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That's awesome! Open Philanthropy reminds me of https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/. In their relationship disclosure: > OpenAI researchers Dario

by vpontis 10y ago

That's awesome! Open Philanthropy reminds me of https://80000hours.org/ https://80000hours.org/. In their relationship disclosure: > OpenAI researchers Dario Amodei and Paul Christiano are both technical advisors to Open Philanthropy and live in the same house as Holden. In addition, Holden is engaged to Dario’s sister Daniela. This is so tangled. I don't mean it as a criticism as I'm sure a lot of SV investments would have a much longer Relationship Disclosure sections. So props to them for including this.

rspeer 10y ago
Well, I would use it as a criticism. This is a tangled web of like-minded people giving money to each other and calling it charity. Some people conflate this with Effective Altruism, which I think sucks. Compared to the rigorous work done by GiveWell, there's no way to tell if this is effective, or even altruistic. It's just people assuming that the world will be a better place if more people who think like them have money, an assumption held by basically everyone everywhere.
- engx 10y ago
  It seems objectively better for some people to have access to money -- in this case the GiveWell founder. He's done great work there and now he's helping OpenAI all via a Facebook founder's billions.
  - rspeer 10y ago
    "It seems objectively better for some people to have access to money" is classism in one sentence. And I won't give people a pass because of the thing they co-founded and then forked. I can appreciate Wikipedia and believe that Larry Sanger's fork of it was dumb. I can appreciate GiveWell and think that Open Philantropy is corrupt.
    - engx 10y ago
      And your suggestion about classism is moral relativism. Who is corrupt? The guy giving away $8 billion or the one who founded GiveWell? And one of their focuses is criminal justice reform and trying to improve prison conditions. If you want to look at something truly corrupt, look at the criminal justice system in the U.S.
- jaibot 10y ago
  Holden's dedicated a huge chunk of his career to moving hundreds of millions of dollars to alleviating poverty and disease. He's one of the founders of the effective altruism movement. You may disagree with his decision here, but to dismiss his efforts, saying it "sucks" and isn't "effective, or even altruistic", while ignoring the extensive public writing he's done on the subject that led him to these views and strawmanning his position as nepotism, is just awful. "I disagree with the arguments presented, for these reasons" - cool. If you think the grant isn't a good idea, make an argument for that. "This person who has dedicated their life to doing as much good as possible is close to other people who also want to do as much good as possible, and their work has led to convergent viewpoints, therefore this isn't altruism" is cheap character assassination.
  - hawkice 10y ago
    > strawmanning his position as nepotism So, you obviously feel strongly about this, but let me explain why your comments are less persuasive for those of us outside this subculture: The non-profit they donated to is (by any reading of their mission statement) an organization designed to create new technology that "will be the most significant technology ever created by humans" according to their own statements. It doesn't disburse cash or benefits to _anyone_, and actually pledges to keep some of the research secret, and "we expect to create formal processes for keeping technologies private when there are safety concerns" -- a situation the organization claims will happen, presumably regularly! Creating influential technology is typically done for-profit, and research is typically funded in ways much less open to individual favoritism (review boards are a great anti-corruption tool), and the results of that research are typically available to (among others) the people that fund it. There is a lot about this situation that a reasonable person would describe as unusual. In addition, all of these changes -- introducing more direct funding with less oversight, lack of access to results, lack of expectation of benefit to the targets of the charity -- all lend themselves to obscuring a fraud. That doesn't mean a fraud is present, but I'd be extremely aggressive about oversight. What kind of oversight are we getting? Well, right now they list one of their major goals as the "tricky" goal of figuring out of they're making any progress at all. I would not give this organization money. Dismissing these critiques as "character assassination" ignores the fact that I've only described aspects of the organization, not of the people involved, whom I have little information about.
- jackfoxy 10y ago
  One of my favorite lines in Mad Men was Bert Cooper telling Don Draper Philanthropy is the gateway to power.
deleted 10y ago
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by vpontis 10y ago

rspeer 10y ago

Well, I would use it as a criticism. This is a tangled web of like-minded people giving money to each other and calling it charity. Some people conflate this with Effective Altruism, which I think sucks. Compared to the rigorous work done by GiveWell, there's no way to tell if this is effective, or even altruistic. It's just people assuming that the world will be a better place if more people who think like them have money, an assumption held by basically everyone everywhere.

engx 10y ago
It seems objectively better for some people to have access to money -- in this case the GiveWell founder. He's done great work there and now he's helping OpenAI all via a Facebook founder's billions.
- rspeer 10y ago
  "It seems objectively better for some people to have access to money" is classism in one sentence. And I won't give people a pass because of the thing they co-founded and then forked. I can appreciate Wikipedia and believe that Larry Sanger's fork of it was dumb. I can appreciate GiveWell and think that Open Philantropy is corrupt.
  - engx 10y ago
    And your suggestion about classism is moral relativism. Who is corrupt? The guy giving away $8 billion or the one who founded GiveWell? And one of their focuses is criminal justice reform and trying to improve prison conditions. If you want to look at something truly corrupt, look at the criminal justice system in the U.S.
jaibot 10y ago
Holden's dedicated a huge chunk of his career to moving hundreds of millions of dollars to alleviating poverty and disease. He's one of the founders of the effective altruism movement. You may disagree with his decision here, but to dismiss his efforts, saying it "sucks" and isn't "effective, or even altruistic", while ignoring the extensive public writing he's done on the subject that led him to these views and strawmanning his position as nepotism, is just awful. "I disagree with the arguments presented, for these reasons" - cool. If you think the grant isn't a good idea, make an argument for that. "This person who has dedicated their life to doing as much good as possible is close to other people who also want to do as much good as possible, and their work has led to convergent viewpoints, therefore this isn't altruism" is cheap character assassination.
- hawkice 10y ago
  > strawmanning his position as nepotism So, you obviously feel strongly about this, but let me explain why your comments are less persuasive for those of us outside this subculture: The non-profit they donated to is (by any reading of their mission statement) an organization designed to create new technology that "will be the most significant technology ever created by humans" according to their own statements. It doesn't disburse cash or benefits to _anyone_, and actually pledges to keep some of the research secret, and "we expect to create formal processes for keeping technologies private when there are safety concerns" -- a situation the organization claims will happen, presumably regularly! Creating influential technology is typically done for-profit, and research is typically funded in ways much less open to individual favoritism (review boards are a great anti-corruption tool), and the results of that research are typically available to (among others) the people that fund it. There is a lot about this situation that a reasonable person would describe as unusual. In addition, all of these changes -- introducing more direct funding with less oversight, lack of access to results, lack of expectation of benefit to the targets of the charity -- all lend themselves to obscuring a fraud. That doesn't mean a fraud is present, but I'd be extremely aggressive about oversight. What kind of oversight are we getting? Well, right now they list one of their major goals as the "tricky" goal of figuring out of they're making any progress at all. I would not give this organization money. Dismissing these critiques as "character assassination" ignores the fact that I've only described aspects of the organization, not of the people involved, whom I have little information about.
jackfoxy 10y ago
One of my favorite lines in Mad Men was Bert Cooper telling Don Draper Philanthropy is the gateway to power.

deleted 10y ago

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