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All of Sarah Cheng's Comments + Replies

Why I quit effective altruism, and why Timothy Telleen-Lawton is staying (for now)
Sarah Cheng40

Thanks! I'm down to bet, though I don't feel like it would make sense for me to take either of those specific bets. I feel pretty clueless about whether "a CEA representative will repudiate a major project occurring under Zach’s watch". I guess I think it's reasonable for someone who was just hired at CEA to not to be held personally responsible for projects that started and ended before they were hired (though I may be misunderstanding your proposed bet). I also have very little information about the current state of EA university group recruiting, so I w... (read more)

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Why I quit effective altruism, and why Timothy Telleen-Lawton is staying (for now)
Sarah Cheng20

Thanks, that's very helpful! Yeah I believe you've correctly described my views. To me, EA is defined by the principles. I'll update my original comment, since now it seems that bit is misleading.

(I still think there is something there that gestures in the direction that Elizabeth is going. When I say "CEA is taking more of a leadership role", I simply mean that literally — like, previously CEA was not viewing itself as being in a leadership role, and now it is doing that a non-zero amount. I think it matters that someone views themselves as even slightly responsible for the trajectory of EA, and you can't really be responsible without wielding some power. So that's how I read the "willing to own their power more" quote.)

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Why I quit effective altruism, and why Timothy Telleen-Lawton is staying (for now)
Sarah Cheng30

Ah interesting, yeah it's certainly possible that I misunderstood Elizabeth here. Apologies if that's the case!

I'll try to explain what I mean more, since I'm not sure I understand how my interpretation differs from Elizabeth's original intent. So in the past, CEA's general stance was one more like "providing services" to help people in the EA community improve the world. Under Zach, we are shifting in the direction of "stewardship of EA". I feel that this implies CEA should be more proactive and take more responsibility for the trajectory of EA than it ha... (read more)

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5Lorenzo
  As a personal example, I feel really aligned with EA principles[1], I feel much less sure about CEA as an organization.[2] If the frame becomes "EA is what CEA does", you would lose a lot of the value of the term "EA", and I think very few people would find it useful. See why effective altruism is always lowercase, and William MacAskill "effective altruism is not a package of particular views." My understanding is that you agree with me, while Elizabeth would want effective altruism to be uppercase in a sense, with a package of particular views that she can clearly agree or disagree with, and an EA Leader that says "this is EA" and "this is not EA." (Apologies if I misunderstood your views) "CEA as an institution is taking more of a leadership role" could be interpreted as saying that CEA is now more empowered to be the "EA Leader" that decides what is EA, but I think that's not what you mean from the rest of your comment. Does that make sense? 1. ^ For me EA principles are these ones: I think these are principles that most people disagree with, and most people are importantly wrong. I think they are directionally importantly right in my particular social context (while of course they could be dangerous in other theoretical contexts) 2. ^ Despite thinking that all people I've interacted with who work there greately care about those same principles.
Why I quit effective altruism, and why Timothy Telleen-Lawton is staying (for now)
Sarah Cheng*6-6

I work at CEA, and I recently became the Interim EA Forum Project Lead. I’m writing this in a personal capacity. This does not necessarily represent the views of anyone else at CEA.

I’m responding partly because my new title implies some non-zero amount of “EA leadership”. I don’t think I’m the person anyone would think of when they think “EA leadership”, but I do in fact have a large amount of say wrt what happens on the EA Forum, so if you are seriously interested in making change I’m happy to engage with you. You’re welcome to send me a doc and ask me to... (read more)

Reply211
Elizabeth222

There’s a lot here and if my existing writing didn’t answer your questions, I’m not optimistic another comment will help[1]. Instead, how about we find something to bet on? It’s difficult to identify something both cruxy and measurable, but here are two ideas:

I see a pattern of:
1. CEA takes some action with the best of intentions
2. It takes a few years for the toll to come out, but eventually there’s a negative consensus on it.
3. A representative of CEA agrees the negative consensus is deserved, but since it occurred under old leadership, doesn’t think any... (read more)

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5Lorenzo
I think this would be a mistake (or more likely I think you and Elizabeth mean different things here.)  As you mention in other parts of your comment, most people who consider themselves aligned with EA don't know or care much about CEA, and coupling their alignment with EA as principles with an alignment with CEA as an organization seems counterproductive.