People are talking about a purchase in April 2022, at which point the organization doing the purchasing really was “CEA”. For example, you’d say “why did Google start a self-driving car project?” and not “why did Alphabet start a self-driving car project?”, since at the time they started the project the umbrella organization was still called “Google”.
I also think it’s hard to get people to start using a new name for an organization: people still colloquially used “Google” for “Alphabet” for years. And that was with a big marketing push, while this transition has been much quieter and somewhat uneven:
The 2022-09-13 post announcing the change doesn’t show any sort of diagram, and makes it sound like the change is from [CEA [core, 80k, GWWC, etc]] to [CEA [EV ops, core, 80k, GWWC, etc]] and not to [EVF [CEA, 80k, GWWC, …]. See the confusion in the comments and “We didn’t want to make a big deal about this rebrand”.
CEA’s footer didn’t switch to EVF until 2022-10-26 (old, new).
The footer on EA Funds said it was part of CEA, not EAF, until I wrote to them to ask on 2022-11-28.
CEA’s “team” page still called the umbrella organization “CEA” until 2022-11-30 (old, new).
There are still many references to “CEA UK” on CEA’s site, even though (pretty sure) it’s no longer a thing. Ex, Owen’s page says he’s a trustee of CEA UK, but I think should instead say a trustee of EVF. [EDIT: I found ~10 places like this and wrote to EVF]
I tentatively think this is wrong, and calling it EVF is both clearer, and important in ensuring people understand what happened.
If I say “Google is manipulating results to benefit some groups over others,” you’d interpret that differently than if I said “Google maps directions is manipulating results to benefit some groups over others.” And if I said “Google invests heavily in AI safety” you’d think I meant something different than Deepmind’s safety research.
By saying “CEA bought a castle,” they are implying (or incorrectly inferring) that the organization that people donate to named CEA is the same as the one that bought the castle. Yes, the two organizations are related, but phrasing it that way seems pretty actively misleading, and disambiguating seems critical.
they are implying (or incorrectly inferring) that the organization that people donate to named CEA is the same as the one that bought the castle
The organization that people donate to is the same as the one that bought the manor house. CEA has no legal existence distinct from EVF; any distinction between the two is purely a matter of internal organization within the legal entity now called EVF (but called CEA at the time of the purchase).
(Also, I’d be happier if people here wouldn’t amplify the “castle” meme. It’s not a castle.)
When the building (it’s not a castle) was bought (in early 2021), the name of the organisation that bought it was CEA. The change at some point after that to Effective Ventures. It’s unclear how much governance-wise a separate ‘umbrella CEA’ existed to a ‘core CEA’ at the point of the purchase, but even now, CEA does not seem to have a board separate from Effective Ventures, and it’s ultimately the same people that hare fully responsible and it’s legally the same organisation that people donated to (unclear what kind of restrictions could put on their donations at which point in time). Note that this is different from your Google/Deepmind example, as both of these are separte legal entities (albeit owned by the same umbrella company).
That people should use “EVF” to refer to the umbrella organization and “CEA” to refer to the community building org when talking about things happening after the rebranding is uncontroversial, no? My comment isn’t “go ahead and keep saying CEA when you mean the umbrella org” but instead that (a) what phrasing to use for events before the rebranding isn’t obvious and (b) because rebranding is hard it’s not surprising some people will still call the umbrella organization “CEA”.
Your “Google” examples don’t feel clarifying to me because they’re in the present tense and about things that haven’t recently gone through rebranding, and so avoid both (a) and (b).
The way Owen started his comment, by explicitly talking about the two ’CEA’s, is great, BTW.
I think we mostly agree—but I would claim that if you’re interested in clarity, calling the umbrella organization pre-renaming “CEA” is confusing, and that if you’re not calling it EVF, you should at least disambiguate clearly.
People are talking about a purchase in April 2022, at which point the organization doing the purchasing really was “CEA”. For example, you’d say “why did Google start a self-driving car project?” and not “why did Alphabet start a self-driving car project?”, since at the time they started the project the umbrella organization was still called “Google”.
I also think it’s hard to get people to start using a new name for an organization: people still colloquially used “Google” for “Alphabet” for years. And that was with a big marketing push, while this transition has been much quieter and somewhat uneven:
The 2022-09-13 post announcing the change doesn’t show any sort of diagram, and makes it sound like the change is from [CEA [core, 80k, GWWC, etc]] to [CEA [EV ops, core, 80k, GWWC, etc]] and not to [EVF [CEA, 80k, GWWC, …]. See the confusion in the comments and “We didn’t want to make a big deal about this rebrand”.
CEA’s footer didn’t switch to EVF until 2022-10-26 (old, new).
The footer on EA Funds said it was part of CEA, not EAF, until I wrote to them to ask on 2022-11-28.
CEA’s “team” page still called the umbrella organization “CEA” until 2022-11-30 (old, new).
There are still many references to “CEA UK” on CEA’s site, even though (pretty sure) it’s no longer a thing. Ex, Owen’s page says he’s a trustee of CEA UK, but I think should instead say a trustee of EVF. [EDIT: I found ~10 places like this and wrote to EVF]
The US branch of EVF is still called CEA today.
The purchase was in April 2022 not in 2021; however the rest of your comment seems fair.
Thanks! Edited!
I tentatively think this is wrong, and calling it EVF is both clearer, and important in ensuring people understand what happened.
If I say “Google is manipulating results to benefit some groups over others,” you’d interpret that differently than if I said “Google maps directions is manipulating results to benefit some groups over others.” And if I said “Google invests heavily in AI safety” you’d think I meant something different than Deepmind’s safety research.
By saying “CEA bought a castle,” they are implying (or incorrectly inferring) that the organization that people donate to named CEA is the same as the one that bought the castle. Yes, the two organizations are related, but phrasing it that way seems pretty actively misleading, and disambiguating seems critical.
The organization that people donate to is the same as the one that bought the manor house. CEA has no legal existence distinct from EVF; any distinction between the two is purely a matter of internal organization within the legal entity now called EVF (but called CEA at the time of the purchase).
(Also, I’d be happier if people here wouldn’t amplify the “castle” meme. It’s not a castle.)
When the building (it’s not a castle) was bought (in early 2021), the name of the organisation that bought it was CEA. The change at some point after that to Effective Ventures. It’s unclear how much governance-wise a separate ‘umbrella CEA’ existed to a ‘core CEA’ at the point of the purchase, but even now, CEA does not seem to have a board separate from Effective Ventures, and it’s ultimately the same people that hare fully responsible and it’s legally the same organisation that people donated to (unclear what kind of restrictions could put on their donations at which point in time). Note that this is different from your Google/Deepmind example, as both of these are separte legal entities (albeit owned by the same umbrella company).
That people should use “EVF” to refer to the umbrella organization and “CEA” to refer to the community building org when talking about things happening after the rebranding is uncontroversial, no? My comment isn’t “go ahead and keep saying CEA when you mean the umbrella org” but instead that (a) what phrasing to use for events before the rebranding isn’t obvious and (b) because rebranding is hard it’s not surprising some people will still call the umbrella organization “CEA”.
Your “Google” examples don’t feel clarifying to me because they’re in the present tense and about things that haven’t recently gone through rebranding, and so avoid both (a) and (b).
The way Owen started his comment, by explicitly talking about the two ’CEA’s, is great, BTW.
I think we mostly agree—but I would claim that if you’re interested in clarity, calling the umbrella organization pre-renaming “CEA” is confusing, and that if you’re not calling it EVF, you should at least disambiguate clearly.