I think some people will read the article as “they should have given more details publicly”, but if that was what the author was trying to say they could have written a pretty different post. Something like:
Founders Pledge Should Be Publishing More Detailed Grant Reports
In July 2022 Founders Pledge granted $1.6M to Qvist Consulting. FP hasn’t published their reasoning for this grant and doesn’t link any references. This is not a level of transparency we should accept for a fund that accepts donations from the public, and especially one listed as top rated by GWWC.
Instead, they walk the reader through a series of investigative steps in a way that reads like someone uncovering a corrupt grant.
Would you also call for positive posts to be run by an org’s biggest critics? I could see that as a reasonable position.
I think this would be positive, but putting it into practice is hard. If I’m writing something about Founders Pledge I don’t know who their biggest critics are, so who do I share the post with? If that were the only problem I could imagine a system where each org has a notifications mailing list where anyone can post “here’s a draft of something about you I’m thinking of publishing” and anyone interested in forthcoming posts can subscribe. But while I would trust Founders Pledge to behave honorably with my draft (not share it, not scoop me, etc) I have significantly less trust for large unvetted groups.
If you had a proposal for how to do this, though, I’d be pretty interested!
EA social dynamics have tended in the past to motivate lying
I didn’t find that post very convincing when it came out, and still don’t. I think the Forum discussion was pretty good, especially @Raemon’s comments. And Sarah’s followup is also worth reading.
Instead, they walk the reader through a series of investigative steps in a way that reads like someone uncovering a corrupt grant.
Huh. It just sounded like “I thought I’d find some information and then I didn’t” to me. Maybe I’m just being tone deaf. Like, it sounded like a (boring and result-less) stack trace of some investigation.
I think this would be positive, but putting it into practice is hard.
Ok. Yeah I don’t see an obvious implementation; I was mainly trying to understand your position, though maybe it would actually be good.
Huh. It just sounded like “I thought I’d find some information and then I didn’t” to me. Maybe I’m just being tone deaf. Like, it sounded like a (boring and result-less) stack trace of some investigation.
I do think it is literally that, and I think that’s probably how the author intended it. But I think many people won’t read it that way?
You may well be right. I think what’s important to me here, is that the fact be highlighted that the cost here is coming from this property of readers. Like, I don’t like the norm proposal, but if it were “made a norm” (whatever that means), I’d want it to be emphatically tagged with ”… and this norm is only here because of the general and alarming state of affairs where people will read things for tone in addition to content, do groupthink, do info cascades, and take things as adversarial moves in a group conflict calling for side-choosing”.
I think some people will read the article as “they should have given more details publicly”, but if that was what the author was trying to say they could have written a pretty different post. Something like:
Instead, they walk the reader through a series of investigative steps in a way that reads like someone uncovering a corrupt grant.
I think this would be positive, but putting it into practice is hard. If I’m writing something about Founders Pledge I don’t know who their biggest critics are, so who do I share the post with? If that were the only problem I could imagine a system where each org has a notifications mailing list where anyone can post “here’s a draft of something about you I’m thinking of publishing” and anyone interested in forthcoming posts can subscribe. But while I would trust Founders Pledge to behave honorably with my draft (not share it, not scoop me, etc) I have significantly less trust for large unvetted groups.
If you had a proposal for how to do this, though, I’d be pretty interested!
I didn’t find that post very convincing when it came out, and still don’t. I think the Forum discussion was pretty good, especially @Raemon’s comments. And Sarah’s followup is also worth reading.
Huh. It just sounded like “I thought I’d find some information and then I didn’t” to me. Maybe I’m just being tone deaf. Like, it sounded like a (boring and result-less) stack trace of some investigation.
Ok. Yeah I don’t see an obvious implementation; I was mainly trying to understand your position, though maybe it would actually be good.
Thanks for the links.
I do think it is literally that, and I think that’s probably how the author intended it. But I think many people won’t read it that way?
You may well be right. I think what’s important to me here, is that the fact be highlighted that the cost here is coming from this property of readers. Like, I don’t like the norm proposal, but if it were “made a norm” (whatever that means), I’d want it to be emphatically tagged with ”… and this norm is only here because of the general and alarming state of affairs where people will read things for tone in addition to content, do groupthink, do info cascades, and take things as adversarial moves in a group conflict calling for side-choosing”.