I will not defend this decision to them, regardless of what the economic calculus around conferences/event costs says.
What do you think would happen if you responded to a friend’s question with something like this?
“Yes, they purchased this property as a way to save money on event hosting + lodging for attendees. They host a ton of people for events each year, so they think the space will pay for itself over time. It’s also an asset that can be held long-term, instead of money going down the drain on rental costs. A lot of large organizations own centers like this to host events.
“Zero public donations went into this — it was bought with a grant specifically for this project.”
You’re obviously under no obligation to spend time/energy doing this kind of thing! But I’m curious how you think the people messaging you would react.
(I’ve had a lot of conversations with my parents over the years about weird EA things, and I find that it’s good practice for my other comms work.)
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I agree that large purchases can be spun in embarrassing ways, but I’m not sure how orgs are meant to respond to this. Does the risk of bad press mean that no one in EA can purchase a building over a certain price, and buildings should be rented instead? Or that buildings can be purchased, but they have to be bland newer buildings instead of fancy-looking older buildings?
I’m a big fan of communicating more clearly about decisions like this, especially when there’s PR risk inherent to the project. But I’m very wary of PR concerns stopping people from making sound decisions about infrastructure.
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Also, the “I will not defend this decision to them” point could extend to things like e.g. spending any amount of money on AI alignment, which is also weird and embarrassing to talk about.
No one is obligated to defend AI work, either — I’d be happy to have thousands of people just advocating for malaria funding in their spare time! — but I don’t like when people argue that AI alignment is bad for the EA brand and should thus be deemphasized (I’ve been seeing a lot of this lately in the media).
Thanks for sharing, Aaron! I really appreciate these short explanations. One of my biggest worries was that this would be something difficult to explain to outsiders, but you helped to reduce that worry significantly.
This is basically what I said, but thank you for the template answer, it’s good to have one. A few people have argued that it feels like this move shows that EA has reverted to the default path that charitable organisations take where they end up bloated and spending lots of money on ops, HR and lobbying. I’m not saying I believe this, but I think it’s bad for this image to be validated in any way.
Yeah this is my biggest concern. The whole value proposition of EA was to get away from the normal failure modes of charities. If they are falling into the same traps of using shoddy reasoning to justify self serving behaviour that’s a major structural problem, not just a matter of a single decision.
A few people have argued that it feels like this move shows that EA has reverted to the default path that charitable organisations take where they end up bloated and spending lots of money on ops, HR and lobbying.
I think it’s probably correct to update in that direction based on this. (Though probably not all the way.)
What do you think would happen if you responded to a friend’s question with something like this?
“Yes, they purchased this property as a way to save money on event hosting + lodging for attendees. They host a ton of people for events each year, so they think the space will pay for itself over time. It’s also an asset that can be held long-term, instead of money going down the drain on rental costs. A lot of large organizations own centers like this to host events.
“Zero public donations went into this — it was bought with a grant specifically for this project.”
You’re obviously under no obligation to spend time/energy doing this kind of thing! But I’m curious how you think the people messaging you would react.
(I’ve had a lot of conversations with my parents over the years about weird EA things, and I find that it’s good practice for my other comms work.)
*****
I agree that large purchases can be spun in embarrassing ways, but I’m not sure how orgs are meant to respond to this. Does the risk of bad press mean that no one in EA can purchase a building over a certain price, and buildings should be rented instead? Or that buildings can be purchased, but they have to be bland newer buildings instead of fancy-looking older buildings?
I’m a big fan of communicating more clearly about decisions like this, especially when there’s PR risk inherent to the project. But I’m very wary of PR concerns stopping people from making sound decisions about infrastructure.
*****
Also, the “I will not defend this decision to them” point could extend to things like e.g. spending any amount of money on AI alignment, which is also weird and embarrassing to talk about.
No one is obligated to defend AI work, either — I’d be happy to have thousands of people just advocating for malaria funding in their spare time! — but I don’t like when people argue that AI alignment is bad for the EA brand and should thus be deemphasized (I’ve been seeing a lot of this lately in the media).
Thanks for sharing, Aaron! I really appreciate these short explanations. One of my biggest worries was that this would be something difficult to explain to outsiders, but you helped to reduce that worry significantly.
I don’t know whether my explanation will actually hold up! Haven’t had the chance to test it.
But if you use it anywhere, let me know how it goes :-)
This is basically what I said, but thank you for the template answer, it’s good to have one. A few people have argued that it feels like this move shows that EA has reverted to the default path that charitable organisations take where they end up bloated and spending lots of money on ops, HR and lobbying. I’m not saying I believe this, but I think it’s bad for this image to be validated in any way.
Yeah this is my biggest concern. The whole value proposition of EA was to get away from the normal failure modes of charities. If they are falling into the same traps of using shoddy reasoning to justify self serving behaviour that’s a major structural problem, not just a matter of a single decision.
I think it’s probably correct to update in that direction based on this. (Though probably not all the way.)