I think the implicit claim here is that because SBF (or Dustin/Cari for that matter) was a major EA donor, everything he donates counts as an EA donation. But I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it. It’s not logic we’d apply to other people—I donate a chunk of my money to various EA-affiliated causes, but if I one day decided to donate to the Met most people would consider that separate from my EA giving.
I would classify donations as EA donations if they fall into one of the below two buckets:
Donations given out by a major EA org: Examples include the Open Philanthropy Project, GiveWell, and The FTX Future Fund.
Donations given out by EAs or EA-affiliated people to causes that have been discussed and argued for a lot in the EA community. Bonus points if it’s explicitly listed as a cause area on major EA org websites. Examples include anti-malaria nets, animal welfare charities, pandemic preparedness, and AI safety research. I also think donations to Carrick Flynn’s campaign would fall into this bucket given the amount of discussion there was about it here.
I agree with Kei here. It seems very odd to credit ‘EA’ as significant to the election result. To do so seems to imply that there was some kind of coordinated, unified effort to influence the election, whereas what OP is describing is major donations from one actor who was also associated with the EA movement.
This is about much more than not unfairly associating EA with SBFs actions (and donating to the Democratic party is hardly a bad thing to be associated with, compared to SBFs other actions). It’s an incorrect description of EA beliefs and culture as a whole. I think if you asked 100 EAs ‘what’s the best thing you could do with a few billion dollars’, ‘donating to the Biden campaign’ would be fairly low down the list of results.
On a superficial level I agree. But then on second thought, it seems weird to me to group together donations backed by wide community discussion with those by e.g. OpenPhil, which is controlled by a board of 5-6 people.
I think the implicit claim here is that because SBF (or Dustin/Cari for that matter) was a major EA donor, everything he donates counts as an EA donation. But I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it. It’s not logic we’d apply to other people—I donate a chunk of my money to various EA-affiliated causes, but if I one day decided to donate to the Met most people would consider that separate from my EA giving.
I would classify donations as EA donations if they fall into one of the below two buckets:
Donations given out by a major EA org: Examples include the Open Philanthropy Project, GiveWell, and The FTX Future Fund.
Donations given out by EAs or EA-affiliated people to causes that have been discussed and argued for a lot in the EA community. Bonus points if it’s explicitly listed as a cause area on major EA org websites. Examples include anti-malaria nets, animal welfare charities, pandemic preparedness, and AI safety research. I also think donations to Carrick Flynn’s campaign would fall into this bucket given the amount of discussion there was about it here.
I agree with Kei here. It seems very odd to credit ‘EA’ as significant to the election result. To do so seems to imply that there was some kind of coordinated, unified effort to influence the election, whereas what OP is describing is major donations from one actor who was also associated with the EA movement.
This is about much more than not unfairly associating EA with SBFs actions (and donating to the Democratic party is hardly a bad thing to be associated with, compared to SBFs other actions). It’s an incorrect description of EA beliefs and culture as a whole. I think if you asked 100 EAs ‘what’s the best thing you could do with a few billion dollars’, ‘donating to the Biden campaign’ would be fairly low down the list of results.
On a superficial level I agree. But then on second thought, it seems weird to me to group together donations backed by wide community discussion with those by e.g. OpenPhil, which is controlled by a board of 5-6 people.