I appreciate the context, thank you. However, two points came to mind:
It seems like the purpose is quite different from the medium-sized university department you described, running workshops and retreats vs what standard academic departments do (offices, lecture halls, labs). So I’m not sure how good the comparison is
You point out that in the context of university buildings, it’s not a lot of money. But in the context of CEA’s other spending, it does seem like a lot. CEA received $14 million in funding from FTX[1], which has been discussed a lot. So it’s understandable that spending a supposedly similar amount of money on a single venue without much public explanation will raise some eyebrows.
Either way, I don’t think anyone can really judge whether the investment was a good decision based on the currently availabe information. Which is why I’d appreciate a more detailed explanation from CEA.
number taken from the wiki entry on CEA. I chose to use this comparison because I couldn’t immediately find recent numbers for how much money CEA is spending in total, but I assume that 15 million is a significant portion of it.
CEA received $14 million in funding from FTX, which has been discussed a lot.
Discussed because it was received from FTX, or discussed because $14 million is a ton of money for EA and EA-writ-large should always debate spending and investments at that scale?
Agree. The absolute value seems much less important than the relative value to CEA, since it gives us some evidence of how they might spend a scaled-up budget.
I’m not sure how to compare Wytham Abbey, in terms of building size, form, functions, square footage, renovation costs, grounds, upkeep, etc to a standard university building. But of course, a standard university building at a regional state university in the US is quite different from a Grade 1 listed manor house built in 1480.
I appreciate the context, thank you. However, two points came to mind:
It seems like the purpose is quite different from the medium-sized university department you described, running workshops and retreats vs what standard academic departments do (offices, lecture halls, labs). So I’m not sure how good the comparison is
You point out that in the context of university buildings, it’s not a lot of money. But in the context of CEA’s other spending, it does seem like a lot. CEA received $14 million in funding from FTX[1], which has been discussed a lot. So it’s understandable that spending a supposedly similar amount of money on a single venue without much public explanation will raise some eyebrows.
Either way, I don’t think anyone can really judge whether the investment was a good decision based on the currently availabe information. Which is why I’d appreciate a more detailed explanation from CEA.
number taken from the wiki entry on CEA. I chose to use this comparison because I couldn’t immediately find recent numbers for how much money CEA is spending in total, but I assume that 15 million is a significant portion of it.
Discussed because it was received from FTX, or discussed because $14 million is a ton of money for EA and EA-writ-large should always debate spending and investments at that scale?
I see forty-four Open Phil grants at the $10+ million level on https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/?sort=high-to-low#categories. How many of these were extensively debated on the EA Forum before the grant was made, or ought to have been?
Given that purchase price minus resale price would probably be more like $1 million for a property like this, though, a fairer comparison might be to look at every time EA has spent at least $1 million on something. (As a start, Open Phil has made 399 grants at the $1+ million level.)
I really don’t think those should all receive extensive public debate.
Open Phil at least publishes decent explanations on their grants. CEA/EV should do this as well.
Agree. The absolute value seems much less important than the relative value to CEA, since it gives us some evidence of how they might spend a scaled-up budget.
joko—these are fair points.
I’m not sure how to compare Wytham Abbey, in terms of building size, form, functions, square footage, renovation costs, grounds, upkeep, etc to a standard university building. But of course, a standard university building at a regional state university in the US is quite different from a Grade 1 listed manor house built in 1480.