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Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

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Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#361

Post by HDThoreaun »

bena wrote: post #110
ketzo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a super-simplified summary, but I think it's generally accurate. The basic thesis of EA is "it is your duty to improve/save as many human lives as you can." At some point, a lot of EAs realized that there were many more future humans than present humans. Once you widen your scope in that way, you start realizing that long-term, catastrophic risks (climate change, nuclear disaster, misaligned AI) would affect…

Because we do that with mosquito nets. EA seems like a way to achieve nothing while looking like you're doing everything. No one expects you to fly to Mars tomorrow. And that's true every single day. It's true today. It'll be true tomorrow. It was true yesterday. It was true 10 years ago. It will be true 10 years from now. So if no one really expects you to fully achieve your goal, all you have to do is kinda look li…

Although the thought leaders are focused on long termism most EA money still flows through givewell to mostly global health initiatives.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#362

Post by matthewdgreen »

rcoveson wrote: post #146
bena wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we do that with mosquito nets. EA seems like a way to achieve nothing while looking like you're doing everything. No one expects you to fly to Mars tomorrow. And that's true every single day. It's true today. It'll be true tomorrow. It was true yesterday. It was true 10 years ago. It will be true 10 years from now. So if no one really expects you to fully achieve your goal, all you have to do is kinda look li…

Where does this view of EA come from? Hatchet jobs written by TIMES and its ilk? Twitter personalities like Elon Musk who have so much social gravity that people perceive them as the spokesmen of anything they mention that you hadn't heard of before? Google "effective altruism" and the first two results are EA/Giving What We Can and GiveWell. Both of these organizations are meta-charities that help forward money or e…

I think “where does this view come from?!” outrage comes off as disingenuous. I think we both know that over the past couple of years the most prominent public “face” of the EA community has been William MacAskill, who went on a major donor-funded press tour to promote his ideas on longtermism through his book “What We Owe the Future.” For most of the general public, this was probably their first encounter with the entire concept of EA.

It is perfectly fine if you don’t support MacAskill’s vision for EA’s future. I would love to hear a critique of this schism from someone within the EA community! But when you imply that critics are getting their (accurate) impression of EA from “newspaper hatchet jobs”, it feels like you’re either unaware of the way some prominent EAs are presenting the movement, or else you’re not arguing in good faith.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#363

Post by snapetom »

hgsgm wrote: post #130
snapetom wrote: post #114

Surprised they didn't mention Dan Price. He should be the poster boy in all this. Some people smelled his $70k/yr bullshit a mile away, most people refused to believe it because it was a great story. Wonder where his supporters are now that there's a felony case against him with multiple accusers.

That was a fraud to steal the business value from his brother/co-owner.

It absolutely was fraud, but people refused to believe it. He ran with it under this living wage spin and became some folk hero. But now he's a folk hero rapist.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#364

Post by HDThoreaun »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #358
gruez wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Centre for Effective Altruism has a turnover in the tens of millions Google says that their annual budget is $6M, so I think you're overestimating how much money can be siphoned off. Moreover, given how trendy effective altruism is with young professionals from elite universities, getting a high position will be difficult. Sure, an ivy league graduate could fight tooth and nail to get a position at the CEA that…

I think the sums are higher when you consider additional one-off donations. CEA recently bought an estate at Wytham Abbey, which would almost certainly have cost more than their yearly budget. Apparently this was funded by a one-time donation by another EA organization. Similarly, the EA-adjacent ESPR bought a $5m chateau in the Czech Republic. These are major chunks of money to throw around, especially when you fact…

The castle was apparently bought by facebook founder dustin moskovitz. I certainly think the CEA is misguided, but there main purpose is basically having conventions/recruitment events and if they think they'll be spending considerable sums on convention space related to that mission I can see how it makes sense to just buy a property and hold all the events there.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#365

Post by braza »

> She noticed that EA members in the Bay Area seemed to work together, live together, and sleep together, often in polyamorous sexual relationships with complex professional dynamics

I personally think that this is a particular problem at the Bay Area EA “movimento” (whatever it mean) than with the EA itself.

I am a member of some groups in South America that organise a “big soup” (PT-BR: Sopão) for several homeless kids once a week and we collaborate with some of the Blind Helpers Association (PT-BR: Fundação Dorina Nowill) well before the EA “movement” and for me it’s one of the most fulfilling things that I had in my life and it’s quite sad to read to anecdotical articles like this to classify an entire silent and necessary movement like this.

Personally I think EA it’s more about of what an individual can do _without any kind of publicity_ than be part of some group and/or association.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#366

Post by matthewdgreen »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #364
matthewdgreen wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sums are higher when you consider additional one-off donations. CEA recently bought an estate at Wytham Abbey, which would almost certainly have cost more than their yearly budget. Apparently this was funded by a one-time donation by another EA organization. Similarly, the EA-adjacent ESPR bought a $5m chateau in the Czech Republic. These are major chunks of money to throw around, especially when you fact…

The castle was apparently bought by facebook founder dustin moskovitz. I certainly think the CEA is misguided, but there main purpose is basically having conventions/recruitment events and if they think they'll be spending considerable sums on convention space related to that mission I can see how it makes sense to just buy a property and hold all the events there.

My understanding is that the UK castle was funded by a directed donation from another EA organization that had close ties to CEA. As far as I know, Moscovitz did not direct that organization to buy a castle. Instead a group of tightly-connected colleagues/friends in two EA organizations made the determination, without any (public) cost/benefit analysis or buy-in from the community. This is the precisely the sort of thing you’d expect to happen in a community with large amounts of money and very little accountability, which is the allegation made higher in this thread.

ETA If I’m wrong and you can point me to a detailed cost/benefit analysis, I’ll gladly withdraw my criticism.

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#367

Post by tptacek »

denton-scratch wrote: post #320
benj111 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>jibe Or gibe. The problem is jibe has negative connotations, whereas 'to jive with' seems to me to be a metaphor to works, (I assume it's used in the dancing sense?). I don't know of the meaning of the phrase has changed somewhat, 'to jibe with' suggests a sarcastic undertone to me, but in modern usage, no sarcasm is intended so maybe jive is the correct term for the current usage of the term 'to jX with'

Jibing is a nautical term, referring to a sailing boat turning through the wind so that the boom flips from one side of the boat to the other. I have no idea how it acquired the perjorative meaning of making unpleasant remarks.

It looks interesting: "jibe" in the pejorative sense is both an (understandable) alternate spelling of "gibe", and also probably shares a root with "gibe" --- both probably stem from a word that means "rough handling", "kick", or "rear up".

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#368

Post by HDThoreaun »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #366
HDThoreaun wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The castle was apparently bought by facebook founder dustin moskovitz. I certainly think the CEA is misguided, but there main purpose is basically having conventions/recruitment events and if they think they'll be spending considerable sums on convention space related to that mission I can see how it makes sense to just buy a property and hold all the events there.

My understanding is that the UK castle was funded by a directed donation from another EA organization that had close ties to CEA. As far as I know, Moscovitz did not direct that organization to buy a castle. Instead a group of tightly-connected colleagues/friends in two EA organizations made the determination, without any (public) cost/benefit analysis or buy-in from the community. This is the precisely the sort of t…

Dustin posts a lot on the ea meme Facebook group(no clue how he finds the time while being the ceo of asana) and admitted to being the buyer there. Could’ve been memeing, but he seemed serious.

I think CEA has made some poor choices, and SBFs future fund even more so. But if it’s true that the money used for this property was specifically earmarked for purchase of a property by a single donor as the forum post claims I can see how it makes sense. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xof7iFB3uh8Kc53bG/...

Re: Effective altruism has a sexual harassment problem, women say

#369

Post by tptacek »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #343
tptacek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never give to any group that asks me for money. Far be it from me to second-guess anybody's giving (motes and beams and all that) but this rules out many of the most effective aid organizations, all of which are absolutely off-the-charts obnoxious about fundraising --- because it works.

Not a problem. There are lots of trees in the forest. Those folks can go their merry way, while some of the rest of us have different goals, personal as well as noble. And who's to say 'most effective'. I used to think Red Cross was one of those, until they got caught driving around randomly during Katrina was it? Doing nothing, but spreading their brand. Or so I recall. If I got that wrong I apologize, but my point…

Nobody who has paid attention to aid organizations over the last 2 decades believed the Red Cross was effective, just for what it's worth. The Red Cross is practically the entire motivation for sites like Charity Navigator.
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