Lot of good points here. One slight critique and one suggestion to build on the above. If I seem at all confrontational in tone, please note that this is not my aim—I think you made a solid comment.
Critique: I have a great sense of caution around the belief that “smart, young EAs”, and giving them grants to think about stuff, are the best solution to something, no matter how well they understand the community. In my mind, one of the most powerful messages of the OP is the one regarding a preference for orthodox yet inexperienced people over those with demonstrable experience but little value alignment. Youth breaking from tradition doesn’t seem a promising hope when a very large portion of this community is, and always has been, in their youth. Indeed, EA was built from the ground up by almost the same people in your proposed teams. I’m sure there are smart, young EAs readily available in our labour force to accept these grants, far more readily than people who also deeply understand the community but do not consider themselves EAs (whose takes should be most challenging) or have substantial experience in setting good norms and cultural traits (whose insights will surely be wiser than ours). I worry the availability and/or orthodoxy of the former is making them seem more ideal than the latter.
Suggestion: I absolutely share your concerns about how the EA electorate would be decided upon. As an initial starting point, I would suggest that voting power be given to people who take the Giving What We Can pledge and uphold it for a stated minimum time. It serves the costly signalling function without expecting people to simply buy “membership”. My suggestion has very significant problems, that many will see at first glance, but I share it in case others can find a way to make it work. Edit: It seems others have thought about this a lot more than I have, and it seems intractable.
I don’t see my suggestion of getting a few groups of smart, young, EAS as exclusive with engaging with experts.
Obviously they trade off in terms of funds and organiser effort, but it wouldn’t actually be that expensive to pay the basic living expenses of a few young people.
Lot of good points here. One slight critique and one suggestion to build on the above. If I seem at all confrontational in tone, please note that this is not my aim—I think you made a solid comment.
Critique: I have a great sense of caution around the belief that “smart, young EAs”, and giving them grants to think about stuff, are the best solution to something, no matter how well they understand the community. In my mind, one of the most powerful messages of the OP is the one regarding a preference for orthodox yet inexperienced people over those with demonstrable experience but little value alignment. Youth breaking from tradition doesn’t seem a promising hope when a very large portion of this community is, and always has been, in their youth. Indeed, EA was built from the ground up by almost the same people in your proposed teams. I’m sure there are smart, young EAs readily available in our labour force to accept these grants, far more readily than people who also deeply understand the community but do not consider themselves EAs (whose takes should be most challenging) or have substantial experience in setting good norms and cultural traits (whose insights will surely be wiser than ours). I worry the availability and/or orthodoxy of the former is making them seem more ideal than the latter.
Suggestion: I absolutely share your concerns about how the EA electorate would be decided upon. As an initial starting point, I would suggest that voting power be given to people who take the Giving What We Can pledge and uphold it for a stated minimum time. It serves the costly signalling function without expecting people to simply buy “membership”. My suggestion has very significant problems, that many will see at first glance, but I share it in case others can find a way to make it work. Edit: It seems others have thought about this a lot more than I have, and it seems intractable.
I don’t see my suggestion of getting a few groups of smart, young, EAS as exclusive with engaging with experts.
Obviously they trade off in terms of funds and organiser effort, but it wouldn’t actually be that expensive to pay the basic living expenses of a few young people.