On the first day, alexrjl went to Carl Shulman and said: “I have looked at 100 cause candidates, and here are the five I predict have the highest probability of being evaluated favorably by you”
And Carl Shulman looked at alexrjl in the eye, and said: “these are all shit, kiddo”
On the seventh day, alexrjl came back and said: “I have read through 1000 cause candidates in the EA Forum, LessWrong, the old Felicifia forum and all of Brian Tomasik’s writtings. And here are the three I predict have the highest probability of being evaluated favorably by you”
And Carl Shulman looked at alexrjl in the eye and said: “David Pearce already came up with your #1 twenty years ago, but on further inspection it was revealed to not be promising. Ideas#2 and #3 are not worth much because of such and such”
On the seventh day of the seventh week alexrjl came back, and said “I have scrapped Wikipedia, Reddit, all books ever written and otherwise the good half of the internet for keywords related to new cause areas, and came up with 1,000,000 candidates. Here is my top proposal”
And Carl Shulman answered “Mmh, I guess this could be competitive with OpenPhil’s last dollar”
On the first day, alexrjl went to Carl Shulman and said: “I have looked at 100 cause candidates, and here are the five I predict have the highest probability of being evaluated favorably by you”
And Carl Shulman looked at alexrjl in the eye, and said: “these are all shit, kiddo”
On the seventh day, alexrjl came back and said: “I have read through 1000 cause candidates in the EA Forum, LessWrong, the old Felicifia forum and all of Brian Tomasik’s writtings. And here are the three I predict have the highest probability of being evaluated favorably by you”
And Carl Shulman looked at alexrjl in the eye and said: “David Pearce already came up with your #1 twenty years ago, but on further inspection it was revealed to not be promising. Ideas#2 and #3 are not worth much because of such and such”
On the seventh day of the seventh week alexrjl came back, and said “I have scrapped Wikipedia, Reddit, all books ever written and otherwise the good half of the internet for keywords related to new cause areas, and came up with 1,000,000 candidates. Here is my top proposal”
And Carl Shulman answered “Mmh, I guess this could be competitive with OpenPhil’s last dollar”
At this point, alexrjl attained nirvana.