I work for CEA but Iām writing this from a personal perspective. Others at CEA may disagree with me.
Thanks for writing this! :) I think itās an interesting argument. I generally agree with everything @Lorenzo Buonannošø said in his comments, so Iāll just add a few things here.
I ultimately disagree that CEA should change its name, because EA principles are important to me and I like that we are trying to do good explicitly using the framework of EA (including promoting the framework itself) rather than using a more nebulous framing. I canāt speak for AIM, but it does seem like our two organizations have different goals, so in that sense it seems good that we both exist and work towards achieving our own separate goals. For example, I think (just a low confidence guess based on public info) that AIM are not interested in stewarding EA or owning improving the EA brand. CEA is interested in doing those things, and it seems good for us to have āEAā in our name in order to do those things. I think you and I both agree that the EA brand needs improving, and CEA is working on hiring for our Comms Team to have more capacity to do this work.
I think they have more in common than they think and are focussing too much on where they differ.
Iām not sure who ātheyā are in this sentence. I personally donāt think I have done this. I have a very high opinion of AIM overall, and I think that sentiment is common within CEA. I have personally applied to one of their incubation rounds because I thought there was a chance I could do more good there than at CEA. They are one of the orgs that best takes advantage of CEAās infrastructure (such as EAG and the EA Forum) ā they make frequent appearances in our user surveys about how people have found value from those projects. Our team includes AIMās opportunities in our email newsletters and have curatedmultipleposts by them. I donāt personally know the people who run AIM, but from my perspective we are collaborators on the same team.
Looking at where CEA people actually donate, it looks like they are hedging the higher risk nature of their work with donations to interventions with clearer returns.
I think itās hard to use the linked post as evidence to support this. I counted ~4/ā10 of the CEA employees that responded as falling into that category, and the rest mostly donated to causes that I think you would consider more speculative (at least more than the average AIM charity). Most CEA employees decided not participate in the public post, and Iām guessing that the ones that did not are more biased towards donating to less legibly cost-effective projects. I think there is also a bit of a theme where people tended to donate to interventions with clearer returns before joining CEA, and at CEA are spending more time considering other donation options (this is broadly true for myself, for example). So there are forces that push in both directions and itās not clear to me what the net result is.
We shouldnāt be internally fighting for a bigger slide of the existing pie, we should be demonstrating value externally so we can grow the size of the pie.
Again, Iām not sure who is fighting internally. I guess this is making me worried that AIM views us as fighting with each other? That possibility makes me genuinely quite sad. If anyone at AIM wants to talk with me about it, youāre welcome to message me on the Forum.
Iād like to caveat that Iām not sure I got the tone quite right in my original quick take. Iām glad I put it out there, but it is very much based on vibes and is motivated by an impression that thereās opportunities for stronger relationships to be built. (Mostly based on conversations with AIM folks but I donāt speak for them.)
My vibes-based take looks like it might not be true. There might be more collaboration than I can see, or it might just make sense to growth separately since there are clear differences in opinion for cause prioritisation and approach to cost effectiveness. CEA also is beholden to one funder which makes it much harder to be independent from that funderās views.
To be clear I think everyone involved cares deeply, is competent and is, very reasonably, prioritising other things.
I ultimately disagree that CEA should change its name, because EA principles are important to me and I like that we are trying to do good explicitly using the framework of EA (including promoting the framework itself) rather than using a more nebulous framing. I canāt speak for AIM, but it does seem like our two organizations have different goals, so in that sense it seems good that we both exist and work towards achieving our own separate goals. For example, I think (just a low confidence guess based on public info) that AIM are not interested in stewarding EA or owning improving the EA brand. CEA is interested in doing those things, and it seems good for us to have āEAā in our name in order to do those things. I think you and I both agree that the EA brand needs improving, and CEA is working on hiring for our Comms Team to have more capacity to do this work.
Agree with thisāI donāt think names should be changed and I donāt think AIM should/āwants to maintain the EA brand. I do think there should be more centralisation of comms though (especially as it seems hard to hire for) - Iām generally in favour of investing more in infrastructure and cutting costs on operating expenses where possible (see my comment here)
I think itās hard to use the linked post as evidence to support this. I counted ~4/ā10 of the CEA employees that responded as falling into that category, and the rest mostly donated to causes that I think you would consider more speculative (at least more than the average AIM charity). Most CEA employees decided not participate in the public post, and Iām guessing that the ones that did not are more biased towards donating to less legibly cost-effective projects. I think there is also a bit of a theme where people tended to donate to interventions with clearer returns before joining CEA, and at CEA are spending more time considering other donation options (this is broadly true for myself, for example). So there are forces that push in both directions and itās not clear to me what the net result is.
This is fair and my original take was too strong. Edited to reflect that.
Iām not sure who ātheyā are in this sentence.
I donāt personally know the people who run AIM, but from my perspective we are collaborators on the same team.
We shouldnāt be internally fighting for a bigger slide of the existing pie, we should be demonstrating value externally so we can grow the size of the pie.
As noted above, I donāt speak for either group hereāIām only a volunteer.
I think fighting was too strong a word, but I donāt get the impression there are strong trust-based relationships which I do think is leaving impact on the table by missing potential opportunities to cut costs in the long term by centralising infrastructure/āoperating expenses.
Appreciate the response! To be clear, I am genuinely glad that you wrote the quick take, so I donāt want to discourage you from doing more off-the-cuff quick takes in the future. Hopefully hearing my perspective was helpful as well. Iām glad to hear that you donāt think we are actually fighting. :)
On collaborating/ācutting costs: my outside impression is that AIM is already quite good about keeping their costs low and is not shy about being proactive. So my view is something like, if they thought it would be good for the world to collaborate more closely with CEA, I trust that they would have acted upon that belief. This is something that I respect about AIM (at least the version thatās in my head, since I donāt know them).
I work for CEA but Iām writing this from a personal perspective. Others at CEA may disagree with me.
Thanks for writing this! :) I think itās an interesting argument. I generally agree with everything @Lorenzo Buonannošø said in his comments, so Iāll just add a few things here.
I ultimately disagree that CEA should change its name, because EA principles are important to me and I like that we are trying to do good explicitly using the framework of EA (including promoting the framework itself) rather than using a more nebulous framing. I canāt speak for AIM, but it does seem like our two organizations have different goals, so in that sense it seems good that we both exist and work towards achieving our own separate goals. For example, I think (just a low confidence guess based on public info) that AIM are not interested in stewarding EA or owning improving the EA brand. CEA is interested in doing those things, and it seems good for us to have āEAā in our name in order to do those things. I think you and I both agree that the EA brand needs improving, and CEA is working on hiring for our Comms Team to have more capacity to do this work.
Iām not sure who ātheyā are in this sentence. I personally donāt think I have done this. I have a very high opinion of AIM overall, and I think that sentiment is common within CEA. I have personally applied to one of their incubation rounds because I thought there was a chance I could do more good there than at CEA. They are one of the orgs that best takes advantage of CEAās infrastructure (such as EAG and the EA Forum) ā they make frequent appearances in our user surveys about how people have found value from those projects. Our team includes AIMās opportunities in our email newsletters and have curated multiple posts by them. I donāt personally know the people who run AIM, but from my perspective we are collaborators on the same team.
I think itās hard to use the linked post as evidence to support this. I counted ~4/ā10 of the CEA employees that responded as falling into that category, and the rest mostly donated to causes that I think you would consider more speculative (at least more than the average AIM charity). Most CEA employees decided not participate in the public post, and Iām guessing that the ones that did not are more biased towards donating to less legibly cost-effective projects. I think there is also a bit of a theme where people tended to donate to interventions with clearer returns before joining CEA, and at CEA are spending more time considering other donation options (this is broadly true for myself, for example). So there are forces that push in both directions and itās not clear to me what the net result is.
Again, Iām not sure who is fighting internally. I guess this is making me worried that AIM views us as fighting with each other? That possibility makes me genuinely quite sad. If anyone at AIM wants to talk with me about it, youāre welcome to message me on the Forum.
Heyāthanks for your reply!
Iād like to caveat that Iām not sure I got the tone quite right in my original quick take. Iām glad I put it out there, but it is very much based on vibes and is motivated by an impression that thereās opportunities for stronger relationships to be built. (Mostly based on conversations with AIM folks but I donāt speak for them.)
My vibes-based take looks like it might not be true. There might be more collaboration than I can see, or it might just make sense to growth separately since there are clear differences in opinion for cause prioritisation and approach to cost effectiveness. CEA also is beholden to one funder which makes it much harder to be independent from that funderās views.
To be clear I think everyone involved cares deeply, is competent and is, very reasonably, prioritising other things.
Agree with thisāI donāt think names should be changed and I donāt think AIM should/āwants to maintain the EA brand. I do think there should be more centralisation of comms though (especially as it seems hard to hire for) - Iām generally in favour of investing more in infrastructure and cutting costs on operating expenses where possible (see my comment here)
This is fair and my original take was too strong. Edited to reflect that.
As noted above, I donāt speak for either group hereāIām only a volunteer.
I think fighting was too strong a word, but I donāt get the impression there are strong trust-based relationships which I do think is leaving impact on the table by missing potential opportunities to cut costs in the long term by centralising infrastructure/āoperating expenses.
Appreciate the response! To be clear, I am genuinely glad that you wrote the quick take, so I donāt want to discourage you from doing more off-the-cuff quick takes in the future. Hopefully hearing my perspective was helpful as well. Iām glad to hear that you donāt think we are actually fighting. :)
On collaborating/ācutting costs: my outside impression is that AIM is already quite good about keeping their costs low and is not shy about being proactive. So my view is something like, if they thought it would be good for the world to collaborate more closely with CEA, I trust that they would have acted upon that belief. This is something that I respect about AIM (at least the version thatās in my head, since I donāt know them).