Establishing an institution is a costly signal that there is a group of people committed to spend years of their life working on some issue.
For example, Machine Intelligence Research Institute gives me the hope that if tomorrow Eliezer gets hit by a car, converts to Mormonism, or decides to spend the rest of his life writing fan fiction, the research will go on regardless. Which is a valuable thing.
But if you go along this direction too far, you get superstimuli. If MIRI is better then Eliezer’s blog, then a Global Institute For Everything Importantmust be million times better, and MIRI should be ashamed for competing with them for scarce resources.
Another problem is that creating an institution is a signal of commitment to the agenda, but prolonged existence of the institution is often just a signal of commitment to salaries.
Maybe you should just play along and rename Mind Hackers’ Guild to, dunno, Institute for Mental Modification. Or something less Orwellian. :D
Establishing an institution is a costly signal that there is a group of people committed to spend years of their life working on some issue.
For example, Machine Intelligence Research Institute gives me the hope that if tomorrow Eliezer gets hit by a car, converts to Mormonism, or decides to spend the rest of his life writing fan fiction, the research will go on regardless. Which is a valuable thing.
But if you go along this direction too far, you get superstimuli. If MIRI is better then Eliezer’s blog, then a Global Institute For Everything Important must be million times better, and MIRI should be ashamed for competing with them for scarce resources.
Another problem is that creating an institution is a signal of commitment to the agenda, but prolonged existence of the institution is often just a signal of commitment to salaries.
Maybe you should just play along and rename Mind Hackers’ Guild to, dunno, Institute for Mental Modification. Or something less Orwellian. :D