Personally, I read approximately everything you (Elizabeth) write on the Forum and LW, and occasionally cite it to others in EA leadership world. That’s why I’m pretty sure your work has had nontrivial impact. I am not too surprised that its impact hasn’t become apparent to you though.
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I don’t see solutions or great ways forward yet, and I sense that nobody really does
That does sound like learned helplessness and that the EA leadership filters people out who would see ways forward.
Let me give you one:
If people in EA would consider her critiques to have real value, then the obvious step is to give Elizabeth money to write more. Given that she has a Patreon the way to give her money is pretty straightforward. If the writing influences what happens in EV board discussions, paying Elizabeth for the value she provides for the board would be straightforward.
If she would get paid decently, I would expect she would feel she’s making an impact.
Paying Elizabeth might not be the solution to all of EA’s problems, but it’s a way to signal priorities. Estimate the value she provides to EA and then pay her for that value and publically publish as EV a writeup that EV thinks that this is the amount of value she provides to EA and was paid by EV.
If people in EA would consider her critiques to have real value, then the obvious step is to give Elizabeth money to write more [...] If she would get paid decently, I would expect she would feel she’s making an impact.
First of all, thank you, love it when people suggest I receive money. Timothy and I have talked about fundraising for a continued podcast. I would strongly prefer most of the funding be crowdfunding, for the reason you say. If we did this it would almost certainly be through Manifund. Signing up for Patreon and noting this as the reason also works, although for my own sanity this will always be a side project.
I should note that my work on EA up through May was covered by a Lightspeed grant, but I don’t consider that EA money.
Yes, giving money in form of a grant might not be the best way to fund good posts as it makes it harder to criticize the entity that funds you and decentralized crowdfunding is better.
Maybe, an EV blog post saying something like:
Currently, we see EA as insight constraint. When funding people directly through grants, they have to think a lot about how to stay in good graces when they voice their feedback.
We think that individuals who donate their 10% for the GivingWhatWeCan, should consider that there are some causes like most of what GiveWell recommends where getting a 1,000,000$ grant from a billionaire is equal to getting a 1000$ from a thousand people, while there are other causes that are harder to fund via grants because it’s important that grant receivers can feel like the can give honest feedback.
Given that we are insight constraint for insight about how to solve the problems within EA, donating via Patreon to writers who provide insight and are better able to do that if they are funded independently without relying on big EA instituations for their funding, is a highly effectful way to donate for those who donate their 10%.
One writer we think has had a nontrivial impact for the better is Elizabeth because we believe X, Y, Z.
If the problem is as lincolnquirk, describes that in general they don’t have much ideas about how to do better and your writing had nontrivial impact by giving ideas about what to do better, that would be the straightforward way forward.
The desire for crowdfunding is less about avoiding bias[1] and more that this is only worth doing if people are listening, and small donors are much better evidence on that question than grants. If EV gave explicit instructions to donate to me it would be more like a grant than spontaneous small donors, although I in general agree people should be looking for opportunities they can beat GiveWell.
ETA: we were planning on waiting on this but since there’s interest I might as well post the fundraiser now.
I’m fortunate to have both a long runway and sources of income outside of EA and rationality. One reason I’ve pushed as hard as I have on EA is that I had a rare combination of deep knowledge of and financial independence from EA. If couldn’t do it, who could?
That does sound like learned helplessness and that the EA leadership filters people out who would see ways forward.
Let me give you one:
If people in EA would consider her critiques to have real value, then the obvious step is to give Elizabeth money to write more. Given that she has a Patreon the way to give her money is pretty straightforward. If the writing influences what happens in EV board discussions, paying Elizabeth for the value she provides for the board would be straightforward.
If she would get paid decently, I would expect she would feel she’s making an impact.
Paying Elizabeth might not be the solution to all of EA’s problems, but it’s a way to signal priorities. Estimate the value she provides to EA and then pay her for that value and publically publish as EV a writeup that EV thinks that this is the amount of value she provides to EA and was paid by EV.
First of all, thank you, love it when people suggest I receive money. Timothy and I have talked about fundraising for a continued podcast. I would strongly prefer most of the funding be crowdfunding, for the reason you say. If we did this it would almost certainly be through Manifund. Signing up for Patreon and noting this as the reason also works, although for my own sanity this will always be a side project.
I should note that my work on EA up through May was covered by a Lightspeed grant, but I don’t consider that EA money.
Yes, giving money in form of a grant might not be the best way to fund good posts as it makes it harder to criticize the entity that funds you and decentralized crowdfunding is better.
Maybe, an EV blog post saying something like:
If the problem is as lincolnquirk, describes that in general they don’t have much ideas about how to do better and your writing had nontrivial impact by giving ideas about what to do better, that would be the straightforward way forward.
The desire for crowdfunding is less about avoiding bias[1] and more that this is only worth doing if people are listening, and small donors are much better evidence on that question than grants. If EV gave explicit instructions to donate to me it would be more like a grant than spontaneous small donors, although I in general agree people should be looking for opportunities they can beat GiveWell.
ETA: we were planning on waiting on this but since there’s interest I might as well post the fundraiser now.
I’m fortunate to have both a long runway and sources of income outside of EA and rationality. One reason I’ve pushed as hard as I have on EA is that I had a rare combination of deep knowledge of and financial independence from EA. If couldn’t do it, who could?