Nice. Thanks. Really well written, very clear language, and I think this is pointed in a pretty good direction. Overall I learned a lot.
I do have the sense it maybe proves too much—i.e. if these critiques are all correct then I think it’s surprising that EA is as successful as it is, and that raises alarm bells for me about the overall writeup.
I don’t see you doing much acknowledging what might be good about the stuff that you critique—for example, you critique the focus on individual rationality over e.g. deferring to external consensus. But it seems possible to me that the movement’s early focus on individual rationality was the cause of attracting great people into the movement, and that without that focus EA might not be anything at all! If I’m right about that then are we ready to give up on whatever power we gained from making that choice early on?
Or, as a metaphor, you might be saying something like “EA needs to ‘grow up’ now” but I am wondering if EA’s childlike nature is part of its success and ‘growing up’ would actually have a chance to kill the movement.
I agree! As a founder, I promise to never engage in fraud, either personally or with my business, even if it seems like doing so would result in large amounts of money (or other benefits) to good things in the world. I also intend to discourage other people who ask my advice from making similar trade-offs.
This should obviously go without saying, and I already was operating this way, but it is worth writing down publicly that I think fraud is of course wrong, and is not in line with how I operate the philosophy of EA.