Honest question though (sorry): Do people think there’s a moral difference between Lightcone’s campus (“house party venue...crossed with Disneyland”) and EVF’s abbey (“castle”)?
There are obviously multiple reasons why the EVF purchase looks worse at first glance:
Large English venues generally look more extravagant
EVF is—for better or worse—closely associated with ideas like frugality, charity, sacrifice, etc., while Lightcone explicitly owns their engagement in “the capitalist enterprise” for the greater good
Lightcone spoke about the campus prominently even before it was open for bookings, with their preferred framing and explanation, before critics had the opportunity to do it for them
EVF was already in some people’s bad books
Many EAs also made the meta objection that bad optics should have been reason enough not to do it. But this was partly self-fulfilling the more loudly and hyperbolically the objection was voiced, and hopefully we can all agree that the extent to which optics should guide our decisions is at least a hotly contested topic in EA (rather than a scandalous signal of incompetence when an org leans one way rather than the other).
So I’m curious if community opinion is generally that the EVF purchase was “bad” and the Lightcone purchase was “good”?
If so, and if the explanation is that third wave EA is too large for majority opinion to be that much more nuanced than the public’s, I want to double-check that orgs are very aware of this now so that they can factor it in to future decisions.
And if people think that the EVF purchase was bad for another reason, I think that would also be helpful to know.[1]
Sorry if I’ve missed something obvious and important here! This is all just one person’s impression of how two similar initiatives played out and it’s very plausible to me that I’ve missed a key part of the picture.
The really important question that I suspect everyone is secretly wondering about: If you book the venue, will you be able to have the famous $2,000 coffee table as a centerpiece for your conversations? I imagine that after all the discourse about it, many readers may feel compelled to book Lighthaven to see the table in action!
I think your third bullet is a big one: being open about what they were doing from pretty early on was a good approach, and I expect Wytham Abbey would have gone over much better had they done that.
So I’m curious if community opinion is generally that the EVF purchase was “bad” and the Lightcone purchase was “good”?
I didn’t get the sense that there’s a community-consensus about the castle as a convenient event venue that you can resell at some point later to make up parts of the costs. Some people were very vocal in their outrage, but many thought it might be totally fine or is at least defensible even if it was a mistake.
It could be that “third wave EA” will contain a norm of accepting that people have different takes on things like that. For example, Lightcone has lately been critical of the direction EA is going, but them advertizing their new spaces here on the forum suggests that they’re happy to collaborate with parts of the community that shares enough of their worldview/assumptions.
they’re happy to collaborate with parts of the community that shares enough of their worldview/assumptions
I work at Lightcone and with Lighthaven, and I’m mostly happy to engage in positive sum economic trade with anyone regardless of worldview :) I’m hoping we can rent space for orgs both in the community and beyond merely as means of a good trade that helps us both, and regardless of where we agree or not in other matters.
The worldview alignment mostly effects where we’d spend our limited ability to subsidize events or run them below cost!
This looks amazing!!
Honest question though (sorry): Do people think there’s a moral difference between Lightcone’s campus (“house party venue...crossed with Disneyland”) and EVF’s abbey (“castle”)?
There are obviously multiple reasons why the EVF purchase looks worse at first glance:
Large English venues generally look more extravagant
EVF is—for better or worse—closely associated with ideas like frugality, charity, sacrifice, etc., while Lightcone explicitly owns their engagement in “the capitalist enterprise” for the greater good
Lightcone spoke about the campus prominently even before it was open for bookings, with their preferred framing and explanation, before critics had the opportunity to do it for them
EVF was already in some people’s bad books
Many EAs also made the meta objection that bad optics should have been reason enough not to do it. But this was partly self-fulfilling the more loudly and hyperbolically the objection was voiced, and hopefully we can all agree that the extent to which optics should guide our decisions is at least a hotly contested topic in EA (rather than a scandalous signal of incompetence when an org leans one way rather than the other).
So I’m curious if community opinion is generally that the EVF purchase was “bad” and the Lightcone purchase was “good”?
If so, and if the explanation is that third wave EA is too large for majority opinion to be that much more nuanced than the public’s, I want to double-check that orgs are very aware of this now so that they can factor it in to future decisions.
And if people think that the EVF purchase was bad for another reason, I think that would also be helpful to know.[1]
Sorry if I’ve missed something obvious and important here! This is all just one person’s impression of how two similar initiatives played out and it’s very plausible to me that I’ve missed a key part of the picture.
The really important question that I suspect everyone is secretly wondering about: If you book the venue, will you be able to have the famous $2,000 coffee table as a centerpiece for your conversations? I imagine that after all the discourse about it, many readers may feel compelled to book Lighthaven to see the table in action!
I think your third bullet is a big one: being open about what they were doing from pretty early on was a good approach, and I expect Wytham Abbey would have gone over much better had they done that.
I didn’t get the sense that there’s a community-consensus about the castle as a convenient event venue that you can resell at some point later to make up parts of the costs. Some people were very vocal in their outrage, but many thought it might be totally fine or is at least defensible even if it was a mistake.
It could be that “third wave EA” will contain a norm of accepting that people have different takes on things like that. For example, Lightcone has lately been critical of the direction EA is going, but them advertizing their new spaces here on the forum suggests that they’re happy to collaborate with parts of the community that shares enough of their worldview/assumptions.
I work at Lightcone and with Lighthaven, and I’m mostly happy to engage in positive sum economic trade with anyone regardless of worldview :) I’m hoping we can rent space for orgs both in the community and beyond merely as means of a good trade that helps us both, and regardless of where we agree or not in other matters.
The worldview alignment mostly effects where we’d spend our limited ability to subsidize events or run them below cost!