[supersour]

> EA is diffuse and deliberately amorphous; anybody who wants to can call themselves an EA... But with no official leadership structure, no roster of who is and isn’t in the movement, and no formal process for dealing with complaints, Wise argues, it’s hard to gauge how common such issues are within EA compared to broader society.

This passage reminded me of this article: https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm

Moral of the story: be weary of groups with low accountability and vague power structures. In a vacuum, power structures will always emerge, so it's generally better for them to exist in the light than in the dark.

[Sakos]

I think it's bizarre EA seems to be a movement with power structures. I always just thought EA was a philosophy and based on that I felt it was an interesting idea. I don't have to worry about sexual harassment when I'm considering Plato or Stoicism. Why is it a thing with EA?

[skybrian]

Many industry events have had problems with sexual harassment. Young people living together in group houses (for example, fraternities) often have problems too.

So the problem in this case seems to be for young people who want to connect at in-person events. If you never go to events, don't want an EA job, and don't want to live with other EA people, then I don't think you can be affected?

So I'm not sure it's a problem with the movement as a philosophy, as with holding lots of loosely moderated events, having parties, having group houses, and so on. That is, this pretty intense socializing seems high risk for this sort of thing.

What other institution does this remind me of? College. College sex scandals tend not to make the philosophy department look bad unless a teacher is involved, but that certainly happens.

[denton-scratch]

> holding lots of loosely moderated events, having parties, having group houses, and so on.

Ah. I wonder if the nub of this is group houses?

I can't tell whether the abuse phenomenon is characteristic of EA, or of San Francisco. I understand housing in SF is absurdly expensive, even for well-paid people, so perhaps group houses are more prevalent in SF. Is abuse more common in EA-affiliated group houses in other parts of the country?

My supposition is that abuse is more likely in a group house, whether it's connected with EA or not; but I have no facts to back that up.

[luckylion]

Something can both describe a philosophy and a movement. The movement always has hierarchies and power structures. The philosophy doesn't, but then again, it's often presented by the movement so the lines get blurry.

[Sakos]

This is insightful, thanks.

[lbwtaylor]

When there is a lot of money moving around, it seems inevitable that power structures will form around it.

[gruez]

That might be true, but there isn't exactly an "Effective Altruism Foundation" that all the donations funnel through. You basically have a bunch of random people that are donating to charities that are well regarded, with a few philanthropists here and there setting up foundations. You might be able to hijack organizations like givewell (ie. organizations that tell people which charities they should donate to), but trying to monetize that is tricky. At the end of the day you don't really control anything, because you're still reliant on individuals following your advice. So if you try to funnel money to your own foundation (for embezzling purposes), you will easily burn any goodwill that you've built up.

[n4r9]

The Centre for Effective Altruism has a turnover in the tens of millions. Surely there are people with greater and lesser decision making abilities within that institution?

[gruez]

>The Centre for Effective Altruism has a turnover in the tens of millions

Google says that their annual budget is $6M, so I think you're overestimating how much money can be siphoned off. Moreover, given how trendy effective altruism is with young professionals from elite universities, getting a high position will be difficult. Sure, an ivy league graduate could fight tooth and nail to get a position at the CEA that pays a meager base salary and hope to siphon off some extra money, but he can make much more money at a professional services firm or in finance. Better yet, he can get some high ranking position at some private company that has 10x turnover and doesn't have public scrutiny (because it's not a charity). That's not to say that everyone at CEA is behaving scrupulously. It's just that getting into effective altruism to embezzle money makes little economic sense.

[matthewdgreen]

I think the sums are higher when you consider additional one-off donations. CEA recently bought an estate at Wytham Abbey, which would almost certainly have cost more than their yearly budget. Apparently this was funded by a one-time donation by another EA organization. Similarly, the EA-adjacent ESPR bought a $5m chateau in the Czech Republic. These are major chunks of money to throw around, especially when you factor in maintenance costs, and I have no doubt that the ability to control access to these amazing facilities gives you a lot of influence in the community.

[n4r9]

Perhaps I'm misled, but Wikipedia says the annual budget for 2021 was $28 million:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Effective_Altruis...

I see the conversation has gotten ahead of me, but the Wytham Abbey purchase is absolutely an example of my concerns. The justification wasn't much more than "I like going to conferences in big posh buildings and some other people I've talked to do as well".

[LarryMullins]

The EA "philosophy" is strongly tied up in libertarian utilitarian ways of thinking, and such people are able to talk themselves into believing that it's rational to defer to people smarter/richer than themselves. They get money, intelligence and virtue all mixed up and confused with each other. Being intelligent gets you money, money buys virtue, those who are smartest will become richest and those who are richest will be able to buy the most virtue.

Power structures emerge naturally from this.

[derbOac]

This is an aside, but although I agree that groups without formal power structures can hide real ones, I'm not sure explicit hierarchies are necessarily better. In my experience, they can be used to legitimize shadow hierarchies or corruption, which sometimes makes the problems worse. Those vague power structures exist with or without formal ones; when they coincide it's good, but when they don't, it can perpetuate or reinforce problems more than they might otherwise.

I'm not trying to defend anything about EA, though. It's always seemed somewhat suspicious to me, and there's probably a lot of ways in which it could be used as an example of phenomena that occur more broadly in society.

[jancsika]

> In my experience, they can be used to legitimize shadow hierarchies or corruption, which sometimes makes the problems worse.

At least in your day-to-day formal hierarchies, those who are negatively affected by the shadow hierarchy don't have anything to lose by acknowledging that it is indeed a power structure. If Alice is the boss but Bob is the one really running all the things, none of Alice's employees are going to lose any sleep by acknowledging the truth of the situation.

But in communities that claim to be non-hierarchical, coming to terms with the existence of a shadow hierarchy could constitute an existential crisis. This isn't a logical necessity-- e.g., members could simply notice and just shrug it off. But most groups I've come into contact with that claim to be non-hierarchical assign great positive value to it, and they get defensive or squirrely about any attempts to uncover hidden power structures within.

[denton-scratch]

> I'm not sure explicit hierarchies are necessarily better.

It's the explicitness that is the good part, not the hierarchy. The premise is that there will always be hierarchy; groups that profess to be non-hierarchical have a hidden hierarchy that is more pernicious.

So it's not like "Oh, this group has no hierarchy, so lets invent one and write it down", it's more "This group appears to have no hierarchy; so we need to do some digging, to expose the hierarchy".

If you join a non-hierarchical group, it can take years to discover that it really does have a hierarchy, and more years to learn how it works. Hidden power is more dangerous than overt power.

[ketzo]

I see that essay linked every six months or so, and I swear every time I read it, a new element of it rings true to me. Really timeless, invaluable writing on the way groups of humans work.