The motivation is simply that we need help now, that we do not have budget now, that SingInst’s experience suggests that at least some skilled people are willing to work for such money (e.g. me, Carl, Michael Anissimov, Lukeprog), and if rationality org’s efforts are successful we will probably have more money for skilled people in the future.
There are several reasons someone might apply, given that. The ones that spring to my mind are:
This sounds like a fun job where they could learn a lot over the next year. (I’ve learned a huge amount, working here.)
At their present stage in life, they don’t need all that much money. (No kids, etc.; I’ve been living comfortably on the SI standard salary, and am probably happier here than I would be making more money doing something less varied where I didn’t get to learn from the folks here)
Someone may be passionate about rationality education (either for itself, or because they expect it to help with existential risk) (this is the possible reason you list)
Someone may think we have a good chance at creating, over the next year or two, the sort of “rationality org” that could afford to pay people market wages, and may be willing to take a risk for the next couple years in order to be part of that.
However, our current low salaries are not a sneaky attempt to obtain only dedicated idealists; they are just an attempt to launch a rationality training effort with the budget we currently have, making the best use we can of our donors’ dollars. I’m a little confused as to why this caused so much offense. The job is surely not right for some people, such as people who care a lot about present salaries, or who have high current income needs; but we posted the salary so that people could see for themselves whether it might work for them, and so that folks it might be right for could contact us.
Nonprofit salaries are typically lower than salaries for comparable work outside of nonprofits; start-up salaries are typically low with the potential for more later on. Rationality org at the moment is perhaps somewhere in between.
I’m sorry if I came across as overly critical. I had a flashback to the job ad that EY promoted in September of ’10 which came off in a similar way to me (though, clearly, this one has much more detail), and that probably drove the tone of my posts. I’m certainly not offended.
Now, that being said, I’ve noticed that there are a number of young idealists in this community, and I think it would be good if we could help them understand what they’re getting into. We have a responsibility to help the up and coming among us to make good decisions. Making it clear that the SIAI “standard” salary is way under market for skillful people and that applicants should understand the opportunity costs associated with working for a non-profit for a period of time should be part of the job description when it comes a rationalist source to this audience. I presume that EY knows this, and so I attribute the lack of it to something being fishy. If nothing’s fishy, then this discussion let us clear the air.
The motivation is simply that we need help now, that we do not have budget now, that SingInst’s experience suggests that at least some skilled people are willing to work for such money (e.g. me, Carl, Michael Anissimov, Lukeprog), and if rationality org’s efforts are successful we will probably have more money for skilled people in the future.
There are several reasons someone might apply, given that. The ones that spring to my mind are:
This sounds like a fun job where they could learn a lot over the next year. (I’ve learned a huge amount, working here.)
At their present stage in life, they don’t need all that much money. (No kids, etc.; I’ve been living comfortably on the SI standard salary, and am probably happier here than I would be making more money doing something less varied where I didn’t get to learn from the folks here)
Someone may be passionate about rationality education (either for itself, or because they expect it to help with existential risk) (this is the possible reason you list)
Someone may think we have a good chance at creating, over the next year or two, the sort of “rationality org” that could afford to pay people market wages, and may be willing to take a risk for the next couple years in order to be part of that.
However, our current low salaries are not a sneaky attempt to obtain only dedicated idealists; they are just an attempt to launch a rationality training effort with the budget we currently have, making the best use we can of our donors’ dollars. I’m a little confused as to why this caused so much offense. The job is surely not right for some people, such as people who care a lot about present salaries, or who have high current income needs; but we posted the salary so that people could see for themselves whether it might work for them, and so that folks it might be right for could contact us.
Nonprofit salaries are typically lower than salaries for comparable work outside of nonprofits; start-up salaries are typically low with the potential for more later on. Rationality org at the moment is perhaps somewhere in between.
I’m sorry if I came across as overly critical. I had a flashback to the job ad that EY promoted in September of ’10 which came off in a similar way to me (though, clearly, this one has much more detail), and that probably drove the tone of my posts. I’m certainly not offended.
Now, that being said, I’ve noticed that there are a number of young idealists in this community, and I think it would be good if we could help them understand what they’re getting into. We have a responsibility to help the up and coming among us to make good decisions. Making it clear that the SIAI “standard” salary is way under market for skillful people and that applicants should understand the opportunity costs associated with working for a non-profit for a period of time should be part of the job description when it comes a rationalist source to this audience. I presume that EY knows this, and so I attribute the lack of it to something being fishy. If nothing’s fishy, then this discussion let us clear the air.