This answer brings valuable points, but it rubbed me the wrong way. After thinking about it, I think that it feels partisan because all of your points go in one direction, but just because the question doesn’t ask about a tautology, I’d expect there to be competing considerations.
Here are some competing considerations:
- Charity Entrepreneurship now exists, and makes entrepreneurship much, much easier. I think that this effect is stronger than any other effect. Note that they offer a stipend. - I think you’re confusing selection effects for environmental effects. As EA becomes larger, it will include people who are less hardcore, but for a given level of hardcoreness, it’s unclear whether entrepreneurship is easier or harder. For example, Toby Ord pledged to donate everything he earned above £18,000, whereas EAs today seems at least a tad softer. - Hits-based giving has become institutionalized and popularized. This makes, e.g., an organization like ALLFED possible. I think that your “Losses look worse relative to safe bets” point might be dependent on your specific social circle, and maybe moot throughout most of EA. - As EA becomes larger, (entrepreneurial) specialization becomes possible. This counteracts the effect of low-hanging fruit having been picked, to some extent. - There are more EAs, meaning that network effects are stronger. - I don’t think that “burning you EA career capital” is a dynamic I’ve seen much - Asking for feedback is still relatively easy, just by posting an idea on the EA forum. - I also have some impressions based on my own experience, but I don’t think that these generalize
Overall, my bottom line is that I’m uncertain, though I’m assigning slightly higher probability to it being harder.
Note that this is a different question than whether we should “pay a bit more respect to the courage or initiative shown by those who choose to figure out their own unique path or otherwise do something different than those around them”, which one could model as balancing the marginal disillusionment of those who try and fail, and the high expected value of those who succeed. Note that if we also cherish those who try and fail, we can sort of have our cake and eat it too.
This answer brings valuable points, but it rubbed me the wrong way. After thinking about it, I think that it feels partisan because all of your points go in one direction, but just because the question doesn’t ask about a tautology, I’d expect there to be competing considerations.
Here are some competing considerations:
- Charity Entrepreneurship now exists, and makes entrepreneurship much, much easier. I think that this effect is stronger than any other effect. Note that they offer a stipend.
- I think you’re confusing selection effects for environmental effects. As EA becomes larger, it will include people who are less hardcore, but for a given level of hardcoreness, it’s unclear whether entrepreneurship is easier or harder. For example, Toby Ord pledged to donate everything he earned above £18,000, whereas EAs today seems at least a tad softer.
- Hits-based giving has become institutionalized and popularized. This makes, e.g., an organization like ALLFED possible. I think that your “Losses look worse relative to safe bets” point might be dependent on your specific social circle, and maybe moot throughout most of EA.
- As EA becomes larger, (entrepreneurial) specialization becomes possible. This counteracts the effect of low-hanging fruit having been picked, to some extent.
- There are more EAs, meaning that network effects are stronger.
- I don’t think that “burning you EA career capital” is a dynamic I’ve seen much
- Asking for feedback is still relatively easy, just by posting an idea on the EA forum.
- I also have some impressions based on my own experience, but I don’t think that these generalize
Overall, my bottom line is that I’m uncertain, though I’m assigning slightly higher probability to it being harder.
Note that this is a different question than whether we should “pay a bit more respect to the courage or initiative shown by those who choose to figure out their own unique path or otherwise do something different than those around them”, which one could model as balancing the marginal disillusionment of those who try and fail, and the high expected value of those who succeed. Note that if we also cherish those who try and fail, we can sort of have our cake and eat it too.