To the extent this is an implied characterization of what happened here, I find it unlikely to be an apt one. It is unlikely that, e.g., EVF and/or OP made an optics-based decision on account of random posters on X. I also see no reason to conclude that the decisionmakers were affected by what their friends thought. Rather, I think the decisionmakers concluded that the expected state of the world was better if EV divested Wytham. For the same reason, I think the reference to “primary pathology of most of the world’s charity landscape, where vanity projects and complicated signaling games dominate where donations go” is overdone. Even if we assume that continued operation was more economically advantageous, this is a project on the periphery of what EA is, not an object-level issue. That reputational effects may have overruled a cost-effective analysis that disregarded those effects in this particular case does not update me on the probability that EA is at risk that vanity and signaling will “dominate,” or even play a major role, in EA funding decisions writ large.
As a practical matter, funders have a huge influence on organizational operations. (This isn’t wholly unique to the charitable world: customers and investors have somewhat analogous influences on for-profits.) Giving some weight to the views of future potential funders—who may be less likely to give to a movement that remains linked to the “castle”—does not strike me as fundamentally different than “letting” current funders’ views and preferences have as much weight as they do.
To the extent criticism is directed at Dustin, Cari, or Open Phil—the EA community does not own its donors’ money, and I see no basis for demanding that they continue to associate themselves with the “castle” if they do not wish to do so. Unless there’s another donor who is willing to incur the capital and operating costs of Wytham, I don’t see any potential room for criticizing EVF itself here. Of course, anyone who thinks Wytham should be reopened is welcome to fundraise for purchasing it or a similar building.
I also submit that wise stewardship and leadership of a social movement includes some consideration of morale amongst the rank and file. I’m guessing that some community builders whose funding has been cut due to financial circumstances may have been salty about “the castle” running while they were being asked to work with fewer resources. They probably were losing some effectiveness—and morale—through having to defend Wytham. The whole situation likely contributed to some people disengaging and/or not engaging. If these sorts of effects should not be considered, then I think there is much else in the meta world that could stand a reevaluation.
Finally, I’m more willing to weight optics on meta stuff than on object-level concerns; I think it would be much more epistemically dangerous to (e.g.) refuse to value farmed animals because of that isn’t seen as legitimate by certain others than it is to sell the “EA castle” because it is getting in the way of maintaining public respect and effectiveness. Moreover, in your GiveWell hypo, the project rejection on PR grounds would be corrosive to GiveWell’s function and value proposition (to be an unbiased, objective recommender in the areas it operates in) in a way that is less true in meta (where securing more money, talent, support, and other resources for object-level work is at least a key penultimate objective).
That reputational effects may have overruled a cost-effective analysis that disregarded those effects in this particular case does not update me on the probability that EA is at risk that vanity and signaling will “dominate,” or even play a major role, in EA funding decisions writ large.
I think Open Philanthropy staff will transparently tell you that they have recently substantially shifted towards considering optics and reputation as a core component of their grants.
I agree that Wytham itself is only one datapoint so should not update you much, though I think if you are curious about this, it wouldn’t be too hard to confirm that there is a broader shift going on (to be clear, I wouldn’t consider it vanity in that case, though broader signaling concerns seem quite substantial).
and I see no basis for demanding that they continue to associate themselves with the “castle” if they do not wish to do so
I agree that the donors should feel free to disassociate themselves from whatever they want, though in this case how the castle is being handled is a decision by EV, the most central EA organization. Also, of course, if a donor chooses to disassociate like that, it’s within the rights of EA community members to think less of them (they might still think positively on-net, but highlighting how someone’s grantmaking ignoring cost-effectiveness concerns in favor of personal reputation managemetn clearly is a valid criticism and should make you less excited about someone’s giving, and also concerned about the secondary effects of their giving)
Finally, I’m more willing to weight optics on meta stuff than on object-level concerns
This seems like a mistake.
I agree that it would seem more legitimate to do things for optics-reasons, but the detrimental effect on incentives and ability to think that come from optics-focused decision-making are just as real in meta work as for object-level work. The reason to not do things for optics-reasons is of course not that people will see you as more legitimate if you don’t, that’s just another optics-concern. The reason is that it affects the incentives on people to do good work, sets up an adversarial epistemic environment, and generally makes decision-making predictably worse. I don’t see why we should make a different tradeoff on those axis for meta work, where figuring out how to have a positive impact is usually substantially harder and messier than in more clear-cut global health and development cases.
I agree that the donors should feel free to disassociate themselves from whatever they want, though in this case how the castle is being handled is a decision by EV, the most central EA organization.
Another place where I have changed my mind over time is the grant we gave for the purchase of Wytham Abbey, an event space in Oxford.
[ . . . .]
Because this was a large asset, we agreed with Effective Ventures ahead of time that we would ask them to sell the Abbey if the event space, all things considered, turned out not to be sufficiently cost-effective. We recently made that request; funds from the sale will be distributed to other valuable projects they run.
Claire had previously noted that “(Proceeds from a sale would be used as general funding within EVF, and that funding would replace some of our and other funders’ future grants to EVF.)” So the plan of reallocating the funds locked up in Wytham to replace some of its general support to EVF if OP wanted out seems to have been the understanding from the get-go.
Based on that, it sounds like the sale was EVF’s decision insofar as it could have refused, damaged its relationship with its predominant funder, and found some other way to plug the resulting massive hole in its budget. In other words: not really. And EVF would still have needed to come up with a non-OP funding source for operating Wytham; surely it was not going to get OP’s funds to directly or indirectly do so after not honoring the request to divest it had agreed in advance OP could make.
Sure, I am not saying that EV should have gone back on some kind of promise.
But generally expect that when I trade with leadership in this ecosystem that they will be held to a standard of cost-effectiveness and not a standard of looking good on optics-grounds. And I think it continues to be good to judge EV and OP for making decisions on grounds that seem inconsistent with EA principles to me.
It shouldn’t cost them like an infinite amount of social capital, but I do think it makes the people a bit less suited to being in long-term EA leadership positions (i.e. if we had an election for EA leadership, the degree to which people optimize for optics instead of cost-effectiveness would hopefully be one of the central virtues on which to evaluate our leadership).
‘I think Open Philanthropy staff will transparently tell you that they have recently substantially shifted towards considering optics and reputation as a core component of their grants.’
To the extent this is an implied characterization of what happened here, I find it unlikely to be an apt one. It is unlikely that, e.g., EVF and/or OP made an optics-based decision on account of random posters on X. I also see no reason to conclude that the decisionmakers were affected by what their friends thought. Rather, I think the decisionmakers concluded that the expected state of the world was better if EV divested Wytham. For the same reason, I think the reference to “primary pathology of most of the world’s charity landscape, where vanity projects and complicated signaling games dominate where donations go” is overdone. Even if we assume that continued operation was more economically advantageous, this is a project on the periphery of what EA is, not an object-level issue. That reputational effects may have overruled a cost-effective analysis that disregarded those effects in this particular case does not update me on the probability that EA is at risk that vanity and signaling will “dominate,” or even play a major role, in EA funding decisions writ large.
As a practical matter, funders have a huge influence on organizational operations. (This isn’t wholly unique to the charitable world: customers and investors have somewhat analogous influences on for-profits.) Giving some weight to the views of future potential funders—who may be less likely to give to a movement that remains linked to the “castle”—does not strike me as fundamentally different than “letting” current funders’ views and preferences have as much weight as they do.
To the extent criticism is directed at Dustin, Cari, or Open Phil—the EA community does not own its donors’ money, and I see no basis for demanding that they continue to associate themselves with the “castle” if they do not wish to do so. Unless there’s another donor who is willing to incur the capital and operating costs of Wytham, I don’t see any potential room for criticizing EVF itself here. Of course, anyone who thinks Wytham should be reopened is welcome to fundraise for purchasing it or a similar building.
I also submit that wise stewardship and leadership of a social movement includes some consideration of morale amongst the rank and file. I’m guessing that some community builders whose funding has been cut due to financial circumstances may have been salty about “the castle” running while they were being asked to work with fewer resources. They probably were losing some effectiveness—and morale—through having to defend Wytham. The whole situation likely contributed to some people disengaging and/or not engaging. If these sorts of effects should not be considered, then I think there is much else in the meta world that could stand a reevaluation.
Finally, I’m more willing to weight optics on meta stuff than on object-level concerns; I think it would be much more epistemically dangerous to (e.g.) refuse to value farmed animals because of that isn’t seen as legitimate by certain others than it is to sell the “EA castle” because it is getting in the way of maintaining public respect and effectiveness. Moreover, in your GiveWell hypo, the project rejection on PR grounds would be corrosive to GiveWell’s function and value proposition (to be an unbiased, objective recommender in the areas it operates in) in a way that is less true in meta (where securing more money, talent, support, and other resources for object-level work is at least a key penultimate objective).
I think Open Philanthropy staff will transparently tell you that they have recently substantially shifted towards considering optics and reputation as a core component of their grants.
I agree that Wytham itself is only one datapoint so should not update you much, though I think if you are curious about this, it wouldn’t be too hard to confirm that there is a broader shift going on (to be clear, I wouldn’t consider it vanity in that case, though broader signaling concerns seem quite substantial).
I agree that the donors should feel free to disassociate themselves from whatever they want, though in this case how the castle is being handled is a decision by EV, the most central EA organization. Also, of course, if a donor chooses to disassociate like that, it’s within the rights of EA community members to think less of them (they might still think positively on-net, but highlighting how someone’s grantmaking ignoring cost-effectiveness concerns in favor of personal reputation managemetn clearly is a valid criticism and should make you less excited about someone’s giving, and also concerned about the secondary effects of their giving)
This seems like a mistake.
I agree that it would seem more legitimate to do things for optics-reasons, but the detrimental effect on incentives and ability to think that come from optics-focused decision-making are just as real in meta work as for object-level work. The reason to not do things for optics-reasons is of course not that people will see you as more legitimate if you don’t, that’s just another optics-concern. The reason is that it affects the incentives on people to do good work, sets up an adversarial epistemic environment, and generally makes decision-making predictably worse. I don’t see why we should make a different tradeoff on those axis for meta work, where figuring out how to have a positive impact is usually substantially harder and messier than in more clear-cut global health and development cases.
Alexander Berger wrote yesterday:
Claire had previously noted that “(Proceeds from a sale would be used as general funding within EVF, and that funding would replace some of our and other funders’ future grants to EVF.)” So the plan of reallocating the funds locked up in Wytham to replace some of its general support to EVF if OP wanted out seems to have been the understanding from the get-go.
Based on that, it sounds like the sale was EVF’s decision insofar as it could have refused, damaged its relationship with its predominant funder, and found some other way to plug the resulting massive hole in its budget. In other words: not really. And EVF would still have needed to come up with a non-OP funding source for operating Wytham; surely it was not going to get OP’s funds to directly or indirectly do so after not honoring the request to divest it had agreed in advance OP could make.
Sure, I am not saying that EV should have gone back on some kind of promise.
But generally expect that when I trade with leadership in this ecosystem that they will be held to a standard of cost-effectiveness and not a standard of looking good on optics-grounds. And I think it continues to be good to judge EV and OP for making decisions on grounds that seem inconsistent with EA principles to me.
It shouldn’t cost them like an infinite amount of social capital, but I do think it makes the people a bit less suited to being in long-term EA leadership positions (i.e. if we had an election for EA leadership, the degree to which people optimize for optics instead of cost-effectiveness would hopefully be one of the central virtues on which to evaluate our leadership).
‘I think Open Philanthropy staff will transparently tell you that they have recently substantially shifted towards considering optics and reputation as a core component of their grants.’
Why do you think this?
Because I have talked to Open Philanthropy staff who have told me this