This comment seems crazy to me. These people have legal accountability for the organization EVF. They are not “de facto rules of almost the whole EA movement”. Can you actually propose a scenario in which these people exert much if any influence, apart from getting to fire the leadership of EVF, which is at most a modestly big deal anyway?
They also get to hire the leadership of EVF. Those people then work in the knowledge that they can theoretically be fired by the trustees, giving the trustees all the soft power that that implies. They may not currently wield it, but wielding and having power are two different things. Similarly, it may not be a net positive to their lives (I suspect it isn’t for most of them), but someone not benefiting from power doesn’t mean they don’t have it.
Asserting it’s ‘at most a modestly big deal’ in such an incredulous tone seems counterproductive when that’s a large part of the point in discussion.
I think it’s a bit weird to call this “soft” power? It’s quite explicit power: the trustees/boards have final responsibility for their organizations, including all the projects under them.
This comment seems crazy to me. These people have legal accountability for the organization EVF. They are not “de facto rules of almost the whole EA movement”. Can you actually propose a scenario in which these people exert much if any influence, apart from getting to fire the leadership of EVF, which is at most a modestly big deal anyway?
They also get to hire the leadership of EVF. Those people then work in the knowledge that they can theoretically be fired by the trustees, giving the trustees all the soft power that that implies. They may not currently wield it, but wielding and having power are two different things. Similarly, it may not be a net positive to their lives (I suspect it isn’t for most of them), but someone not benefiting from power doesn’t mean they don’t have it.
Asserting it’s ‘at most a modestly big deal’ in such an incredulous tone seems counterproductive when that’s a large part of the point in discussion.
I think it’s a bit weird to call this “soft” power? It’s quite explicit power: the trustees/boards have final responsibility for their organizations, including all the projects under them.
‘Soft influence’ then, if they have a hands-off approach? Either way, it seems concerning.