5 ms·

It's easy to say in retrospect, but it's not like all the movement ever did in it's entire existence was buy a single castle. Do you really think they were expe

by johnfn 3y ago

It's easy to say in retrospect, but it's not like all the movement ever did in it's entire existence was buy a single castle. Do you really think they were expecting EA to explode in the public consciousness after the SBF thing and to have all of their line-items exhaustively audited for what could make the best outrage-bait article? That's quite a black swan event.

germyj 3y ago
>to have all of their line-items exhaustively audited Historically, yes, that's the entire point of the movement. Audit everything in the goal of doing the most good and not wasting money on frivolities. The auditing approach faded as the movement has grown and became more longtermist, though I (somewhat) expect it to come back now that we're post-ZIRP, post-SBF.
tux3 3y ago
>and to have all of their line-items exhaustively audited [...]? That part they should have expected (and I'm sure they did). Scott claims they expected negative social reactions, just maybe not to this extent. Even in the absence of journalist attention, EAs love to exhaustively audit line-items. Something as big as Wytham Abbey was clearly not going to escape commentary. I don't follow why SBF somehow excuses this. It seems you're suggesting buying the abbey would have been fine if only it could have been kept quiet, but because of this unforeseeable black swan event people heard about the Secret EA Castle and now we have all this outrage. I heard about it from the EA Adjacent forum, and I don't see what SBF has to do with the argument that this burned a lot of social capital and reputation within the community for very nebulous gains (compared to buying a counterfactual property). The abbey might be relatively cheap for what it is, but not absolutely cheap. And it turned out to be very expensive in other ways.
- johnfn 3y ago
  My point is that you could take an action which seems reasonable and justified and thought out within the community that you're in (e.g. EA) because you know everyone's working off the same set of axioms and can follow your reasoning. But when you suddenly get the entire world watching, that's not true any more, and you realize you can't explain the axioms to them, because it's a lot easier to say haha castle stupid EA people than to actually think it through and besides they're already scrolling past on their feed to the next bit of outrage-bait.
  - tux3 3y ago
    Thanks. I didn't experience that part, but I can definitely see that this would happen. My position is still that it was a very questionable idea even without outside attention, but this definitely didn't help
matthewdgreen 3y ago
William McCaskell wrote and promoted a book in August 2022, in an effort to popularize and justify the sorts of “longtermist” utilitarian views held by (some, increasingly dominant) EA folks. Allegedly this was backed by a multi-million dollar PR budget, which is why it got so much press at the time, and also why so many people were talking about EA philosophies last summer — even before FTX. I think your response is strange. The EA/longtermist folks have been making a very deliberate and considered effort to promote and popularize their movement. This wasn’t something that “just happened to them.” And FTX blowing up was a major event in the course of that debate, since it starkly illustrated the weaknesses of a moral philosophy that centers numbers and dollars over the kind of traditional ethical judgement practiced by other charitable movements. This piece, in turn, feels like more of the same promotional effort. Nominally it’s about the author’s kidney donation, but it immediately and prominently shifts to arguing about how EAs are great people who will donate their kidneys to strangers and how unfair the world is to criticize them over castles, which incidentally were the best possible use of money. It’s not subtle or incidental at all, and it felt like I was reading a piece of promotional religious material or something.
- kevinmchugh 3y ago
  This was my real takeaway from the essay. I haven't read anything by the author in years and was surprised how _aggrieved_ and superior he came off.
- johnfn 3y ago
  > And FTX blowing up was a major event in the course of that debate, since it starkly illustrated the weaknesses of a moral philosophy that centers numbers and dollars over the kind of traditional ethical judgement practiced by other charitable movements. Honestly, I think this just doesn't make sense (and I have no ties with EA whatsoever). You've written it nicely, but it just doesn't follow. It makes no sense to judge a movement by its worst possible member, and it doesn't make sense to say that the overall philosophy doesn't work when one guy obviously didn't follow the philosophy and then had it explode in his face. The argument, to me, feels akin to "well, vegetarians think they're morally superior, because they don't kill animals, but just look at PETA! PETA does this horrible stuff where they kill animals in shelters[1]." And then perhaps follow it up with "this shows the weaknesses of a moral philosophy that centers around saving animals lives..." but it doesn't. PETA doing shady stuff doesn't illustrate any philosophical failures any more than SBF doing shady stuff. If you want to address the philosophical failures of EA, you may, but I don't see any of that in your comment. > but it immediately and prominently shifts to arguing about how EAs are great people who will donate their kidneys to strangers Is this so surprising? Look at the immediate and negative response that EA receives today. Of course any mention of EA would want to be brought with a caveat that "hey, EAs do some good things too, you know - we're not all SBF!" But I question if your interpretation of the article is even correct. Simply Ctrl-F "effectiv" gives a bunch of hits in section IV, and then no more hits for the rest of the article, except for a stray one in section VII, which was essentially my impression when reading the first time. He talked about it enough to address the controversy, then moved on. Like a reasonable person, not an author of "promotional religious material". [1]: Actually true, btw (not that it has any bearing on vegetarianism): https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/petas-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-history-of-killing-animals/254130/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/petas-ter...

by johnfn 3y ago

germyj 3y ago

>to have all of their line-items exhaustively audited Historically, yes, that's the entire point of the movement. Audit everything in the goal of doing the most good and not wasting money on frivolities. The auditing approach faded as the movement has grown and became more longtermist, though I (somewhat) expect it to come back now that we're post-ZIRP, post-SBF.

tux3 3y ago

>and to have all of their line-items exhaustively audited [...]? That part they should have expected (and I'm sure they did). Scott claims they expected negative social reactions, just maybe not to this extent. Even in the absence of journalist attention, EAs love to exhaustively audit line-items. Something as big as Wytham Abbey was clearly not going to escape commentary. I don't follow why SBF somehow excuses this. It seems you're suggesting buying the abbey would have been fine if only it could have been kept quiet, but because of this unforeseeable black swan event people heard about the Secret EA Castle and now we have all this outrage. I heard about it from the EA Adjacent forum, and I don't see what SBF has to do with the argument that this burned a lot of social capital and reputation within the community for very nebulous gains (compared to buying a counterfactual property). The abbey might be relatively cheap for what it is, but not absolutely cheap. And it turned out to be very expensive in other ways.

johnfn 3y ago
My point is that you could take an action which seems reasonable and justified and thought out within the community that you're in (e.g. EA) because you know everyone's working off the same set of axioms and can follow your reasoning. But when you suddenly get the entire world watching, that's not true any more, and you realize you can't explain the axioms to them, because it's a lot easier to say haha castle stupid EA people than to actually think it through and besides they're already scrolling past on their feed to the next bit of outrage-bait.
- tux3 3y ago
  Thanks. I didn't experience that part, but I can definitely see that this would happen. My position is still that it was a very questionable idea even without outside attention, but this definitely didn't help

matthewdgreen 3y ago

William McCaskell wrote and promoted a book in August 2022, in an effort to popularize and justify the sorts of “longtermist” utilitarian views held by (some, increasingly dominant) EA folks. Allegedly this was backed by a multi-million dollar PR budget, which is why it got so much press at the time, and also why so many people were talking about EA philosophies last summer — even before FTX. I think your response is strange. The EA/longtermist folks have been making a very deliberate and considered effort to promote and popularize their movement. This wasn’t something that “just happened to them.” And FTX blowing up was a major event in the course of that debate, since it starkly illustrated the weaknesses of a moral philosophy that centers numbers and dollars over the kind of traditional ethical judgement practiced by other charitable movements. This piece, in turn, feels like more of the same promotional effort. Nominally it’s about the author’s kidney donation, but it immediately and prominently shifts to arguing about how EAs are great people who will donate their kidneys to strangers and how unfair the world is to criticize them over castles, which incidentally were the best possible use of money. It’s not subtle or incidental at all, and it felt like I was reading a piece of promotional religious material or something.

kevinmchugh 3y ago
This was my real takeaway from the essay. I haven't read anything by the author in years and was surprised how _aggrieved_ and superior he came off.
johnfn 3y ago
> And FTX blowing up was a major event in the course of that debate, since it starkly illustrated the weaknesses of a moral philosophy that centers numbers and dollars over the kind of traditional ethical judgement practiced by other charitable movements. Honestly, I think this just doesn't make sense (and I have no ties with EA whatsoever). You've written it nicely, but it just doesn't follow. It makes no sense to judge a movement by its worst possible member, and it doesn't make sense to say that the overall philosophy doesn't work when one guy obviously didn't follow the philosophy and then had it explode in his face. The argument, to me, feels akin to "well, vegetarians think they're morally superior, because they don't kill animals, but just look at PETA! PETA does this horrible stuff where they kill animals in shelters[1]." And then perhaps follow it up with "this shows the weaknesses of a moral philosophy that centers around saving animals lives..." but it doesn't. PETA doing shady stuff doesn't illustrate any philosophical failures any more than SBF doing shady stuff. If you want to address the philosophical failures of EA, you may, but I don't see any of that in your comment. > but it immediately and prominently shifts to arguing about how EAs are great people who will donate their kidneys to strangers Is this so surprising? Look at the immediate and negative response that EA receives today. Of course any mention of EA would want to be brought with a caveat that "hey, EAs do some good things too, you know - we're not all SBF!" But I question if your interpretation of the article is even correct. Simply Ctrl-F "effectiv" gives a bunch of hits in section IV, and then no more hits for the rest of the article, except for a stray one in section VII, which was essentially my impression when reading the first time. He talked about it enough to address the controversy, then moved on. Like a reasonable person, not an author of "promotional religious material". [1]: Actually true, btw (not that it has any bearing on vegetarianism): https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/petas-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-history-of-killing-animals/254130/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/petas-ter...