here. No event can be everything to all people, I think it’s great they made an explicit decision on trade-offs. They maybe could have marketed it more accurately. They’re moving that way now and I wish it had gone farther earlier. But I think even perfectly accurate marketing would have left a lot of people unhappy.
Maybe some people argued from a position of entitlement. I skimmed the comments you linked above and I did not see any entitlement. Perhaps you could point out more specifically what you felt was entitled, although a few comments arguing from entitlement would only move me a little so this may not be worth pursuing.
The bigger disagreement I suspect is between what we think the point of EA and the EA community is. You wrote that you want it to be a weird do-ocracy. Would you like to expand on that?
Maybe you two might consider having this discussion using the new Dialogue feature? I’ve really appreciated both of your perspectives and insights on this discussion, and I think the collaborative back-and-forth your having seems a very good fit for how Dialogues work.
I think we have a lot of agreement in what we want. I want more community infrastructure to exist, recruiting to be labeled as recruiting, and more people figuring out what they think is right rather than deferring to authorities.
I don’t think any of these need to wait on proving open phil’s power is unjustified. People can just want to do them, and then do them. The cloud of deference might make that harder[1], but I don’t think arguing about the castle from a position of entitlement makes things better. I think it’s more likely to make things worse.
Acting as if every EA has standing to direct open phil’s money reifies two things I’d rather see weakened. First it reinforces open phil’s power, and promotes deference to it (because arguing with someone implies their approval is necessary). But worse, it reinforces the idea that the deciding body is the EA cloud, and not particular people making their own decisions to do particular things[2]. If open phil doesn’t get to make its own choices without community ratification, who does?
I remember reading a post about a graveyard of projects CEA had sniped from other people and then abandoned. I can’t find that post and it’s a serious accusation so I don’t want to make it without evidence, but if it is true, I consider it an extremely serious problem and betrayal of trust.
yes, everyone has standing to object to negative externalities
narrow is meant to be neutral to positive here. No event can be everything to all people, I think it’s great they made an explicit decision on trade-offs. They maybe could have marketed it more accurately. They’re moving that way now and I wish it had gone farther earlier. But I think even perfectly accurate marketing would have left a lot of people unhappy.
Maybe some people argued from a position of entitlement. I skimmed the comments you linked above and I did not see any entitlement. Perhaps you could point out more specifically what you felt was entitled, although a few comments arguing from entitlement would only move me a little so this may not be worth pursuing.
The bigger disagreement I suspect is between what we think the point of EA and the EA community is. You wrote that you want it to be a weird do-ocracy. Would you like to expand on that?
Maybe you two might consider having this discussion using the new Dialogue feature? I’ve really appreciated both of your perspectives and insights on this discussion, and I think the collaborative back-and-forth your having seems a very good fit for how Dialogues work.