My hope is that having other donors for OP would genuinely create governance independence as my apparent power comes from not having alternate funding sources*, not from structural control. Consequently, you and others lay blame on me even for the things we don’t do. I would be happy to leave the board even, and happy to expand it to diminish my (non-controlling) vote further. I did not want to create a GVF hegemony any more than you wanted one to exist. (If the future is a bunch of different orgs, or some particular “pure” org, that’s good by me too; I don’t care about OP aggregating the donors if others don’t see that as useful.)
But I do want agency over our grants. As much as the whole debate has been framed (by everyone else) as reputation risk, I care about where I believe my responsibility lies, and where the money comes from has mattered. I don’t want to wake up anymore to somebody I personally loathe getting platformed only to discover I paid for the platform. That fact matters to me.
* Notably just for the “weird” stuff. We do successfully partner with other donors now! I don’t get in their way at all, as far as I know.
Just chiming in to have more than Habryka’s view represented here. I think it’s not unreasonable in principle to think that OP and GV could create PR distance between themselves. I think it will just take time, and Habryka is being moderately too pessimistic (or, accurately pessimistic in the short term but not considering reasonable long-term potential). I’d guess many think-tank type organizations have launched on the strength of a single funder and come to advise many funders, having a distinct reputation from them—OP seems to be pursuing this more strongly now than in the past, and while it will take time to work, it seems like a reasonable theory of change.
I have updated, based on this exchange, that OP is more open to investment in non-GV-supported activities than previously came through. I’m happy to hear that.
I don’t want to wake up anymore to somebody I personally loathe getting platformed only to discover I paid for the platform. That fact matters to me.
This is eminently reasonable. Any opposition to these changes I’ve aired here is more about disappointment in some of the specific cause areas being dropped and the sense that OP couldn’t continue on them without GV; I’m definitely not intending to complain about GV’s decision, and overall I think OP attempting to diversify funding sources (and EA trying to do so at well) is very, very healthy and needed.
My hope is that having other donors for OP would genuinely create governance independence as my apparent power comes from not having alternate funding sources*, not from structural control. [...] I would be happy to leave the board even, and happy to expand it to diminish my (non-controlling) vote further. I did not want to create a GVF hegemony any more than you wanted one to exist. (If the future is a bunch of different orgs, or some particular “pure” org, that’s good by me too; I don’t care about OP aggregating the donors if others don’t see that as useful.)
Thanks, I am glad that you are willing to do this and am somewhat relieved that your perspective on this seems more amenable to other people participating with stuff on their own terms than I was worried about. I am still concerned, and think it’s unlikely that other donors for OP would be capable of getting the appropriate levels of trust with OP for this to work (and am also more broadly quite worried about chilling effects of many types here), but I do genuinely believe you are trying to mitigate those damages and see many of the same costs that I see.
Consequently, you and others lay blame on me even for the things we don’t do.
Yeah, I think that’s life. Acts by omission are real acts, and while the way people are judged for them are different, and the way people try to react to them generally tend to be more fraught, there are of course many acts of omission that are worthy of judgement, and many acts of omission that are worthy of praise.
I don’t think reality splits neatly into “things you are responsible for” and “things you are not responsible for”, and I think we seem to have a deeper disagreement here about what this means for building platforms, communities and societal institutions, which, if working correctly, practically always platform people its creators strongly disagree with or find despicable (I have found many people on LW despicable in many different ways, but my job as a discourse platform provider is to set things up to allow other people to form their own beliefs on that, not to impose my own beliefs on the community that I am supporting).
Neglecting those kinds of platforms, or pouring resources into activities that will indirectly destroy those platforms (like pouring millions of dollars into continued EA and AI Safety growth without supporting institutions that actually allow those communities and movements to have sane discourse, or to coordinate with each other, or to learn about important considerations), is an act with real consequences that of course should be taken into account when thinking about how to relate to the people responsible for that funding and corresponding lack of funding of their complement.
A manager at a company who overhires can easily tank the company if they try to not get involved with setting the right culture and onboarding processes in place and are absolutely to blame if the new hires destroy the company culture or its internal processes.
But again, my guess is we have deep, important and also (to me) interesting disagreements here, which I don’t want you to feel pressured to hash out here. This isn’t the kind of stuff I think one should aim to resolve in a single comment thread, and maybe not ever, but I have thought about this topic a lot and it seemed appropriate to share.
I’ve long taken for granted that I am not going to live in integrity with your values and the actions you think are best for the world. I’m only trying to get back into integrity with my own.
OP is not an abstraction, of course, and I hope you continue talking to the individuals you know and have known there.
My hope is that having other donors for OP would genuinely create governance independence as my apparent power comes from not having alternate funding sources*, not from structural control. Consequently, you and others lay blame on me even for the things we don’t do. I would be happy to leave the board even, and happy to expand it to diminish my (non-controlling) vote further. I did not want to create a GVF hegemony any more than you wanted one to exist. (If the future is a bunch of different orgs, or some particular “pure” org, that’s good by me too; I don’t care about OP aggregating the donors if others don’t see that as useful.)
But I do want agency over our grants. As much as the whole debate has been framed (by everyone else) as reputation risk, I care about where I believe my responsibility lies, and where the money comes from has mattered. I don’t want to wake up anymore to somebody I personally loathe getting platformed only to discover I paid for the platform. That fact matters to me.
* Notably just for the “weird” stuff. We do successfully partner with other donors now! I don’t get in their way at all, as far as I know.
Just chiming in to have more than Habryka’s view represented here. I think it’s not unreasonable in principle to think that OP and GV could create PR distance between themselves. I think it will just take time, and Habryka is being moderately too pessimistic (or, accurately pessimistic in the short term but not considering reasonable long-term potential). I’d guess many think-tank type organizations have launched on the strength of a single funder and come to advise many funders, having a distinct reputation from them—OP seems to be pursuing this more strongly now than in the past, and while it will take time to work, it seems like a reasonable theory of change.
I have updated, based on this exchange, that OP is more open to investment in non-GV-supported activities than previously came through. I’m happy to hear that.
This is eminently reasonable. Any opposition to these changes I’ve aired here is more about disappointment in some of the specific cause areas being dropped and the sense that OP couldn’t continue on them without GV; I’m definitely not intending to complain about GV’s decision, and overall I think OP attempting to diversify funding sources (and EA trying to do so at well) is very, very healthy and needed.
Thanks, I am glad that you are willing to do this and am somewhat relieved that your perspective on this seems more amenable to other people participating with stuff on their own terms than I was worried about. I am still concerned, and think it’s unlikely that other donors for OP would be capable of getting the appropriate levels of trust with OP for this to work (and am also more broadly quite worried about chilling effects of many types here), but I do genuinely believe you are trying to mitigate those damages and see many of the same costs that I see.
Yeah, I think that’s life. Acts by omission are real acts, and while the way people are judged for them are different, and the way people try to react to them generally tend to be more fraught, there are of course many acts of omission that are worthy of judgement, and many acts of omission that are worthy of praise.
I don’t think reality splits neatly into “things you are responsible for” and “things you are not responsible for”, and I think we seem to have a deeper disagreement here about what this means for building platforms, communities and societal institutions, which, if working correctly, practically always platform people its creators strongly disagree with or find despicable (I have found many people on LW despicable in many different ways, but my job as a discourse platform provider is to set things up to allow other people to form their own beliefs on that, not to impose my own beliefs on the community that I am supporting).
Neglecting those kinds of platforms, or pouring resources into activities that will indirectly destroy those platforms (like pouring millions of dollars into continued EA and AI Safety growth without supporting institutions that actually allow those communities and movements to have sane discourse, or to coordinate with each other, or to learn about important considerations), is an act with real consequences that of course should be taken into account when thinking about how to relate to the people responsible for that funding and corresponding lack of funding of their complement.
A manager at a company who overhires can easily tank the company if they try to not get involved with setting the right culture and onboarding processes in place and are absolutely to blame if the new hires destroy the company culture or its internal processes.
But again, my guess is we have deep, important and also (to me) interesting disagreements here, which I don’t want you to feel pressured to hash out here. This isn’t the kind of stuff I think one should aim to resolve in a single comment thread, and maybe not ever, but I have thought about this topic a lot and it seemed appropriate to share.
I’ve long taken for granted that I am not going to live in integrity with your values and the actions you think are best for the world. I’m only trying to get back into integrity with my own.
OP is not an abstraction, of course, and I hope you continue talking to the individuals you know and have known there.