I don’t think this is a fair comment, and aspects of it reads more of a personal attack rather than an attack of ideas. This feels especially the case given the above post has significantly more substance and recommendations to it, but this one comment just focuses in on Zoe Cremer. It worries me a bit that it was upvoted as much as it was.
For the record, I think some of Zoe’s recommendations could plausibly be net negative and some are good ideas; as with everything, it requires further thinking through and then skillful implementation. But I think the amount of flack she’s taken for this has been disproportionate and sends the wrong signal to others about dissenting.
I think this aspect of the comment is particularly harsh, which is in and of itself likely counterproductive. But on top of that, it’s not the type that should be made lightly or without a lot of evidence that that is the person’s agenda (bold for emphasis):
- I think part of Cremer’s reaction after FTX is not epistemically virtuous; “I was a vocal critic of EA”—“there is an EA-related scandal”—“I claim to be vindicated in my criticism” is not sound reasoning, when the criticisms are mostly tangentially related to the scandal. It will get you a lot of media attention, in particular if you present yourself as some sort of virtuous insider who was critical of the leaders and saw this coming, but I hope upon closer scrutiny people are actually able to see through this.
I think seeing it as “just putting two people in touch” is narrow. It’s about judgement on whether to get involved in highly controversial commercial deal which was expected to significantly influence discourse norms, and therefore polarisation, in years to come. As far as I can tell, EA overall and Will specifically do not have skills / knowhow in this domain.
Introducing Elon to Sam is not just like making a casual introduction; if everything SBF was doing was based on EA, then this feels like EA wading in on the future of Twitter via the influence of SBFs money.
Introducing Elon to Holden because he wanted to learn more about charity evaluation? Absolutely—that’s EA’s bread and butter and where we have skills and credibility. But on this commercial deal and subsequent running of Twitter? Not within anyone’s toolbox from what I can tell.
I’d like to know the thinking behind this move by Will and anyone else involved. For my part, I think this was unwise, should have had more consultation around it.
I would consider disavowing the community if people start to get more involved in: 1) big potentially world-changing decisions which—to me—it looks like they don’t have the wider knowledge or skillset to take on well, or 2) incredibly controversial projects like the Twitter acquisition, and doing so through covert back-channels with limited consultation.