“Please don’t criticize central figures in EA because it may lead to an inability to secure EA funding?” I have heard this multiple times from different sources in EA.
This is interesting if true. With respect to this paper in particular, I don’t really get why anyone would advise the authors not to publish it. It doesn’t seem like it would affect CSER’s funding, since as I understand it (maybe I’m wrong) they don’t get much EA money and it’s hard to see how it would affect FHI’s funding situation. The critiques don’t seem to me to be overly personal, so it’s difficult to see why publishing it would be overly risky.
Strongly upvoted, and me too. Which sources do you have in mind? We can compare lists if you like. I’d be willing to have that conversation in private but for the record I expect it’d be better to have it in public, even if you’d only be vague about it.
I think the rationale behind making such a statement is less about specific funding for the individuals making that statement, but for the EA movement as a whole and goes roughly: Most of the funding EA has is coming from a small number of high-net-worth individuals and they think donating to EA is a good idea because of their relationship and trust into central figures in EA. By criticising those figures, you decrease the chance of these figures pulling more high-net-worth individuals to donate to EA. Hence, criticising central figures in EA is bad.
(Not saying that I agree with this line of reasoning, but it seems plausible to me that people would make such a statement because of this reasoning.)
“Please don’t criticize central figures in EA because it may lead to an inability to secure EA funding?” I have heard this multiple times from different sources in EA.
This is interesting if true. With respect to this paper in particular, I don’t really get why anyone would advise the authors not to publish it. It doesn’t seem like it would affect CSER’s funding, since as I understand it (maybe I’m wrong) they don’t get much EA money and it’s hard to see how it would affect FHI’s funding situation. The critiques don’t seem to me to be overly personal, so it’s difficult to see why publishing it would be overly risky.
Why “if true”? Why would Joey misrepresent his own experiences?
yeah fair i didn’t mean it like that
Strongly upvoted, and me too. Which sources do you have in mind? We can compare lists if you like. I’d be willing to have that conversation in private but for the record I expect it’d be better to have it in public, even if you’d only be vague about it.
I think the rationale behind making such a statement is less about specific funding for the individuals making that statement, but for the EA movement as a whole and goes roughly: Most of the funding EA has is coming from a small number of high-net-worth individuals and they think donating to EA is a good idea because of their relationship and trust into central figures in EA. By criticising those figures, you decrease the chance of these figures pulling more high-net-worth individuals to donate to EA. Hence, criticising central figures in EA is bad.
(Not saying that I agree with this line of reasoning, but it seems plausible to me that people would make such a statement because of this reasoning.)