I have read your replies on various comment threads on this post. If youâll forgive the summary, your view is that Tsipurskyâs behaviour may arise from some non-malicious shortcomings he has, and that, with some help, these can be mitigated, thus leading InIn to behave better and do more good. In medicalese, Iâm uncertain of the diagnosis, strongly doubt the efficacy of the proposed management plan, and I anticipate a bleak prognosis. As I recommend generally, I think your time and laudable energy is better spent elsewhere.
A lot of the subsequent discussion has looked at whether Tsipurskyâs behaviour is malicious or not. Iâd guess in large part it is not: deep incompetence combined with being self-serving and biased towards ones org to succeed probably explain most of itâregrettably, Tsipurskyâs response to this post (e.g. trumped-up accusations against Jeff and Michelle, pre-emptive threats if his replies are downvoted, veiled hints at âwouldnât it be bad if someone in my position started railing against EAâ, etc.) seem to fit well with malice.
Yet this is fairly irrelevant. Tsipursky is multiply incompetant: at creating good content, at generating interest in his org (i.e. almost all of its social media reach is ilusory), at understanding the appropriate ambit for promotional efforts, at not making misleading statements, and at changing bad behaviour. I am confident that any EA I know in a similar position would not have performed as badly. I highly doubt this can all be traced back to a single easy-to-fix flaw. Furthermore, I understand multiple people approached Tsipursky multiple times about these issues; the post documents problems occurring over a number of months. The outside view is not favourable to yet further efforts.
In any case, InInâs trajectory in the EA community is probably fairly set at this point. As I write this, InIn is banned from the FB group, CEA has officially disavowed it, InIn seems to have lost donors and prospective donations from EAs, and my barometer of âEA public opinionâ is that almost all EAs who know of InIn and Tsipursky have very adverse attitudes towards both. Given the understandable reticience of EAs towards corporate action like this, one can anticipate these decisions have considerable inertia. A nigh-Damascene conversion of Tsipursky and InIn would be required for these things to begin to move favourably to InIn again.
In light of all this, attempting to âreform InInâ now seems almost as ill-starred as trying to reform a mismanaged version of homeopaths without borders: such a transformation is required to be surely worth starting afresh. The opportunity cost is also substantial as there are other better performing EA outreach orgs (i.e. all of them), which promise far greater returns on the margin for basically any return one migh be interested in. Please help them out instead.
Iâm not completely sure whatâs going on with Gleb, but I feel a great deal of concern for people with Aspergerâs, and I think it made me overly sympathetic in this case. Thank you for this.
One thing to consider is that too much charity for Gleb is actively harmful for people with ASDs in the community.
If I am at a party of a trusted friend and know theyâve only invited people the trust, and someone hurts my feelings, Iâm likely to ascribe it to a misunderstanding and talk it out with them. If Iâm at a party where lots of people have been jerks to me before, and someone hurts my feelings, Iâm likely to assume this person is a jerk too and withdraw.
By saying âIâm updatingâ and then committing the same problems again, Gleb is lessening the value of the words. He is teaching people itâs not worth correcting others, because they wonât change. This is most harmful to the people who most need the most direct feedback and the longest lead time to incorporate it.
Wow. More excellent arguments. More updates on my side. Youâre on fire. I almost never meet people who can change my mind this much. I would like to add you as a friend.
Hello Kathy,
I have read your replies on various comment threads on this post. If youâll forgive the summary, your view is that Tsipurskyâs behaviour may arise from some non-malicious shortcomings he has, and that, with some help, these can be mitigated, thus leading InIn to behave better and do more good. In medicalese, Iâm uncertain of the diagnosis, strongly doubt the efficacy of the proposed management plan, and I anticipate a bleak prognosis. As I recommend generally, I think your time and laudable energy is better spent elsewhere.
A lot of the subsequent discussion has looked at whether Tsipurskyâs behaviour is malicious or not. Iâd guess in large part it is not: deep incompetence combined with being self-serving and biased towards ones org to succeed probably explain most of itâregrettably, Tsipurskyâs response to this post (e.g. trumped-up accusations against Jeff and Michelle, pre-emptive threats if his replies are downvoted, veiled hints at âwouldnât it be bad if someone in my position started railing against EAâ, etc.) seem to fit well with malice.
Yet this is fairly irrelevant. Tsipursky is multiply incompetant: at creating good content, at generating interest in his org (i.e. almost all of its social media reach is ilusory), at understanding the appropriate ambit for promotional efforts, at not making misleading statements, and at changing bad behaviour. I am confident that any EA I know in a similar position would not have performed as badly. I highly doubt this can all be traced back to a single easy-to-fix flaw. Furthermore, I understand multiple people approached Tsipursky multiple times about these issues; the post documents problems occurring over a number of months. The outside view is not favourable to yet further efforts.
In any case, InInâs trajectory in the EA community is probably fairly set at this point. As I write this, InIn is banned from the FB group, CEA has officially disavowed it, InIn seems to have lost donors and prospective donations from EAs, and my barometer of âEA public opinionâ is that almost all EAs who know of InIn and Tsipursky have very adverse attitudes towards both. Given the understandable reticience of EAs towards corporate action like this, one can anticipate these decisions have considerable inertia. A nigh-Damascene conversion of Tsipursky and InIn would be required for these things to begin to move favourably to InIn again.
In light of all this, attempting to âreform InInâ now seems almost as ill-starred as trying to reform a mismanaged version of homeopaths without borders: such a transformation is required to be surely worth starting afresh. The opportunity cost is also substantial as there are other better performing EA outreach orgs (i.e. all of them), which promise far greater returns on the margin for basically any return one migh be interested in. Please help them out instead.
Iâm not completely sure whatâs going on with Gleb, but I feel a great deal of concern for people with Aspergerâs, and I think it made me overly sympathetic in this case. Thank you for this.
One thing to consider is that too much charity for Gleb is actively harmful for people with ASDs in the community.
If I am at a party of a trusted friend and know theyâve only invited people the trust, and someone hurts my feelings, Iâm likely to ascribe it to a misunderstanding and talk it out with them. If Iâm at a party where lots of people have been jerks to me before, and someone hurts my feelings, Iâm likely to assume this person is a jerk too and withdraw.
By saying âIâm updatingâ and then committing the same problems again, Gleb is lessening the value of the words. He is teaching people itâs not worth correcting others, because they wonât change. This is most harmful to the people who most need the most direct feedback and the longest lead time to incorporate it.
Wow. More excellent arguments. More updates on my side. Youâre on fire. I almost never meet people who can change my mind this much. I would like to add you as a friend.