At the same, I’m excited to see that Zach Robison has taken the reins as CEA and I’m looking forward to seeing how things develop under his leadership. The early signs have been promising.
The post basically says that the taking actions like “running EA global” is the “principles-first” approach as it is not “cause-first”. None of the actions he advocates as principle-first are about, rewarding people for upholding principles or holding people accountable for violating principles.
How can a strategy for “principle-first” that does not deal with the questions of how to set incentives for people to uphold principles be a good strategy?
If you read the discussion on this page with regards to university groups not upholding principles, there are issues. Zach’s proposed strategy sees funding them in the way they currently operate, as a good example of what he sees as principle-first because:
Our Groups program supports EA groups that engage with members who prioritize a variety of causes. Our current training for facilitators for the intro program emphasizes framing EA as a question and not acting as if there is a clear answer.
This suggests that Zach sees the current training for facilitators already as working well and not as something that should be changed. Suggesting that just because EA groups prioritize a variety of causes they are principles-first seems to me like appropriating the term principle-first to talk about something that’s not about principles.
When it comes to the actual principles, not seeing integrity, honesty, and thinking about incentives as important key principles also feels like a bad choice. One lesson from the whole FTX saga would be that those principles are important and that’s not a lesson that Zach draws.
If you think this is a good strategy, what would a bad “principle-first” strategy look like? What could Zach have done worse?
I did read his post. The question is not whether the term makes sense but whether it’s a good strategy.
It’s not about getting people to act according to principles but to rebrand what previously would be called cause-neutral as principle-first and continue to do the same thing CEA did in the past.
Sadly, cause-neutral was an even more confusing term, so this is better than the comparative. I also think that the two notions of principles-first are less disconnected than you think, but through somewhat indirect effects.
Even if the term would be an improvement, why would changing out one term for another make you say “early signs have been promising”. Promising in the sense that he will come up with new terms, because the core problems of EA is not having the right labels to speak about what EAs are doing?
I would find the perspective on EA where the biggest problem of EA is about it using the wrong labels, to be a quite strange perspective.
A good post about a strategy that attempts to produce indirect effects would lay out the theory of change through which the indirect effects would be created.
I would suggest adopting a different method of interpretation, one more grounded in what was actually said. Anyway, I think it’s probably best that we leave this thread here.
That was an interesting conversation.
I do have some worries about the EA community.
At the same, I’m excited to see that Zach Robison has taken the reins as CEA and I’m looking forward to seeing how things develop under his leadership. The early signs have been promising.
What concrete things did he change at CEA that are promising signs?
I thought that this post on strategy and this talk were well done. Obviously, I’ll have to see how this translates into practise.
The post basically says that the taking actions like “running EA global” is the “principles-first” approach as it is not “cause-first”. None of the actions he advocates as principle-first are about, rewarding people for upholding principles or holding people accountable for violating principles.
How can a strategy for “principle-first” that does not deal with the questions of how to set incentives for people to uphold principles be a good strategy?
If you read the discussion on this page with regards to university groups not upholding principles, there are issues. Zach’s proposed strategy sees funding them in the way they currently operate, as a good example of what he sees as principle-first because:
This suggests that Zach sees the current training for facilitators already as working well and not as something that should be changed. Suggesting that just because EA groups prioritize a variety of causes they are principles-first seems to me like appropriating the term principle-first to talk about something that’s not about principles.
When it comes to the actual principles, not seeing integrity, honesty, and thinking about incentives as important key principles also feels like a bad choice. One lesson from the whole FTX saga would be that those principles are important and that’s not a lesson that Zach draws.
If you think this is a good strategy, what would a bad “principle-first” strategy look like? What could Zach have done worse?
I recommend rereading his post. I believe his use of the term makes sense.
I did read his post. The question is not whether the term makes sense but whether it’s a good strategy.
It’s not about getting people to act according to principles but to rebrand what previously would be called cause-neutral as principle-first and continue to do the same thing CEA did in the past.
Sadly, cause-neutral was an even more confusing term, so this is better than the comparative. I also think that the two notions of principles-first are less disconnected than you think, but through somewhat indirect effects.
Even if the term would be an improvement, why would changing out one term for another make you say “early signs have been promising”. Promising in the sense that he will come up with new terms, because the core problems of EA is not having the right labels to speak about what EAs are doing?
I would find the perspective on EA where the biggest problem of EA is about it using the wrong labels, to be a quite strange perspective.
A good post about a strategy that attempts to produce indirect effects would lay out the theory of change through which the indirect effects would be created.
I would suggest adopting a different method of interpretation, one more grounded in what was actually said. Anyway, I think it’s probably best that we leave this thread here.