(3) is a bit more complex, but would also be solved with anonymization.
Anonymization would probably solve (3), but would, unfortunately, likely create PR risks of its own. Lawrence Lessig made a similar argument a while ago:
Everyone seems to treat it as if the anonymity and secrecy around Epstein’s gift are a measure of some kind of moral failing. I see it as exactly the opposite. IF you are going to take type 3 money, then you should only take it anonymously.
Unfortunately, from what I can remember, public response to this argument was overwhelmingly negative, and The New York times (yes, that newspaper) published a story whose headline portrayed Lessig in a very bad light (Lessig subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, which he withdrew after the headline was amended four months later). I personally would not have anticipated such a response, since the argument seems pretty reasonable to me, and I wonder if EAs as a whole may be apt to underestimate certain PR risks simply because they rely on their own subjective sense of the merits of the relevant arguments to predict how the broader public and the media will react to them.
Yeah, this is a good point. But this is why I limited my position to setting “a very high standard” for rejecting donations (and not rejecting cases from people “in the same ballpark” as Delo, assuming he is guilty, which we should not) and not “never.”
Also, I think there are some salient differences with the Epstein case, beyond the enormous gulf in moral turpitude implicated by the cases. Ito knew about Epstein’s identity, and IIRC Epstein had toured the Media Lab. A truly anonymized system should allow for neither of these.
(I also thought the Lessig article was perfectly reasonable.)
Anonymization would probably solve (3), but would, unfortunately, likely create PR risks of its own. Lawrence Lessig made a similar argument a while ago:
Unfortunately, from what I can remember, public response to this argument was overwhelmingly negative, and The New York times (yes, that newspaper) published a story whose headline portrayed Lessig in a very bad light (Lessig subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit against the Times, which he withdrew after the headline was amended four months later). I personally would not have anticipated such a response, since the argument seems pretty reasonable to me, and I wonder if EAs as a whole may be apt to underestimate certain PR risks simply because they rely on their own subjective sense of the merits of the relevant arguments to predict how the broader public and the media will react to them.
Yeah, this is a good point. But this is why I limited my position to setting “a very high standard” for rejecting donations (and not rejecting cases from people “in the same ballpark” as Delo, assuming he is guilty, which we should not) and not “never.”
Also, I think there are some salient differences with the Epstein case, beyond the enormous gulf in moral turpitude implicated by the cases. Ito knew about Epstein’s identity, and IIRC Epstein had toured the Media Lab. A truly anonymized system should allow for neither of these.
(I also thought the Lessig article was perfectly reasonable.)