I thought the final three paragraphs were the best part of this post and I wish you had led with them!
“Consider two types of thinkers...I think that ‘hero worship’ is often a problem in this community because people—including myself—have mistaken innovators for systematizers...Sounds plausible, right? Let’s take Eliezer as an example (sorry, Eliezer!)...”
This practice of “This generally pretty great person/org in our community [probably] has a FLAW!!” *upvote upvote upvote upvote* doesn’t seem very healthy to me[1], whereas “Here’s a mistake I think I’ve made and I think lots of us are making” (and sharing the post in advance with anyone identifiable singled out for criticism) seems very helpful :)
- ^
Although if Eliezer is as condescending as you make out, part of me thinks it’s fair play to be somewhat ridiculing in response. Still, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, ya know.
This looks amazing!!
Honest question though (sorry): Do people think there’s a moral difference between Lightcone’s campus (“house party venue...crossed with Disneyland”) and EVF’s abbey (“castle”)?
There are obviously multiple reasons why the EVF purchase looks worse at first glance:
Large English venues generally look more extravagant
EVF is—for better or worse—closely associated with ideas like frugality, charity, sacrifice, etc., while Lightcone explicitly owns their engagement in “the capitalist enterprise” for the greater good
Lightcone spoke about the campus prominently even before it was open for bookings, with their preferred framing and explanation, before critics had the opportunity to do it for them
EVF was already in some people’s bad books
Many EAs also made the meta objection that bad optics should have been reason enough not to do it. But this was partly self-fulfilling the more loudly and hyperbolically the objection was voiced, and hopefully we can all agree that the extent to which optics should guide our decisions is at least a hotly contested topic in EA (rather than a scandalous signal of incompetence when an org leans one way rather than the other).
So I’m curious if community opinion is generally that the EVF purchase was “bad” and the Lightcone purchase was “good”?
If so, and if the explanation is that third wave EA is too large for majority opinion to be that much more nuanced than the public’s, I want to double-check that orgs are very aware of this now so that they can factor it in to future decisions.
And if people think that the EVF purchase was bad for another reason, I think that would also be helpful to know.[1]
Sorry if I’ve missed something obvious and important here! This is all just one person’s impression of how two similar initiatives played out and it’s very plausible to me that I’ve missed a key part of the picture.