FAQ number 5) reads oddly.
|5) Was nepotism involved? In particular, would FLI’s president’s brother have profited in any way had the grant been awarded?
|No. He published some articles in the newspaper, but the understanding from the very beginning was that this was pro-bono, and he was never paid and never planned to get paid by the newspaper of the foundation. The grant proposal requested no funds for him. He is a journalist with many years of experience working for Swedish public radio and television, and runs his own free and non-commercial podcast. The newspaper linked some of his episodes, but this has nothing to do with FLI, and it provided no ad revenue since he runs no ads. He was shocked by the recent revelations of extremism and plans no further association with the newspaper.
I think you should list the purely contextual information (that an FLI executive’s sibling has written articles for the newspaper etc) before the responsive information (that this did not influence the decision etc).
Also, definitely state the responsive information as two parts:
-Stuff that FLI knows, stated as fact
-”We reached out to [sibling], and he communicated the following”
FLI as an institution does not (I assume) accept representations by its executives’ family members as verified fact or allow them editorial influence. Separating the facts that FLI knows from the facts represented to FLI by the sibling emphasizes this.
It makes complete sense for Tegmark to defend & believe his brother in personal statements, and for FLI to give a relative the opportunity to communicate something in a circumstance like this.
However FLI isn’t Tegmark. FLI’s statements about his brother should be objective and based on information that can be verified by another executive. The statements should be made as if there’s a small chance it’s later discovered that his brother is lying about his politics or finances, because FLI should not make statements about Tegmark’s brother based on his personal judgement.
Regarding the last paragraph, in the edit:
I think the comments here are ignoring a perfectly sufficient reason to not, eg, invite him to speak at an EA adjacent conference. If I understand correctly, he consistently endorsed white supremacy for several years as a pseudonymous blogger.
Effective Altruism has grown fairly popular. We do not have a shortage of people who have heard of us and are willing to speak at conferences. We can afford to apply a few filtering criteria that exclude otherwise acceptable speakers.
“Zero articles endorsing white supremacy” is one such useful filter.
I predict that people considering joining or working with us would sometimes hear about speakers who’d once endorsed white supremacy, and be seriously concerned. I’d put not-insignificant odds that the number that back off because of this would reduce the growth of the movement by over 10%. We can and should prefer speakers who don’t bring this potential problem.
A few clarifications follow:
-Nothing about this relies on his current views. He could be a wonderful fluffy bunny of a person today, and it would all still apply. Doesn’t sound like the consensus in this thread, but it’s not relevant.
-This does not mean anyone needs to spurn him, if they think he’s a good enough person now. Of course he can reform! I wouldn’t ask that he sew a scarlet letter into his clothing or become unemployable or be cast into the outer darkness. But, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to say that past actions as a public thinker can impact your future as a public thinker. I sure hope he wouldn’t hold it against people that he gets fewer speaking invitations despite reforming.
-I don’t see this as a slippery slope towards becoming a close-minded community. The views he held would have been well outside the Overton window of any EA space I’ve been in, to the best of my knowledge. There were multiple such views, voiced seriously and consistently. Bostrom’s ill-advised email is not a good reason to remove him from lists of speakers, and Hanania’s multi-year advocacy of racist ideas is a good reason. There will be cases that require careful analysis, but I think both of these cases are extreme enough to be fairly clear-cut.