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Before commenting, I recommend reading this thread as well: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xof7iFB3uh8Kc53bG/why-did-cea-buy-wytham-abbey https://for

Before commenting, I recommend reading this thread as well: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xof7iFB3uh8Kc53bG/why-did-cea-buy-wytham-abbey https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xof7iFB3uh8Kc53bG/... Particularly the top reply: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xof7iFB3uh8Kc53bG/why-did-cea-buy-wytham-abbey?commentId=u3yJfbm2pes8TFpYX https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xof7iFB3uh8Kc53bG/... Of course, not everyone will agree with their decision, but it wasn’t done haphazardly. Here’s an excerpt: > We had various calculations about costings, which made it look somewhere between “moderately money-saving” and “mildly money-spending” vs renting venues for events that would happen anyway, depending on various assumptions e.g. about usage that we couldn’t get great data on before running the experiment. The main case for the project was not a cost-saving one, but that if it was a success it could generate many more valuable workshops than would otherwise exist. Note that this is a much less expensive experiment than it may look on face value, since we retain the underlying asset of the building.

fasthands9 4y ago
What are the workshops though? Admittedly if this was an org with a different mission it seems like something people would critique as inefficient overhead. But because its EA its assumed to be efficient? I still prefer the EA mindset to most other mindsets on giving but dont have a lot of faith that this org has produced much value. I think a lot of wealthy people (like Bill Gates) have already been doing this type of giving for years so I'm not sure what they have really invented either.
- eddsh1994 4y ago
  I assume Introduction to EA Fellowships and their subsequent follow-up Fellowships will be the main ones. They do run AI Safety workshops in Cambridge so maybe they'll move those down there? There will be quite a few both directly related to EA and other topics that they're interested in.
  - fasthands9 4y ago
    I guess my point is what efficacy do any of those programs have - especially the AI safety workshop? It seems extremely unproven to me and frankly I'm a bit cynical about it. Even if you do think that's very important, why not just have video lectures on it for the public?
    - jefftk 4y ago
      Video lectures for the public seem like they're trying to do a very different thing than a workshop? In general, the goal in a workshop is to get a group of people together to think about a problem and a collaborative way, while the goal of public lectures is to spread information.
      - fasthands9 4y ago
        That's fair enough. But I'm still having trouble seeing how this would pass the scrutiny of EA's philosophy on good charity other than for the fact its in house. Like there are already hundreds of universities with the abilities to do this or hose a workshop on it. And there's also no special reason to think that the assortment of people they will bring in will do good instead of talk in circles or come to the wrong conclusion. Like - it seems similar to the same thinking a large church does by bringing in religious leaders to talk about stuff?
        eddsh1994 4y ago
        It's expensive in that part of the country. Say I rent a room at an Oxford college for a conference which is subsidized, I'd be looking at 70 or 80 a night. Say it's five nights, that's 350/400 just on accommodation. Have 30 people and that's 12k per week saved, against a non-depreciating asset in an area that is very unlikely to reduce in value. On top of this you can do what you want with the place and have permanent work spaces etc. Seems sensible to me, even if my first instinct was WTF.
        lazyasciiart 4y ago
- bamboozled 4y ago
  Pretty much all not for profits needs to attract and specifically, retain members, the workshops could be about introducing them to the program and the associated benefits with regards to donating.
  - fasthands9 4y ago
    But how is that different from the other orgs they criticize? Isnt the end state of this that they realize they can spend $100 and expect to raise $150 from that investment - and this scales to an administrative staff of hundreds of people who spend millions a year advertising? Essentially Susan Komen but for malaria nets and AI research.
fdsafdasfdsafds 4y ago
They need a $15 million estate to run workshops?
- jefftk 4y ago
  If you're going to hold a lot of events I can definitely believe it's more efficient to buy space than rent it.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I don't think it's the rent vs. buy that's attracting the attention here.
    - bamboozled 4y ago
      Do you know how expensive events actually are? An average wedding can easily run into tens of thousands of USD?
      - lazyasciiart 4y ago
        What he meant was that everyone can accept buying is better than renting. Most people can’t accept that this was the most efficient purchase possible.
        bamboozled 4y ago
        I guess it's a nice place and people want to have events at nice places and if they held it for 200 years it would be a good investment?
        qsi 4y ago
        Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs. If you own the place, you're on the hook for maintenance, which can be pretty high for old buildings. While the asset may appreciate in value over time, the cost of carry may negate that price appreciation. Or you can decide not to do maintenance but then the value won't appreciate.
tptacek 4y ago
I read the top reply. What, exactly, about it do you find persuasive? To me, it seems like a pretty great illustration of one of the major critiques of EA: it introduces a set of vague axioms that are then used to build arguments for all sorts of silly, compromised arguments, like "we should buy a ￡15MM estate" or "we should divert money from the poor to AI research".
- abnry 4y ago
  If effective altruism is the best philosophy then anything that supports effective altruism must also be good. And anything that supports that, etc. So make sure to buy comfy plush pillows and foot massagers for the effective altruists so they can do their effective altruism more effectively!
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I mean, we're joking, but we're joking on a story where they managed to justify an $18MM estate to hold events at.
  - jasonhansel 4y ago
    And if you can make money to fund EA by starting a billion-dollar crypto Ponzi scheme, well, the ends justify the means.
    - hndamien 4y ago
      It's very effective, especially if you maintain the altruistic intent.
    - chickenchicken 4y ago
      I first thought this a joke and then I remembered FTX
    - bakuninsbart 4y ago
      There's certainly a lot of silly stuff going on in EA, but as far as I know, FTXs methods have been universally condemned within EA.
a_bonobo 4y ago
If you have calculations about costings, it seems absolutely nonsensical to go for 'stately country estates' owned by British royalty, 'one of the loveliest houses in England')[1]. The gardening costs alone will be astronomical, and what does that have to do with workshops? Any university building laid out for workshops/teaching will suffice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wytham_Abbey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wytham_Abbey
- a_bonobo 4y ago
  Thinking about this more, I'm so baffled by this decision. EA touts itself as the best strategy for giving as they present themselves as a rational force evaluating all approaches, then going for the 'best' one. Buying a multimillion pound stately country estate for your HQ is clearly not the 'best' use of money. Yet, EA argues that it is the best use of money with their usual vocabulary. That means I now cannot trust any of their decisions as they clearly bend the outcomes to whatever they want them to be. I.e., there's nothing 'effective' about the entire organisation, it's just your run-of-the-mill moneypit for rich people to feel better.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    > I.e., there's nothing 'effective' about the entire organisation, it's just your run-of-the-mill moneypit for rich people to feel better. Same scam, different copy. The good that SBF did for the world was exposing this particular underbelly. The world will move on, to the same scam with new window dressing.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Veedrac 4y ago
    Note that CEA is specifically a community-building organization, > Our mission is to build and nurture a global community of people who are thinking carefully about the world’s biggest problems and taking impactful action to solve them. We hope that this community can help to build a radically better world. > To foster this community, we run conferences, support hundreds of local groups, and provide online resources and forums for discussion. You shouldn't imagine that people are donating to generic maximal impact causes and the money is ending up in surprise luxury real estate. (Or, at least, if it is then that's news to me.) When CEA says (paraphrasing) ‘this is a reasonable way to spend the money we have on hosting a ton of conferences,’ the ‘host a ton of conferences’ part is an inherited assumption from this being CEA money (a specific grant for this purpose, in this case), not a broader claim about the value of lots of conferences vs. global health charities.
googlryas 4y ago
Wouldn't it make more sense to be able to hold workshops all around the world, thereby attracting a global audience instead of just people who can/want to travel to England?
raverbashing 4y ago
I've read more compelling arguments in theological discussions Maybe it's time to coin a new term: "altruism washing" whereas people will come up with wishy-washy reasons of why they should buy a 15MGBP castle and make it look like they're doing good with it
ajross 4y ago
> Of course, not everyone will agree with their decision, but it wasn’t done haphazardly. Needless to say, the question in context should have been whether it was done "effecitvely". Fine fine, if you want to throw a ton of conferences or whatever owning a forum to do it in might plausibly save you money. Was throwing a ton of conferences really the best, most effective use of fifteen million pounds at furthering the betterment of mankind? I think we all know the answer to that. They wanted to throw a ton of parties and raise a ton of money and wanted to spend that money on stuff that made them feel important.
yunwal 4y ago
It sounds like it was done completely haphazardly. 1. As soon as effective altruism becomes about glamour and extravagance, you attract the type of people who don’t care about the cause (clearly already true) 2. Obviously buying a castle is not the best investment the EA could be making and using that as the excuse is just weird. Of course none of this should be surprising as the Effective Altruism is essentially a PR stunt for people who do financial crimes.
mettamage 4y ago
Note: this is just an opinion. Close to Oxford (aka PhD students, etc.), maintain the value instead of renting, good nature place for thinking. I don't see the issue here if the space is utilized semi-effectively. They might need to think about how to get like 50% of the 15 million "out of the bricks" in order to utilize their capital better (assuming the house prices won't crash more than 50%). EA was always Oxford-ish, culture is culture. No form of rationality will prevail from that (I'm looking at you HN! ;-) ). Given their cultural/emotional make up, I think this is an okay rational decision. It could've been way worse. I don't get the fuss. It's kind of like being upset about the Kardashians or something (by that I specifically mean: it feels trivial and unimportant). It's a 15 million pounds decision that won't even make them lose 15 million pounds but a lot less. So who cares? Let's talk about CRISPR or something actually interesting. Let's live in the future.
- n4r9 4y ago
  Is it really trivial and unimportant? My understanding is that the organisation's goal is figuring out how to spend money effectively and without bias. If they're spending money in an overtly wasteful and selfish way, that feels important.
  - mettamage 4y ago
    > My understanding is that the organisation's goal is figuring out how to spend money effectively and without bias. Sure, but there will always be some bias. It's one of those things: they're wrong if they believe they can do away with all bias. Moreover, they are so wrong, I can't hold them responsible for it, even if they say they will hold themselves responsible for it. It's like a child saying "I will be responsible for building a time machine." You can't hold them responsible. But I get where you're coming from, I used to be more in your camp, but the longer I am out of academia the more I tend to look at the world in "grey terms" (I'm not implying you're still in academia or anything, that's just how my life journey is progressing at the moment). Oxford is one of their biases that they can't seem to get rid off. It's super clear. Also, it's understandable. When I look at where I'd hire the best CS students, I'd go to students that studied VUSEC courses (a research group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). I've been telling all kinds of people that only top tier CS students can complete their courses. But they haven't seen what I've seen (or they can't convince their managers). It's really a tough bias to get rid of, you understand your own uni intuitively so much more than anyone else's uni. Because does VUSEC really have the best students? Probably not. Is Oxford really the best place to be close to the best intellectual minds? Probably not. And I get that there's a fundamental point to be made (I'm making one myself that one can't get rid of all bias). But when I read the comments I'm reading too much emotion, not enough reason and empiricism. I don't want drama on HN, I want awesomeness about science and the world, which is what I usually find :)
Reimersholme 4y ago
prepend 4y ago
It doesn’t explain why they need to own the venue outright, rather than just rent the space when needed. I don’t think of EA as a charity whose purpose is to run events 52 weeks a year. And even if they were, having a single space in England, beautiful though it is, doesn’t make sense for a global organization. It would be a different story if someone donated the property and they wanted to make the best purpose for it (eg, Bellagio Center [0]). Although comically, I would expect EA to do the math and decide to sell such a donation and invest the capital in more productive charity. I like some of the ideas, but they seem like charlatans and expect that anyone who donates directly to their orgs will regret it as more such fuckups like this are revealed over time. [0] https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/bellagio-center/ https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/bellagio-center/

fasthands9 4y ago

What are the workshops though? Admittedly if this was an org with a different mission it seems like something people would critique as inefficient overhead. But because its EA its assumed to be efficient? I still prefer the EA mindset to most other mindsets on giving but dont have a lot of faith that this org has produced much value. I think a lot of wealthy people (like Bill Gates) have already been doing this type of giving for years so I'm not sure what they have really invented either.

eddsh1994 4y ago
I assume Introduction to EA Fellowships and their subsequent follow-up Fellowships will be the main ones. They do run AI Safety workshops in Cambridge so maybe they'll move those down there? There will be quite a few both directly related to EA and other topics that they're interested in.
- fasthands9 4y ago
  I guess my point is what efficacy do any of those programs have - especially the AI safety workshop? It seems extremely unproven to me and frankly I'm a bit cynical about it. Even if you do think that's very important, why not just have video lectures on it for the public?
  - jefftk 4y ago
    Video lectures for the public seem like they're trying to do a very different thing than a workshop? In general, the goal in a workshop is to get a group of people together to think about a problem and a collaborative way, while the goal of public lectures is to spread information.
    - fasthands9 4y ago
      That's fair enough. But I'm still having trouble seeing how this would pass the scrutiny of EA's philosophy on good charity other than for the fact its in house. Like there are already hundreds of universities with the abilities to do this or hose a workshop on it. And there's also no special reason to think that the assortment of people they will bring in will do good instead of talk in circles or come to the wrong conclusion. Like - it seems similar to the same thinking a large church does by bringing in religious leaders to talk about stuff?
      - eddsh1994 4y ago
        It's expensive in that part of the country. Say I rent a room at an Oxford college for a conference which is subsidized, I'd be looking at 70 or 80 a night. Say it's five nights, that's 350/400 just on accommodation. Have 30 people and that's 12k per week saved, against a non-depreciating asset in an area that is very unlikely to reduce in value. On top of this you can do what you want with the place and have permanent work spaces etc. Seems sensible to me, even if my first instinct was WTF.
        lazyasciiart 4y ago
bamboozled 4y ago
Pretty much all not for profits needs to attract and specifically, retain members, the workshops could be about introducing them to the program and the associated benefits with regards to donating.
- fasthands9 4y ago
  But how is that different from the other orgs they criticize? Isnt the end state of this that they realize they can spend $100 and expect to raise $150 from that investment - and this scales to an administrative staff of hundreds of people who spend millions a year advertising? Essentially Susan Komen but for malaria nets and AI research.

fdsafdasfdsafds 4y ago

They need a $15 million estate to run workshops?

jefftk 4y ago
If you're going to hold a lot of events I can definitely believe it's more efficient to buy space than rent it.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I don't think it's the rent vs. buy that's attracting the attention here.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    Do you know how expensive events actually are? An average wedding can easily run into tens of thousands of USD?
    - lazyasciiart 4y ago
      What he meant was that everyone can accept buying is better than renting. Most people can’t accept that this was the most efficient purchase possible.
      - bamboozled 4y ago
        I guess it's a nice place and people want to have events at nice places and if they held it for 200 years it would be a good investment?
      - qsi 4y ago
        Don't forget to factor in maintenance costs. If you own the place, you're on the hook for maintenance, which can be pretty high for old buildings. While the asset may appreciate in value over time, the cost of carry may negate that price appreciation. Or you can decide not to do maintenance but then the value won't appreciate.

tptacek 4y ago

I read the top reply. What, exactly, about it do you find persuasive? To me, it seems like a pretty great illustration of one of the major critiques of EA: it introduces a set of vague axioms that are then used to build arguments for all sorts of silly, compromised arguments, like "we should buy a ￡15MM estate" or "we should divert money from the poor to AI research".

abnry 4y ago
If effective altruism is the best philosophy then anything that supports effective altruism must also be good. And anything that supports that, etc. So make sure to buy comfy plush pillows and foot massagers for the effective altruists so they can do their effective altruism more effectively!
- tptacek 4y ago
  I mean, we're joking, but we're joking on a story where they managed to justify an $18MM estate to hold events at.
- jasonhansel 4y ago
  And if you can make money to fund EA by starting a billion-dollar crypto Ponzi scheme, well, the ends justify the means.
  - hndamien 4y ago
    It's very effective, especially if you maintain the altruistic intent.
  - chickenchicken 4y ago
    I first thought this a joke and then I remembered FTX
  - bakuninsbart 4y ago
    There's certainly a lot of silly stuff going on in EA, but as far as I know, FTXs methods have been universally condemned within EA.

a_bonobo 4y ago

If you have calculations about costings, it seems absolutely nonsensical to go for 'stately country estates' owned by British royalty, 'one of the loveliest houses in England')[1]. The gardening costs alone will be astronomical, and what does that have to do with workshops? Any university building laid out for workshops/teaching will suffice. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wytham_Abbey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wytham_Abbey

a_bonobo 4y ago
Thinking about this more, I'm so baffled by this decision. EA touts itself as the best strategy for giving as they present themselves as a rational force evaluating all approaches, then going for the 'best' one. Buying a multimillion pound stately country estate for your HQ is clearly not the 'best' use of money. Yet, EA argues that it is the best use of money with their usual vocabulary. That means I now cannot trust any of their decisions as they clearly bend the outcomes to whatever they want them to be. I.e., there's nothing 'effective' about the entire organisation, it's just your run-of-the-mill moneypit for rich people to feel better.
- klyrs 4y ago
  > I.e., there's nothing 'effective' about the entire organisation, it's just your run-of-the-mill moneypit for rich people to feel better. Same scam, different copy. The good that SBF did for the world was exposing this particular underbelly. The world will move on, to the same scam with new window dressing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Veedrac 4y ago
  Note that CEA is specifically a community-building organization, > Our mission is to build and nurture a global community of people who are thinking carefully about the world’s biggest problems and taking impactful action to solve them. We hope that this community can help to build a radically better world. > To foster this community, we run conferences, support hundreds of local groups, and provide online resources and forums for discussion. You shouldn't imagine that people are donating to generic maximal impact causes and the money is ending up in surprise luxury real estate. (Or, at least, if it is then that's news to me.) When CEA says (paraphrasing) ‘this is a reasonable way to spend the money we have on hosting a ton of conferences,’ the ‘host a ton of conferences’ part is an inherited assumption from this being CEA money (a specific grant for this purpose, in this case), not a broader claim about the value of lots of conferences vs. global health charities.

googlryas 4y ago

Wouldn't it make more sense to be able to hold workshops all around the world, thereby attracting a global audience instead of just people who can/want to travel to England?

raverbashing 4y ago

I've read more compelling arguments in theological discussions Maybe it's time to coin a new term: "altruism washing" whereas people will come up with wishy-washy reasons of why they should buy a 15MGBP castle and make it look like they're doing good with it

ajross 4y ago

> Of course, not everyone will agree with their decision, but it wasn’t done haphazardly. Needless to say, the question in context should have been whether it was done "effecitvely". Fine fine, if you want to throw a ton of conferences or whatever owning a forum to do it in might plausibly save you money. Was throwing a ton of conferences really the best, most effective use of fifteen million pounds at furthering the betterment of mankind? I think we all know the answer to that. They wanted to throw a ton of parties and raise a ton of money and wanted to spend that money on stuff that made them feel important.

yunwal 4y ago

It sounds like it was done completely haphazardly. 1. As soon as effective altruism becomes about glamour and extravagance, you attract the type of people who don’t care about the cause (clearly already true) 2. Obviously buying a castle is not the best investment the EA could be making and using that as the excuse is just weird. Of course none of this should be surprising as the Effective Altruism is essentially a PR stunt for people who do financial crimes.

mettamage 4y ago

Note: this is just an opinion. Close to Oxford (aka PhD students, etc.), maintain the value instead of renting, good nature place for thinking. I don't see the issue here if the space is utilized semi-effectively. They might need to think about how to get like 50% of the 15 million "out of the bricks" in order to utilize their capital better (assuming the house prices won't crash more than 50%). EA was always Oxford-ish, culture is culture. No form of rationality will prevail from that (I'm looking at you HN! ;-) ). Given their cultural/emotional make up, I think this is an okay rational decision. It could've been way worse. I don't get the fuss. It's kind of like being upset about the Kardashians or something (by that I specifically mean: it feels trivial and unimportant). It's a 15 million pounds decision that won't even make them lose 15 million pounds but a lot less. So who cares? Let's talk about CRISPR or something actually interesting. Let's live in the future.

n4r9 4y ago
Is it really trivial and unimportant? My understanding is that the organisation's goal is figuring out how to spend money effectively and without bias. If they're spending money in an overtly wasteful and selfish way, that feels important.
- mettamage 4y ago
  > My understanding is that the organisation's goal is figuring out how to spend money effectively and without bias. Sure, but there will always be some bias. It's one of those things: they're wrong if they believe they can do away with all bias. Moreover, they are so wrong, I can't hold them responsible for it, even if they say they will hold themselves responsible for it. It's like a child saying "I will be responsible for building a time machine." You can't hold them responsible. But I get where you're coming from, I used to be more in your camp, but the longer I am out of academia the more I tend to look at the world in "grey terms" (I'm not implying you're still in academia or anything, that's just how my life journey is progressing at the moment). Oxford is one of their biases that they can't seem to get rid off. It's super clear. Also, it's understandable. When I look at where I'd hire the best CS students, I'd go to students that studied VUSEC courses (a research group at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). I've been telling all kinds of people that only top tier CS students can complete their courses. But they haven't seen what I've seen (or they can't convince their managers). It's really a tough bias to get rid of, you understand your own uni intuitively so much more than anyone else's uni. Because does VUSEC really have the best students? Probably not. Is Oxford really the best place to be close to the best intellectual minds? Probably not. And I get that there's a fundamental point to be made (I'm making one myself that one can't get rid of all bias). But when I read the comments I'm reading too much emotion, not enough reason and empiricism. I don't want drama on HN, I want awesomeness about science and the world, which is what I usually find :)

Reimersholme 4y ago

prepend 4y ago

It doesn’t explain why they need to own the venue outright, rather than just rent the space when needed. I don’t think of EA as a charity whose purpose is to run events 52 weeks a year. And even if they were, having a single space in England, beautiful though it is, doesn’t make sense for a global organization. It would be a different story if someone donated the property and they wanted to make the best purpose for it (eg, Bellagio Center [0]). Although comically, I would expect EA to do the math and decide to sell such a donation and invest the capital in more productive charity. I like some of the ideas, but they seem like charlatans and expect that anyone who donates directly to their orgs will regret it as more such fuckups like this are revealed over time. [0] https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/bellagio-center/ https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/bellagio-center/