Yes, but I expect funders/evaluators to be more informed about which undercover investigators would be best to fund, since I won’t personally have the time or interest to look into their particular average cost-effectiveness, room for more funding, track record, etc., on my own,
Since we are talking about funding people within your network that you personally know, not randos, the idea is that you already know this stuff about some set of people. Like, explicitly, the case for self-funding norms is the case for utilizing informational capital that already exists rather than discarding it.
Knowing that one opportunity is really good doesn’t mean there aren’t far better ones doing similar work.
I think it is not that hard to keep up with what last year’s best opportunities looked like and get a good sense of where the bar will be this year. Compiling the top 5 opportunities or whatever is a lot more labor intensive than reviewing the top 5 and you already state being informed enough to know about and agree with the decisions of funders. So I disagree with level at which we should think we are flying blind.
If the disagreement comes down to a normative or decision-theoretic one
Yes I think this will be the most common source of disagreement at least in your case, my case, sapphire’s case. With respect to the things I know about being rejected this was the case.
All of that said I think I have updated from your posts to be more encouraging of applying for EA funding and/or making forum posts. I will not do this in a deferrential manner and to me it seems harmful to do so—I think people should feel discouraged if you explicitly discard what you personally know about their competence etc.
Since we are talking about funding people within your network that you personally know, not randos, the idea is that you already know this stuff about some set of people. Like, explicitly, the case for self-funding norms is the case for utilizing informational capital that already exists rather than discarding it.
I think it is not that hard to keep up with what last year’s best opportunities looked like and get a good sense of where the bar will be this year. Compiling the top 5 opportunities or whatever is a lot more labor intensive than reviewing the top 5 and you already state being informed enough to know about and agree with the decisions of funders. So I disagree with level at which we should think we are flying blind.
Yes I think this will be the most common source of disagreement at least in your case, my case, sapphire’s case. With respect to the things I know about being rejected this was the case.
All of that said I think I have updated from your posts to be more encouraging of applying for EA funding and/or making forum posts. I will not do this in a deferrential manner and to me it seems harmful to do so—I think people should feel discouraged if you explicitly discard what you personally know about their competence etc.