Might it not be even more effective to convince others to become ultra-rich and fund the organizations you want to fund? (Actually, this doesn’t seem too far off the mark from what SIAI is doing).
I agree completely. I stopped myself short of saying this in my first post because I wanted to keep it succinct. I would go a bit further to suggest that SIAI could be doing more than merely convincing people to take this path. For example, providing trustworthy young rationalists with a financial safety net in order to permit them to take more risks. (One tentative observation I’ve made is that nobody becomes wealthy without taking risk. The “self-made” wealthy tend to be risk-loving.)
This is likely worth doing, but I am fairly sure that LWers are for the most part not wealthy enough to create this financial safety net. This seems like a concept that is worth a discussion post: what would LWers do if they had a financial safety net?
Might it not be even more effective to convince others to become ultra-rich and fund the organizations you want to fund? (Actually, this doesn’t seem too far off the mark from what SIAI is doing).
I agree completely. I stopped myself short of saying this in my first post because I wanted to keep it succinct. I would go a bit further to suggest that SIAI could be doing more than merely convincing people to take this path. For example, providing trustworthy young rationalists with a financial safety net in order to permit them to take more risks. (One tentative observation I’ve made is that nobody becomes wealthy without taking risk. The “self-made” wealthy tend to be risk-loving.)
This is likely worth doing, but I am fairly sure that LWers are for the most part not wealthy enough to create this financial safety net. This seems like a concept that is worth a discussion post: what would LWers do if they had a financial safety net?