Re unilateralism obviously more donors isn’t anything like a guarantee, but is one of hopefully many safeguards. On the other hand, many people approving of it here (assuming they broadly did) doesn’t mean it’s not a form of unilateralism depending on how those people were included in the discussion—if, for eg, they were all major CEA funders and staff, there’s likely to be extreme selection bias in their opinions on the relevant questions.
I’m telling you that, as someone who hasn’t ever worked for or with CEA directly, I spoke with a couple people about this months before it happened. Clearly, plenty of people were aware, and discussed this—and I didn’t know the price tag, but thought that a center for retreats focused on global priorities and related topics near Oxford sounded like a very good idea. I still think it is, and honestly don’t think that it’s unreasonable as a potential investment into priorities research. Of course, given the current post-FTX situation, it would obviously not have been considered if the project was being proposed today.
I agree on what we agree and disagree about :)
Re unilateralism obviously more donors isn’t anything like a guarantee, but is one of hopefully many safeguards. On the other hand, many people approving of it here (assuming they broadly did) doesn’t mean it’s not a form of unilateralism depending on how those people were included in the discussion—if, for eg, they were all major CEA funders and staff, there’s likely to be extreme selection bias in their opinions on the relevant questions.
I’m telling you that, as someone who hasn’t ever worked for or with CEA directly, I spoke with a couple people about this months before it happened. Clearly, plenty of people were aware, and discussed this—and I didn’t know the price tag, but thought that a center for retreats focused on global priorities and related topics near Oxford sounded like a very good idea. I still think it is, and honestly don’t think that it’s unreasonable as a potential investment into priorities research. Of course, given the current post-FTX situation, it would obviously not have been considered if the project was being proposed today.