The problem is that Zach does not mention being truth-aligned as one of the core principles that we wants to uphold.
He writes “CEA focuses on scope sensitivity, scout mindset, impartiality, and the recognition of tradeoffs”.
If we take an act like deleting out inconvenient information like the phrase Leverage Research from a photo on the CEA website, it does violate the principle of being truth aligned but not any of the one’s that Zach mentioned.
If I would ask Zach whether he thinks releasing the people that CEA bars with nondisclosure agreements about that one episode with Leverage about which we unfortunately don’t know more than that there are nondisclosure agreements, I don’t think he would release them. A sign of being truth-aligned would be to release the information but none of the principles Zach points in the direction of releasing people from the nondisclosure agreements.
Saying that your principle is “impartiality” instead of saying that it is “understanding conflicts of interests and managing them effectively” seems to me like a bad sign.
When talking about kidney donation in the start he celebrates self-chosen sacrifice as example of great ethics. Kidney donation is extreme virtue signaling. I would rather have EA value honesty and accountability than celebrating self-sacrifice. Instead, of celebrating people for taking actions nobody would object to he could have celebrated Ben Hoffman for the courage to speak out about problems at GiveWell and facing social rejection for it.
releasing the people that CEA bars with nondisclosure agreements about that one episode with Leverage about which we unfortunately don’t know more than that there are nondisclosure agreements
I don’t know the details in the Leverage case, but usually the way this sort of non-disclosure works is that both parties in a dispute, including employees, have non-disclosure obligations. But one party isn’t able to release their (ex) employees unilaterally; the other party would need to agree as well.
That is, I suspect the agreements are structured such that CEA releasing people the way you propose (without Leverage also agreeing, which I doubt they would) would be a willful contract violation.
All the involved Leverage employees told me that they would be fine having the thing released, and that it was CEA who wanted to keep things private (this might be inaccurate, this situation sure involves a lot of people saying contradictory things).
I did talk with Geoff Anders about this. He told me that there’s no legal agreement between CEA and Leverage. However, there are Leverage employees that are ex-CEA and thus bound by legal agreement. Geoff himself said, that he would consider it positive for the information to be public but he would not want to pick another fight with CEA by publically talking about what happened.
The problem is that Zach does not mention being truth-aligned as one of the core principles that we wants to uphold.
He writes “CEA focuses on scope sensitivity, scout mindset, impartiality, and the recognition of tradeoffs”.
If we take an act like deleting out inconvenient information like the phrase Leverage Research from a photo on the CEA website, it does violate the principle of being truth aligned but not any of the one’s that Zach mentioned.
If I would ask Zach whether he thinks releasing the people that CEA bars with nondisclosure agreements about that one episode with Leverage about which we unfortunately don’t know more than that there are nondisclosure agreements, I don’t think he would release them. A sign of being truth-aligned would be to release the information but none of the principles Zach points in the direction of releasing people from the nondisclosure agreements.
Saying that your principle is “impartiality” instead of saying that it is “understanding conflicts of interests and managing them effectively” seems to me like a bad sign.
When talking about kidney donation in the start he celebrates self-chosen sacrifice as example of great ethics. Kidney donation is extreme virtue signaling. I would rather have EA value honesty and accountability than celebrating self-sacrifice. Instead, of celebrating people for taking actions nobody would object to he could have celebrated Ben Hoffman for the courage to speak out about problems at GiveWell and facing social rejection for it.
I don’t know the details in the Leverage case, but usually the way this sort of non-disclosure works is that both parties in a dispute, including employees, have non-disclosure obligations. But one party isn’t able to release their (ex) employees unilaterally; the other party would need to agree as well.
That is, I suspect the agreements are structured such that CEA releasing people the way you propose (without Leverage also agreeing, which I doubt they would) would be a willful contract violation.
All the involved Leverage employees told me that they would be fine having the thing released, and that it was CEA who wanted to keep things private (this might be inaccurate, this situation sure involves a lot of people saying contradictory things).
I did talk with Geoff Anders about this. He told me that there’s no legal agreement between CEA and Leverage. However, there are Leverage employees that are ex-CEA and thus bound by legal agreement. Geoff himself said, that he would consider it positive for the information to be public but he would not want to pick another fight with CEA by publically talking about what happened.