Final day to donate to Lightcone in the Manifund EA Community Choice program to tap into the Manifold quadratic matching funds. Small donations in-particular have a pretty high matching multiplier (around 2x would be my guess for donations <$300).
I don’t know how I feel in-general about matching funds, but in this case it seems like there is a pre-specified process that makes some sense, and the whole thing is a bit like a democratic process with some financial stakes, so I feel better about it.
Created a popular format for in-person office spaces that heavily influenced Constellation and FAR Labs
This one seems big to me. There are now lots of EA / AI Safety offices around the world and I reckon they are very impactful for motivating people, making it easier to start projects and building a community.
One thing I’m not clear about is to what extent the Lightcone WeWork invented this format. I’ve never been to Trajan House but I believe it came first, so I thought it would have been part of the inspiration for the Lightcone WeWork.
Also my impression was that Lightcone itself thought the office was net negative, which is why it was shut down, so I’m slightly surprised to see this one listed.
Trajan was not a huge inspiration for the Lightcone Offices. I do think it was first, though it was structured pretty differently. The timing is also confusing because the pandemic made in-person coworking not really be a thing, and the Lightcone Offices started as soon as any kind of coworking thing seemed feasible in the US given people’s COVID risk preferences.
I am currently confused about the net effect of the Lightcone Offices. My best guess is it was overall pretty good, in substantial parts because it weakened a lot of the dynamics that otherwise make me quite concerned about the AI X-risk and EA community (by creating a cultural counterbalance to Constellation, and generally having a pretty good culture among its core members on stuff that I care about), but I sure am confused. I do think it was really good by the lights of a lot of other people, and I think it makes sense for people to give us money for things that are good by their lights, even if not necessarily our own.
Regarding the sign of Lightcone Offices: I think one sort of score for a charity is the stuff that it has done, and another is the quality of its generator of new projects (and the past work is evidence for that generator).
I’m not sure exactly the correct way to combine those scores, but my guess is most people who think the offices and their legacy were good should like us having money because of the high first score. And people who think they were bad should definitely be aware that we ran them (and chose to close them) when evaluating our second score.
So, I want us to list it on our impact track record section, somewhat regardless of sign.
How do you square encouraging others to weigh in on EA fundraising, and presumably the assumption that anyone in the EA community can trust you as a collaborator of any sort, with your intentions, as you put it in July, to probably seek to shut down at some point in the future?
I do not see how those are in conflict? Indeed, a core responsibility of being a good collaborator and IMO also to be a decision maker in EA is to make ethical choices even if they are socially difficult.
Final day to donate to Lightcone in the Manifund EA Community Choice program to tap into the Manifold quadratic matching funds. Small donations in-particular have a pretty high matching multiplier (around 2x would be my guess for donations <$300).
I don’t know how I feel in-general about matching funds, but in this case it seems like there is a pre-specified process that makes some sense, and the whole thing is a bit like a democratic process with some financial stakes, so I feel better about it.
I personally endorse this as an example of us being a community that Has The Will To Try To Build Nice Things.
This one seems big to me. There are now lots of EA / AI Safety offices around the world and I reckon they are very impactful for motivating people, making it easier to start projects and building a community.
One thing I’m not clear about is to what extent the Lightcone WeWork invented this format. I’ve never been to Trajan House but I believe it came first, so I thought it would have been part of the inspiration for the Lightcone WeWork.
Also my impression was that Lightcone itself thought the office was net negative, which is why it was shut down, so I’m slightly surprised to see this one listed.
Trajan was not a huge inspiration for the Lightcone Offices. I do think it was first, though it was structured pretty differently. The timing is also confusing because the pandemic made in-person coworking not really be a thing, and the Lightcone Offices started as soon as any kind of coworking thing seemed feasible in the US given people’s COVID risk preferences.
I am currently confused about the net effect of the Lightcone Offices. My best guess is it was overall pretty good, in substantial parts because it weakened a lot of the dynamics that otherwise make me quite concerned about the AI X-risk and EA community (by creating a cultural counterbalance to Constellation, and generally having a pretty good culture among its core members on stuff that I care about), but I sure am confused. I do think it was really good by the lights of a lot of other people, and I think it makes sense for people to give us money for things that are good by their lights, even if not necessarily our own.
Regarding the sign of Lightcone Offices: I think one sort of score for a charity is the stuff that it has done, and another is the quality of its generator of new projects (and the past work is evidence for that generator).
I’m not sure exactly the correct way to combine those scores, but my guess is most people who think the offices and their legacy were good should like us having money because of the high first score. And people who think they were bad should definitely be aware that we ran them (and chose to close them) when evaluating our second score.
So, I want us to list it on our impact track record section, somewhat regardless of sign.
How do you square encouraging others to weigh in on EA fundraising, and presumably the assumption that anyone in the EA community can trust you as a collaborator of any sort, with your intentions, as you put it in July, to probably seek to shut down at some point in the future?
I do not see how those are in conflict? Indeed, a core responsibility of being a good collaborator and IMO also to be a decision maker in EA is to make ethical choices even if they are socially difficult.