Of course, Gates has several advantages over EA in this regard. The Gates cause areas are more popular than longtermism, which attracts a greater amount of attention than its actual share of the “EA budget” so far. Gates has little need to attract adherents or additional financing—and if this is happening, it is largely in private conversations with other megarich persons not in the public eye. So there’s less need to compete in the marketplace for donors/adherents. Some of EA’s best arguments, especially those grounded in utilitarianism, are inherently going to draw objections from large swaths of the public. Gates doesn’t have to compete and thus ruffles fewer feathers.
The Gates movement has a lot of fairly establishment figures vs. EA being much more heavily a 20s/30s movement + sometimes edgy academics. That has its pros and cons, as does the Gates movement’s greater centralization. In a sense, EA is like a group of startups and the Gates movement is like IBM. Each setup has certain advantages and challenges.
My branding take is that not everything needs to be done under the same brand name. Corporations know how to do this—think of your big hotel chains with 30+ brands so they can compete at different price points without devaluing their prestige brands.
Of course, Gates has several advantages over EA in this regard. The Gates cause areas are more popular than longtermism, which attracts a greater amount of attention than its actual share of the “EA budget” so far. Gates has little need to attract adherents or additional financing—and if this is happening, it is largely in private conversations with other megarich persons not in the public eye. So there’s less need to compete in the marketplace for donors/adherents. Some of EA’s best arguments, especially those grounded in utilitarianism, are inherently going to draw objections from large swaths of the public. Gates doesn’t have to compete and thus ruffles fewer feathers.
The Gates movement has a lot of fairly establishment figures vs. EA being much more heavily a 20s/30s movement + sometimes edgy academics. That has its pros and cons, as does the Gates movement’s greater centralization. In a sense, EA is like a group of startups and the Gates movement is like IBM. Each setup has certain advantages and challenges.
My branding take is that not everything needs to be done under the same brand name. Corporations know how to do this—think of your big hotel chains with 30+ brands so they can compete at different price points without devaluing their prestige brands.