My sense is that honest and accurate evaluation of opportunities to do good, and high standards that enable that, has been a core value of EA
I disagree that exaggeration is more effective in broad outreach, e.g. GiveWell’s reputation for honesty and care was central to letting it reach its current large scale (and its astroturfing scandal hurt badly because of that)
Accurate communication tends to work better for things that actually are better, and thus has good incentive properties as a standard
In any case, the focus in the document is mostly on InIn’s interactions with the EA community rather than the general public, and it was precipitated by InIn’s self-promotion and fundraising directed at the EA community
Thinking people are sometimes mistaken about how they assess different impacts of a job (e.g. most jobs result in increased carbon emissions, pay for the employee, consumer surplus) is not the same as lower ethical standards
My sense is that honest and accurate evaluation of opportunities to do good, and high standards that enable that, has been a core value of EA
I disagree that exaggeration is more effective in broad outreach, e.g. GiveWell’s reputation for honesty and care was central to letting it reach its current large scale (and its astroturfing scandal hurt badly because of that)
Accurate communication tends to work better for things that actually are better, and thus has good incentive properties as a standard
In any case, the focus in the document is mostly on InIn’s interactions with the EA community rather than the general public, and it was precipitated by InIn’s self-promotion and fundraising directed at the EA community
Thinking people are sometimes mistaken about how they assess different impacts of a job (e.g. most jobs result in increased carbon emissions, pay for the employee, consumer surplus) is not the same as lower ethical standards
Fair enough—just thought I would ask.