Sean is one of the under-sung heroes who helped build FHI and kept it alive. He did this by—among other things—careful and difficult relationship management with the faculty. I had to engage in this work too and it was less like being between a rock and a hard place and more like being between a belt grinder and another bigger belt grinder.
One can disagree about apportioning the blame for this relationship—and in my mind, I divide it differently than Sean—but after his four years of first-hand experience, my response to Sean is to take his view seriously, listen, and consider it. (And to give it weight even against my 3.5 years of first-hand experience!)
As a tangent, respectfully listening to people’s views and expressing gratitude—and avoiding unnecessary blame—was a core part of what allowed ops and admin staff to keep FHI alive for so long against hostile social dynamics. As per Anders’ comment posted by Pablo here, it might be useful for extending EA’s productive legacy as well.
Thanks, that’s useful context, and I definitely have been less close to things than you have (and I have much less reason to distrust your take here than Sean’s).
I do think that given the results of Sean’s strategy at CSER and Leverhulme, which I think are institutions that have overall caused more harm than good and I wish didn’t exist, my best guess would be that as I dig into this more, I would find that what Sean thought were obvious choices were things that would have ultimately had long-term bad consequences, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if Sean’s takes were ultimately responsible for a good chunk of associated pressure and attacks on people’s intellectual integrity (though I don’t know, and would be interested in takes from people who have been responsible for core FHI intellectual contributions about the tradeoffs that Sean was advocating for).
My guess is Sean did probably get some things right, but I do think the track record here speaks quite badly to Sean’s allocation of responsibility by my lights.
At least from where I am standing, I do think a big issue with FHI’s relationship to the university was one in which I repeatedly saw FHI get bullied by the university in a way that felt somewhat obviously crazy to me, and at least my current (low-confidence) read of the situation is that Sean instead of reacting to that appropriately seemed to push for making FHI the kind of institution that wouldn’t fight back against that in a reasonable way (by e.g. threatening to just leave before it got completely smothered by the university, or drawing lines in the sand which would have caused FHI to shut down sooner instead of losing its coherence over many years of pain).
But again, I don’t have a ton of context here, I am mostly reasoning from the online comments of Sean that I’ve seen and the de-facto fate that befell the FHI and would update a good amount on reports by people who were actually there, especially in the later years.
CSER and Leverhulme, which I think are institutions that have overall caused more harm than good and I wish didn’t exist
I’d love if you could comment on which concrete actions were harmful. (I donated to CSER a long time ago and then didn’t pay attention to what they were doing, so I’m curious.)
This thread doesn’t feel great for this, though CSER is an organization for which I do really wish more people shared their assessments. Also happy to have a call if your curiosity extends that far, and you would be welcome to write up the things that I say in that call publicly (though of course that’s a lot of work and I don’t think you have any obligation to do so).
>”and would update a good amount on reports by people who were actually there, especially in the later years.”
For takes from people you might trust more than me, you might consider reaching out to Owen Cotton-Barratt, Niel Bowerman, or Page Hedley, all of whom played relevant roles later than me.
Sean is one of the under-sung heroes who helped build FHI and kept it alive. He did this by—among other things—careful and difficult relationship management with the faculty. I had to engage in this work too and it was less like being between a rock and a hard place and more like being between a belt grinder and another bigger belt grinder.
One can disagree about apportioning the blame for this relationship—and in my mind, I divide it differently than Sean—but after his four years of first-hand experience, my response to Sean is to take his view seriously, listen, and consider it. (And to give it weight even against my 3.5 years of first-hand experience!)
As a tangent, respectfully listening to people’s views and expressing gratitude—and avoiding unnecessary blame—was a core part of what allowed ops and admin staff to keep FHI alive for so long against hostile social dynamics. As per Anders’ comment posted by Pablo here, it might be useful for extending EA’s productive legacy as well.
Sean thank you so much for all you did for FHI.
Thanks, that’s useful context, and I definitely have been less close to things than you have (and I have much less reason to distrust your take here than Sean’s).
I do think that given the results of Sean’s strategy at CSER and Leverhulme, which I think are institutions that have overall caused more harm than good and I wish didn’t exist, my best guess would be that as I dig into this more, I would find that what Sean thought were obvious choices were things that would have ultimately had long-term bad consequences, and I also wouldn’t be surprised if Sean’s takes were ultimately responsible for a good chunk of associated pressure and attacks on people’s intellectual integrity (though I don’t know, and would be interested in takes from people who have been responsible for core FHI intellectual contributions about the tradeoffs that Sean was advocating for).
My guess is Sean did probably get some things right, but I do think the track record here speaks quite badly to Sean’s allocation of responsibility by my lights.
At least from where I am standing, I do think a big issue with FHI’s relationship to the university was one in which I repeatedly saw FHI get bullied by the university in a way that felt somewhat obviously crazy to me, and at least my current (low-confidence) read of the situation is that Sean instead of reacting to that appropriately seemed to push for making FHI the kind of institution that wouldn’t fight back against that in a reasonable way (by e.g. threatening to just leave before it got completely smothered by the university, or drawing lines in the sand which would have caused FHI to shut down sooner instead of losing its coherence over many years of pain).
But again, I don’t have a ton of context here, I am mostly reasoning from the online comments of Sean that I’ve seen and the de-facto fate that befell the FHI and would update a good amount on reports by people who were actually there, especially in the later years.
I’d love if you could comment on which concrete actions were harmful. (I donated to CSER a long time ago and then didn’t pay attention to what they were doing, so I’m curious.)
This thread doesn’t feel great for this, though CSER is an organization for which I do really wish more people shared their assessments. Also happy to have a call if your curiosity extends that far, and you would be welcome to write up the things that I say in that call publicly (though of course that’s a lot of work and I don’t think you have any obligation to do so).
(Thanks, dm sent.)
>”and would update a good amount on reports by people who were actually there, especially in the later years.”
For takes from people you might trust more than me, you might consider reaching out to Owen Cotton-Barratt, Niel Bowerman, or Page Hedley, all of whom played relevant roles later than me.