The Nonlinear Library EA - Further possible projects on EA reform by Julia Wise
Nov 10, 2023
33:45
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Further possible projects on EA reform, published by Julia Wise on November 10, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
As part of this project on reforms, we collected a rough list of potential projects for EA organizational reform. Each idea was pretty interesting to at least one of us (Julia Wise, Ozzie Gooen, Sam Donald), but we don't necessarily agree about them.
This list represents a lightly-edited snapshot of projects we were considering around July 2023, which we listed in order to get feedback from others on how to prioritize. Some of these were completed as part of the reform project, but most are still available if someone wants to make them happen.
There's an appendix with a
rough grid of projects by our guess at importance and tractability.
Background
Key Factors
Factors that might influence which projects people might like, if any:
Centralization vs. Decentralization
How much should EA aim to be more centralized / closely integrated vs. more like a loose network?
Big vs. Small Changes
Are existing orgs basically doing good stuff and just need some adjustments, or are some things in seriously bad shape?
Short-term vs. Long-term
How much do you want to focus on things that could get done in the next few months vs changes that would take more time and resources?
Risk appetite
Is EA already solid enough that we should mostly aim to preserve its value and be risk-averse, or is most of the impact in the future in a way that makes it more important to stay nimble and be wary of losing the ability to jump at opportunities?
Issue Tractability
How much are dynamics like sexual misconduct within the realm of organizations to influence, vs. mostly a broad social problem that orgs aren't going to be able to change much?
Long-term Overhead
How much operations/infrastructure/management overhead do we want to aim for? Do we think that EA gets this balance about right, or could use significantly more or less?
If you really don't want much extra spending per project, then most proposals to "spend resources improving things" couldn't work.
There are sacrifices between moving quickly and cheaply, vs. long-term investments and risk minimization.
Boards
Advice on board composition
Scope: small
Action:
Make recommendations to EA organizations about their board composition.
Have compiled advice from people with knowledge of boards generally
Many to the effect of "small narrow boards should be larger and have a broader range of skills"
Can pass on this summary to orgs with such boards
What can we offer here that orgs aren't already going to do on their own?
Collect advice that many orgs could benefit from
Area where we don't have much to offer:
Custom advice for orgs in unusual situations
Julia's take: someone considering board changes at orgs in unusual situations should read through the advice we compile, but not expect it to be that different from what they've probably already heard
Steps with some organizations
[some excerpted parts about communications with specific organizations]
If you could pick a couple of people who'd give the best advice on possible changes these orgs should make to the board, who would it be?
Small organizations with no board or very basic board: work out if we have useful advice to give here
Existing work / resources:
EA Good Governance Project
Investigations
FTX investigation
Project scope: medium
Action:
Find someone to run an investigation into how EA individuals and organizations could have better handled the FTX situation.
Barriers:
People who did things that were bad or will make them look bad will not want to tell you about it. Everyone's lawyers will have told them not to talk about anything.
Existing work / resources:
EV's
investigation has a defined scope that won't be relevant to all the things EAs want to know, and it won't necessarily p...
As part of this project on reforms, we collected a rough list of potential projects for EA organizational reform. Each idea was pretty interesting to at least one of us (Julia Wise, Ozzie Gooen, Sam Donald), but we don't necessarily agree about them.
This list represents a lightly-edited snapshot of projects we were considering around July 2023, which we listed in order to get feedback from others on how to prioritize. Some of these were completed as part of the reform project, but most are still available if someone wants to make them happen.
There's an appendix with a
rough grid of projects by our guess at importance and tractability.
Background
Key Factors
Factors that might influence which projects people might like, if any:
Centralization vs. Decentralization
How much should EA aim to be more centralized / closely integrated vs. more like a loose network?
Big vs. Small Changes
Are existing orgs basically doing good stuff and just need some adjustments, or are some things in seriously bad shape?
Short-term vs. Long-term
How much do you want to focus on things that could get done in the next few months vs changes that would take more time and resources?
Risk appetite
Is EA already solid enough that we should mostly aim to preserve its value and be risk-averse, or is most of the impact in the future in a way that makes it more important to stay nimble and be wary of losing the ability to jump at opportunities?
Issue Tractability
How much are dynamics like sexual misconduct within the realm of organizations to influence, vs. mostly a broad social problem that orgs aren't going to be able to change much?
Long-term Overhead
How much operations/infrastructure/management overhead do we want to aim for? Do we think that EA gets this balance about right, or could use significantly more or less?
If you really don't want much extra spending per project, then most proposals to "spend resources improving things" couldn't work.
There are sacrifices between moving quickly and cheaply, vs. long-term investments and risk minimization.
Boards
Advice on board composition
Scope: small
Action:
Make recommendations to EA organizations about their board composition.
Have compiled advice from people with knowledge of boards generally
Many to the effect of "small narrow boards should be larger and have a broader range of skills"
Can pass on this summary to orgs with such boards
What can we offer here that orgs aren't already going to do on their own?
Collect advice that many orgs could benefit from
Area where we don't have much to offer:
Custom advice for orgs in unusual situations
Julia's take: someone considering board changes at orgs in unusual situations should read through the advice we compile, but not expect it to be that different from what they've probably already heard
Steps with some organizations
[some excerpted parts about communications with specific organizations]
If you could pick a couple of people who'd give the best advice on possible changes these orgs should make to the board, who would it be?
Small organizations with no board or very basic board: work out if we have useful advice to give here
Existing work / resources:
EA Good Governance Project
Investigations
FTX investigation
Project scope: medium
Action:
Find someone to run an investigation into how EA individuals and organizations could have better handled the FTX situation.
Barriers:
People who did things that were bad or will make them look bad will not want to tell you about it. Everyone's lawyers will have told them not to talk about anything.
Existing work / resources:
EV's
investigation has a defined scope that won't be relevant to all the things EAs want to know, and it won't necessarily p...