EA is growing in deceptive ways

[paul-crowe]

Example: Covert use of CRMs for CB

Summary: CBs have been known to store information on new members in CRMs. A bigger issue, however, is that they didn't see anything amiss with doing it: "This point bears repeating because as far as I can tell a lot of community builders just don’t think this is weird. [...] They are surprised that somebody interested in EA might be unhappy to discover that the committee members have been recording the details of their conversation in a CRM without asking." CBs with better social skills needed.

Date: 12th May 2022

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses:

• The need for more clued-in CBs overlaps with "inexperienced CBs"
• Recommending CRM as a productivity software for student groups (13th Apr 2021)
• Using CRM information to select people for events (though it's uncertain how openly the information was gathered) "We selected people we knew mostly from events and from 'discussing effectiveness' that seemed high-potential (marked them in the CRM)" (27th April 2022)
• "It does feel a bit slimy, but I think this is pretty normal, and if done well, not likely to put off the folks we're worried about." (12th May 2022)

[paul-crowe]

Example: Cause Area Bait And Switch

Summary: New people are lured into EA by talk of solving global poverty, then find out EA is actually all about AI safety and animal welfare, making them disillusioned.

Date: 8th Jul 2017

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses:

• EA introductions lead with global poverty and health
• Being appealing vs being honest (20th Jul 2022)
• Newest EA survey shows Global poverty is still the highest priority overall, though AI safety is close behind (29th Jul 2021)

[paul-crowe]

Example: EA targetting easy marks, ignoring criticism, being disingenuous

Summary: Post recieved suffient pushback for the author to write a followup, retracting certain claims and qualifying others Claims which remain:

• GWWC pledge should be morally binding and not something you can drop if you feel like it.
• Bulverism re promises and autistic EAs
• Criticism shouldn't need to be run by the inner circle for approval before going public

Date: 11th Jan 2017

Status:

Lag to response:

Current canonical instance:

Prior status of critic:

Fundamental criticism:

Public responses: Mandating the GWWC pledge is obviously a bad idea, as it plays right into "cult" accusations. What are you going to do with oathbreakers? Oust them from the community? Ban them from ever giving to an EA cause ever again?

• Resistance to criticism and hostility to critics overlaps with "The methodology of existential risk study needs work"
• When not to pledge (30th Oct 2016)
• Contra the GWWC pledge (4th Dec 2016)
• Self-determination vs self-binding (27th Jan 2017)
• What is the GWWC? (20th Jan 2017)
• Acknowledges the existence of 80000 'mistakes' page
• 2021 Survey data on GWWC pledge donations (26th Oct 2021)
• Pledge and marriage (11th Jul 2022)