There have been a few valid critiques of the debate framing, so Iâll make some points to respond to each of them. A general point before I start is that you should feel free to use the discussion thread to outline your opinion, and/âor, your interpretation of the debate statement. I.e. âI strongly agree with the debate statement, because I think 5% of EA Funding over the next decade is the right amount to allocate to this cause areaâ.
1- @Jason brings up the ambiguity of the term âunrestrictedâ in footnote 2. I was thinking of unrestricted funding as all funding which is being allocated according to (roughly) impartial consequentialist reasoning, i.e. (roughly) EA principles. Iâm contrasting that to restricted funds, for example, funds from a foundation that supports aid charities which happen to be given to an EA aid charity.
2- @finm makes a very fair point in this comment: over what timescale are we allocating 5% of the EA funds? This seems like an oversight rather than an accidental ambiguity- if I were to write this again, I might have chosen the next decade, or the next year. Given that 340 users have already voted, I wonât change something so substantial now, but again, feel free to clarify your vote in the discussion thread.
3- @NickLaingargues that 5% of funding might be too high a bar to simply be labelled an âEA priorityâ. I think this is a good point, and maybe the more accurate phrasing would be âTop EA Priorityâ, or the entire statement should have been relative, for example: âAI Welfare should be more of an EA priorityâ and the footnote could clarify this means that a strong agree = we should triple the funding and talent going into it. Again, I wonât change the phrasing now because it doesnât seem fair for earlier voters, but I can see the case for this.
Thanks for the feedback and meta-debate, very EA, keep it up!
There have been a few valid critiques of the debate framing, so Iâll make some points to respond to each of them. A general point before I start is that you should feel free to use the discussion thread to outline your opinion, and/âor, your interpretation of the debate statement. I.e. âI strongly agree with the debate statement, because I think 5% of EA Funding over the next decade is the right amount to allocate to this cause areaâ.
1- @Jason brings up the ambiguity of the term âunrestrictedâ in footnote 2. I was thinking of unrestricted funding as all funding which is being allocated according to (roughly) impartial consequentialist reasoning, i.e. (roughly) EA principles. Iâm contrasting that to restricted funds, for example, funds from a foundation that supports aid charities which happen to be given to an EA aid charity.
2- @finm makes a very fair point in this comment: over what timescale are we allocating 5% of the EA funds? This seems like an oversight rather than an accidental ambiguity- if I were to write this again, I might have chosen the next decade, or the next year. Given that 340 users have already voted, I wonât change something so substantial now, but again, feel free to clarify your vote in the discussion thread.
3- @NickLaing argues that 5% of funding might be too high a bar to simply be labelled an âEA priorityâ. I think this is a good point, and maybe the more accurate phrasing would be âTop EA Priorityâ, or the entire statement should have been relative, for example: âAI Welfare should be more of an EA priorityâ and the footnote could clarify this means that a strong agree = we should triple the funding and talent going into it. Again, I wonât change the phrasing now because it doesnât seem fair for earlier voters, but I can see the case for this.
Thanks for the feedback and meta-debate, very EA, keep it up!