A less drastic option would be for OpenPhil to just hire more research staff. I think there’s some argument for this given that they’re apparently struggling to find ways to distribute their money:
1) a new researcher doesn’t need to be as valuable as Holden to have positive EV against the counterfactual of the money sitting around waiting for Holden to find somewhere to donate it to in 5 years
2) the more researchers are hired, even (/especially) when they’re ones who Holden doesn’t agree with, the more they guard against the risk of any blind spots/particular passions etc of Holden’s coming to dominate and causing missed opportunities, since ultimately as far as I can tell there aren’t really other strong feedback mechanisms on the grants he ends up making than internal peer review.
(I wouldn’t argue strongly for this, but I haven’t seen a counterpoint to these arguments that I find compelling)
A less drastic option would be for OpenPhil to just hire more research staff. I think there’s some argument for this given that they’re apparently struggling to find ways to distribute their money:
1) a new researcher doesn’t need to be as valuable as Holden to have positive EV against the counterfactual of the money sitting around waiting for Holden to find somewhere to donate it to in 5 years
2) the more researchers are hired, even (/especially) when they’re ones who Holden doesn’t agree with, the more they guard against the risk of any blind spots/particular passions etc of Holden’s coming to dominate and causing missed opportunities, since ultimately as far as I can tell there aren’t really other strong feedback mechanisms on the grants he ends up making than internal peer review.
(I wouldn’t argue strongly for this, but I haven’t seen a counterpoint to these arguments that I find compelling)