Thanks for the post. Good to see some investment in the risk loving side of things. However, I am a little disappointed that none of these charities are long-term related or meta. I’m not super hardlined, but there is soft consensus in the EA community that these things are important. Just wondering if anyone knows why charity-entrepreneurship doesn’t prioritize these things? I could see the argument that it is hard to run a long-term focused charity, though I haven’t thought much on it. Is there another incubator that focuses on these areas? Otherwise it seems like a really promising area to push for.
As a side note, I agree with Misha that I could see decentralized mental health type things being cause-y, would love to see more done in this area. Anyone looking in this direction might want to check out https://www.stickk.com/ , which tries to apply behavioral research to help people “stick” to their goals.
Hey Charles, we don’t prioritize long termist projects as we do not think they are the highest impact (for epistemic not ethical reasons). This view is pretty common in EA, but most people who hold this perspective do not engage much on the EA forum. In the future we might write more on it.
We have recommended meta charities in the past (e.g. animal careers) and expect to recommend more in the future. There are some people considering a long-term/AI focused incubator, so this might be a project that happens at some point.
I think Charity Entrepreneurship looks to start charities with a better evidence base and better feedback loops than are possible for longtermist interventions. I can’t speak for the people who work there, but I’d guess they reject strong longtermism (or, specifically, that we can positively, significantly and predictably influence the far future), and I’d expect longtermism to be outside their expertise.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be valuable to have a Charity Entrepreneurship for longtermism or meta, or have CE do it.
Thanks for the post. Good to see some investment in the risk loving side of things. However, I am a little disappointed that none of these charities are long-term related or meta. I’m not super hardlined, but there is soft consensus in the EA community that these things are important. Just wondering if anyone knows why charity-entrepreneurship doesn’t prioritize these things? I could see the argument that it is hard to run a long-term focused charity, though I haven’t thought much on it. Is there another incubator that focuses on these areas? Otherwise it seems like a really promising area to push for.
As a side note, I agree with Misha that I could see decentralized mental health type things being cause-y, would love to see more done in this area. Anyone looking in this direction might want to check out https://www.stickk.com/ , which tries to apply behavioral research to help people “stick” to their goals.
Hey Charles, we don’t prioritize long termist projects as we do not think they are the highest impact (for epistemic not ethical reasons). This view is pretty common in EA, but most people who hold this perspective do not engage much on the EA forum. In the future we might write more on it.
We have recommended meta charities in the past (e.g. animal careers) and expect to recommend more in the future. There are some people considering a long-term/AI focused incubator, so this might be a project that happens at some point.
I think Charity Entrepreneurship looks to start charities with a better evidence base and better feedback loops than are possible for longtermist interventions. I can’t speak for the people who work there, but I’d guess they reject strong longtermism (or, specifically, that we can positively, significantly and predictably influence the far future), and I’d expect longtermism to be outside their expertise.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be valuable to have a Charity Entrepreneurship for longtermism or meta, or have CE do it.