Looking at your profile (i.e., “I currently lead EA funds”), it is unsurprising to me that a funder in the EA space seems recluctant to having significant grants being questioned publicly.
(1) I am pretty into people criticising orgs/people when the author really cares about ‘truth-seeking’.
(2) I wrote my comment from the perspective that you weren’t trying to make a point about Atlas with your post and were instead trying to ask a ‘genuine’ question. I am pretty into people being able to work out why people run their projects the way they do—and I think a good way of doing this is just asking them directly.
It seems like you are trying to sound like you are doing (2) but actually doing something like (1) - which means you don’t really fulfil the ‘truth-seeking’ criteria (for me) that would have made me excited about your post.
If someone’s actions are truth-seeking, they are trying to actually work out what is true as opposed to trying to defend their current beliefs or ‘win’ an argument. It is pretty linked to the scout mindset. It’s plausible that others use this term differently—but afaik this isn’t an unusual way of using it.
I think that you didn’t exhibit this quality well in your post (e.g. you open by claiming that you are trying to answer a narrow question whilst writing a critique of the Atlas program) and this can get in the way of good discourse. I do think there were good things about the post and I think there’s a version of this post with most of the main points that I would have really liked.
I think you’re confused by what “currently lead EA funds” means. It doesn’t mean they’re a funder it means they manage the grant giving process and oversee it. They probably have the most vested interest from a personal point of view to know what their grantees are doing.
Actually—I do think it is reasonable to think of me as a funder. I do have input of various grants and spend some time doing grant evaluation, though as you pointed out I do also spend time doing non-grant evaluation tasks as part of my work.
I think the commenter viewed you as the bulk of donations in EAIF (a la Moskowitz) and therefore don’t want to see what’s going on? At least that’s how I read the comment.
Looking at your profile (i.e., “I currently lead EA funds”), it is unsurprising to me that a funder in the EA space seems recluctant to having significant grants being questioned publicly.
(1) I am pretty into people criticising orgs/people when the author really cares about ‘truth-seeking’.
(2) I wrote my comment from the perspective that you weren’t trying to make a point about Atlas with your post and were instead trying to ask a ‘genuine’ question. I am pretty into people being able to work out why people run their projects the way they do—and I think a good way of doing this is just asking them directly.
It seems like you are trying to sound like you are doing (2) but actually doing something like (1) - which means you don’t really fulfil the ‘truth-seeking’ criteria (for me) that would have made me excited about your post.
What is the ‘truth-seeking’ criteria for you?
I find this to be a term that seems thrown so much that it begins to lose all meaning.
If someone’s actions are truth-seeking, they are trying to actually work out what is true as opposed to trying to defend their current beliefs or ‘win’ an argument. It is pretty linked to the scout mindset. It’s plausible that others use this term differently—but afaik this isn’t an unusual way of using it.
I think that you didn’t exhibit this quality well in your post (e.g. you open by claiming that you are trying to answer a narrow question whilst writing a critique of the Atlas program) and this can get in the way of good discourse. I do think there were good things about the post and I think there’s a version of this post with most of the main points that I would have really liked.
I think you’re confused by what “currently lead EA funds” means. It doesn’t mean they’re a funder it means they manage the grant giving process and oversee it. They probably have the most vested interest from a personal point of view to know what their grantees are doing.
Note that while Caleb is involved with grantmaking, I don’t think he has funded atlas, so this post isn’t about a grantee of his.
Actually—I do think it is reasonable to think of me as a funder. I do have input of various grants and spend some time doing grant evaluation, though as you pointed out I do also spend time doing non-grant evaluation tasks as part of my work.
I think the commenter viewed you as the bulk of donations in EAIF (a la Moskowitz) and therefore don’t want to see what’s going on? At least that’s how I read the comment.