Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I never thought about this question before and it challenges my intuitive outlook.
Larks mentioned a factor that seems central to me and that I don’t know how to fit into your argument:
Diminishing returns due to running out of good people to employ.
My gut’s perspective is this: By investing resources to employ/engage/convince smart people today, we are investing in “capacity building”, and that’s key for long-lasting impact. OPP excellent “Direct work” contributions to both long- and also short-term cause areas will pay off immensely by drawing in more excellent people, further growing the amount of smart minds and resources available to longtermist causes. So as long as there are a lot of EA & longtermism-sympathetic smart minds out there, we should try to reach them by public excellent work that they naturally would want to be part of.
Yes, I agree that’s an important consideration. Doing direct work also causes movement building, creating a bunch of extra value. (Some even argue that most movement building comes from direct work rather than explicit movement building efforts.) It doesn’t seem like earning to save will be as good on this front, though I think that building up a big pot of money can also get people interested (though maybe for dubious reasons!).
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I never thought about this question before and it challenges my intuitive outlook.
Larks mentioned a factor that seems central to me and that I don’t know how to fit into your argument:
My gut’s perspective is this: By investing resources to employ/engage/convince smart people today, we are investing in “capacity building”, and that’s key for long-lasting impact. OPP excellent “Direct work” contributions to both long- and also short-term cause areas will pay off immensely by drawing in more excellent people, further growing the amount of smart minds and resources available to longtermist causes. So as long as there are a lot of EA & longtermism-sympathetic smart minds out there, we should try to reach them by public excellent work that they naturally would want to be part of.
Yes, I agree that’s an important consideration. Doing direct work also causes movement building, creating a bunch of extra value. (Some even argue that most movement building comes from direct work rather than explicit movement building efforts.) It doesn’t seem like earning to save will be as good on this front, though I think that building up a big pot of money can also get people interested (though maybe for dubious reasons!).