People of normal IQ are advised to work our normal day job, the best competency that we have and after setting aside enough money for ourselves, contribute to prevention of existential risk. That is a good idea if the skills of the people here are getting their correct market value and there is such a diversity of skills that they cannot make a sensible corporation together.
Also, consider that as we make the world’s corporations more agile, we bring closer the moment where an unfriendly optimization process might just be let loose.
But just consider, the small probability that some of the rationalists come together as a non-profit corporation to contribute to mitigating existential risk. There are many reasons our kind cannot cooperate . Also, the fact is that coordination is hard
But if we could, then with the latest in decision theory, argument diagrams ( 1,2, 3 ), internal futarchy (after the size of the coporation gets big), we could create a corporation that wins. There are many people from the world of software here. Within the corporation itself, there is no need to stick to legacy systems. We could interact with the best of coordination software and keep the corporation “sane”.
We can create products and services like any for-profit corporation and sell them at market rates, but use the surplus to mitigate existential risk. In other words, it is difficult, but in the everett branches where x-rationalists manage a synergistic outcome, it might be possible to strengthen the funding of existential risk mitigation considerably.
Some criticisms of this idea which I could think of
The corporation becomes a lost cause. Goodhart’s law kicks in and the original purpose of forming the corporation is lost.
People are polite when in a situation where no important decisions are being made (like an internet forum like lesswrong), but if actual productivity is involved, they might get hostile when someone lowers their corporate karma. Perfect internet buddies might become co-workers who hate each other’s guts.
The argument that there is no possibility of synergy. The present situation, where rational people spread over the world and in different situations are money pumping from less rational people around them is better.
People outside the corporation might mentally slot existential risk as a kooky topic that “that creepy company talks about all the time” and not see it as a genuine issue that diverse persons from different walks of life are interested in.
and so on..
But still, my question is—Shouldn’t we atleast consider the possibilities of synergy in a manner indicated?
The would be more likely to work if you completely took out the ‘for existential risk’ part. Find a way to cooperate with people effectively “to make money”. No need to get religion all muddled up in it.
Idea—Existential risk fighting corporates
People of normal IQ are advised to work our normal day job, the best competency that we have and after setting aside enough money for ourselves, contribute to prevention of existential risk. That is a good idea if the skills of the people here are getting their correct market value and there is such a diversity of skills that they cannot make a sensible corporation together.
Also, consider that as we make the world’s corporations more agile, we bring closer the moment where an unfriendly optimization process might just be let loose.
But just consider, the small probability that some of the rationalists come together as a non-profit corporation to contribute to mitigating existential risk. There are many reasons our kind cannot cooperate . Also, the fact is that coordination is hard
But if we could, then with the latest in decision theory, argument diagrams ( 1,2, 3 ), internal futarchy (after the size of the coporation gets big), we could create a corporation that wins. There are many people from the world of software here. Within the corporation itself, there is no need to stick to legacy systems. We could interact with the best of coordination software and keep the corporation “sane”.
We can create products and services like any for-profit corporation and sell them at market rates, but use the surplus to mitigate existential risk. In other words, it is difficult, but in the everett branches where x-rationalists manage a synergistic outcome, it might be possible to strengthen the funding of existential risk mitigation considerably.
Some criticisms of this idea which I could think of
The corporation becomes a lost cause. Goodhart’s law kicks in and the original purpose of forming the corporation is lost.
People are polite when in a situation where no important decisions are being made (like an internet forum like lesswrong), but if actual productivity is involved, they might get hostile when someone lowers their corporate karma. Perfect internet buddies might become co-workers who hate each other’s guts.
The argument that there is no possibility of synergy. The present situation, where rational people spread over the world and in different situations are money pumping from less rational people around them is better.
People outside the corporation might mentally slot existential risk as a kooky topic that “that creepy company talks about all the time” and not see it as a genuine issue that diverse persons from different walks of life are interested in.
and so on..
But still, my question is—Shouldn’t we atleast consider the possibilities of synergy in a manner indicated?
The would be more likely to work if you completely took out the ‘for existential risk’ part. Find a way to cooperate with people effectively “to make money”. No need to get religion all muddled up in it.