One thing I am disappointed about is that this has just been announced—there was no public process or call for comment on the advisory council, its role or what criteria should have been used to choose its members—to the extent that happened all of that was in private as far as I can tell. So all of the power in this situation was held by the CEA and people close to you in informal networks. To get wider views you have chosen a team of 4- 3of whom are or have previously been employed by CEA.
To the extent this is about opening CEA to wider views I can’t see how it does that. Perhaps to mitigate my meandering can the members of the council give one example of something the CEA has done in the last 12 months they are willing to publicly disagree with?
Perhaps to mitigate my meandering can the members of the council give one example of something the CEA has done in the last 12 months they are willing to publicly disagree with?
Well, I’m far from sold on the principles and panel being a good idea in the first place. But everything in the linked comment is low confidence, some of it doesn’t apply given the actual implementation, and certainly it’s not obvious to me that it’s a bad idea (i.e. I have a small positive but extremely uncertain EV).
For something that happened that I more robustly disagree with, a lot of the marketing around EA Global last year concerned me. I didn’t go, so I only heard about it secondhand, and so I didn’t feel best-placed to raise it directly, but from a distance I think pretty much everything Kit said in this thread re. marketing was on point.
With that said I think there is definitely some version of what you are saying that I would agree with; I certainly would consider myself very much an EA ‘insider’, albeit one who has no particular personal interest in CEA itself doing well except insofar as it helps the community do well. I’m not sure what the best way for CEA (or EA in general for that matter; this isn’t just their responsibility) to hear from people who are genuinely external or peripheral to EA is, except that I think a small panel of people is probably not it.
One way to think about this is as a complement to a nonprofit board. My understanding is that in the US, nonprofits usually have a largish board which advise partly on how the nonprofit’s actions might affect the wider community. As with most UK organizations, the CEA board is small, so we wanted to add in a few more voices. In neither case is the board typically suggested or drawn up by the public. Of course, anyone who wants to give us input on decisions we make is welcome to do so at hello@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.
I’d like clarify that of the 3 people who are outside voices on the board, only one (Peter) did a summer internship for a CEA project years ago.
Note though that ACE was originally a part of 80k Hours, which was a part of CEA. The organizations now feel quite separate, at least to me.
Additionally, I am not paid by ACE or CEA. Being on the ACE Board is a volunteer position, as is this.
Generally, I don’t feel constrained in my ability to criticize CEA, outside a desire to generally maintain collegial relations, though it seems plausible to me that I’m in an echo chamber too similar to CEAs to help as much as I could if I was more on the outside. Generally, trying to do as much good as possible is the motivation for how I spend most of the hours in my day. I desperately want EA to succeed and increasing the chances that CEA makes sound decisions seems like a moderately important piece of that. That’s what’s been driving my thinking on this so far and I expect it’ll continue to do so.
That all said (or rambled about) here’s a preview of a criticism I intend to make that’s not related to my role on the advisory board panel: I don’t think it’s appropriate to encourage students and other very young people to take the GWWC pledge, or to encourage student groups to proselytize about it. I think the analogy to marriage is helpful here; it wouldn’t be right to encourage young people who don’t know much about themselves or their future life situations to get married (especially if you didn’t know them or their situation well yourself) and I likewise think GWWC should not encourage them to take the pledge.
Views totally my own and not my employer’s (the Open Philanthropy Project).
One thing I am disappointed about is that this has just been announced—there was no public process or call for comment on the advisory council, its role or what criteria should have been used to choose its members—to the extent that happened all of that was in private as far as I can tell. So all of the power in this situation was held by the CEA and people close to you in informal networks. To get wider views you have chosen a team of 4- 3of whom are or have previously been employed by CEA.
To the extent this is about opening CEA to wider views I can’t see how it does that. Perhaps to mitigate my meandering can the members of the council give one example of something the CEA has done in the last 12 months they are willing to publicly disagree with?
Hi Alasdair
Well, I’m far from sold on the principles and panel being a good idea in the first place. But everything in the linked comment is low confidence, some of it doesn’t apply given the actual implementation, and certainly it’s not obvious to me that it’s a bad idea (i.e. I have a small positive but extremely uncertain EV).
For something that happened that I more robustly disagree with, a lot of the marketing around EA Global last year concerned me. I didn’t go, so I only heard about it secondhand, and so I didn’t feel best-placed to raise it directly, but from a distance I think pretty much everything Kit said in this thread re. marketing was on point.
With that said I think there is definitely some version of what you are saying that I would agree with; I certainly would consider myself very much an EA ‘insider’, albeit one who has no particular personal interest in CEA itself doing well except insofar as it helps the community do well. I’m not sure what the best way for CEA (or EA in general for that matter; this isn’t just their responsibility) to hear from people who are genuinely external or peripheral to EA is, except that I think a small panel of people is probably not it.
One way to think about this is as a complement to a nonprofit board. My understanding is that in the US, nonprofits usually have a largish board which advise partly on how the nonprofit’s actions might affect the wider community. As with most UK organizations, the CEA board is small, so we wanted to add in a few more voices. In neither case is the board typically suggested or drawn up by the public. Of course, anyone who wants to give us input on decisions we make is welcome to do so at hello@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.
I’d like clarify that of the 3 people who are outside voices on the board, only one (Peter) did a summer internship for a CEA project years ago.
Apologies I had it in my head that ACE was a CEA project
Note though that ACE was originally a part of 80k Hours, which was a part of CEA. The organizations now feel quite separate, at least to me.
Additionally, I am not paid by ACE or CEA. Being on the ACE Board is a volunteer position, as is this.
Generally, I don’t feel constrained in my ability to criticize CEA, outside a desire to generally maintain collegial relations, though it seems plausible to me that I’m in an echo chamber too similar to CEAs to help as much as I could if I was more on the outside. Generally, trying to do as much good as possible is the motivation for how I spend most of the hours in my day. I desperately want EA to succeed and increasing the chances that CEA makes sound decisions seems like a moderately important piece of that. That’s what’s been driving my thinking on this so far and I expect it’ll continue to do so.
That all said (or rambled about) here’s a preview of a criticism I intend to make that’s not related to my role on the advisory board panel: I don’t think it’s appropriate to encourage students and other very young people to take the GWWC pledge, or to encourage student groups to proselytize about it. I think the analogy to marriage is helpful here; it wouldn’t be right to encourage young people who don’t know much about themselves or their future life situations to get married (especially if you didn’t know them or their situation well yourself) and I likewise think GWWC should not encourage them to take the pledge.
Views totally my own and not my employer’s (the Open Philanthropy Project).