Re your third point: I find it plausible that both startup earnings and explicit allocation of research insight can to at least some degree be modeled as a tournament for “being first/best,” which means you have a pretty extreme distribution if you are trying to win resources (hopefully for altruism) like $s or prestige, but a much less extreme distribution if we’re trying to estimate actual good done while trying to spend down such resources.
Put another way, I find it farcical to think that Newton should get >20% of the credit for inventing calculus (given both the example of Leibniz and that many of the ideas were floating around at the time), probably not even >5%, yet I get the distinct impression (never checked with polling or anything) that many people would attribute the invention of calculus solely or mostly to Newton.
Similarly, there are two importantly different applied ethics questions to ask whether it’s correct to give billionaires billions of dollars to their work vs whether individuals should try to make billions of dollars to donate.
Re your third point: I find it plausible that both startup earnings and explicit allocation of research insight can to at least some degree be modeled as a tournament for “being first/best,” which means you have a pretty extreme distribution if you are trying to win resources (hopefully for altruism) like $s or prestige, but a much less extreme distribution if we’re trying to estimate actual good done while trying to spend down such resources.
Put another way, I find it farcical to think that Newton should get >20% of the credit for inventing calculus (given both the example of Leibniz and that many of the ideas were floating around at the time), probably not even >5%, yet I get the distinct impression (never checked with polling or anything) that many people would attribute the invention of calculus solely or mostly to Newton.
Similarly, there are two importantly different applied ethics questions to ask whether it’s correct to give billionaires billions of dollars to their work vs whether individuals should try to make billions of dollars to donate.