This is a small appreciation post for the deep and prompt community engagement from the 80k team after their announcement of their new strategic direction.
No organization is under any obligation to respond to comments and criticisms about their strategy, and I’ve been impressed by the willingness of so many 80k staff members to engage in both debate and reassurance—at least 5 people from the organization have weighed in.
It has both helped me understand their decision better and made the organization feel more caring and kind then if they had just dropped the announcement without follow up. Although engaging to this degree has costs, I think this shows that if this kind of engagement is done well it might help both the reputation of the org and smooth over misunderstandings as well.
At the same time, I’d flag that I’m not quite sure how to frame this.
If I were a donor to 80k, I’d see this action as less “80k did something nice for the EA community that they themselves didn’t benefit from” and more “80k did something that was a good bet in terms of expected value.” In some ways, this latter thing can be viewed as more noble, even though it might be seen as less warm.
Basically, I think that traditional understandings of “being thankful” sort of break down when organizations are making intentional investments that optimize for expected value.
I’m not at all saying that this means that these posts are less valuable or noble or whatever. Just that I’d hope we could argue that they make sense strictly through the lens of EV optimization, and thus don’t need to rely as much on the language of appreciation.
(I’ve been thinking about this with other discussions)
There’s truth there and I would agree its better EV to engage too. There could be many different motives. Higher EV, damage control reaction, kindness, community building, nostalgia for those old days when they were global health people too ;).
Regardless though I like to frame things in more human and interpersonal terms and will continue to do so :)
This is a small appreciation post for the deep and prompt community engagement from the 80k team after their announcement of their new strategic direction.
No organization is under any obligation to respond to comments and criticisms about their strategy, and I’ve been impressed by the willingness of so many 80k staff members to engage in both debate and reassurance—at least 5 people from the organization have weighed in.
It has both helped me understand their decision better and made the organization feel more caring and kind then if they had just dropped the announcement without follow up. Although engaging to this degree has costs, I think this shows that if this kind of engagement is done well it might help both the reputation of the org and smooth over misunderstandings as well.
I broadly agree with this!
At the same time, I’d flag that I’m not quite sure how to frame this.
If I were a donor to 80k, I’d see this action as less “80k did something nice for the EA community that they themselves didn’t benefit from” and more “80k did something that was a good bet in terms of expected value.” In some ways, this latter thing can be viewed as more noble, even though it might be seen as less warm.
Basically, I think that traditional understandings of “being thankful” sort of break down when organizations are making intentional investments that optimize for expected value.
I’m not at all saying that this means that these posts are less valuable or noble or whatever. Just that I’d hope we could argue that they make sense strictly through the lens of EV optimization, and thus don’t need to rely as much on the language of appreciation.
(I’ve been thinking about this with other discussions)
There’s truth there and I would agree its better EV to engage too. There could be many different motives. Higher EV, damage control reaction, kindness, community building, nostalgia for those old days when they were global health people too ;).
Regardless though I like to frame things in more human and interpersonal terms and will continue to do so :)
Change in strategic direction?
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4ZE3pfwDKqRRNRggL/80-000-hours-is-shifting-its-strategic-approach-to-focus yep