It occurs to me that Holden’s actual reasoning (never mind what he said) is perhaps not about rationality per se and instead may be along these lines: “Since SI staff haven’t already accumulated wealth and power, they probably suffer from something like insufficient work ethic or high akrasia or not-having-inherited-billions, and thus will probably be ineffective at achieving the kind of extremely-ambitious goals they have set for themselves.”
It may or may not be Holden’s, but I think you’ve put your finger on my real reasons for not wanting to donate to SI. I’d be interested to hear any counterpoint.
It occurs to me that Holden’s actual reasoning (never mind what he said) is perhaps not about rationality per se and instead may be along these lines: “Since SI staff haven’t already accumulated wealth and power, they probably suffer from something like insufficient work ethic or high akrasia or not-having-inherited-billions, and thus will probably be ineffective at achieving the kind of extremely-ambitious goals they have set for themselves.”
It may or may not be Holden’s, but I think you’ve put your finger on my real reasons for not wanting to donate to SI. I’d be interested to hear any counterpoint.