Thanks for the reply, your points make sense! There is certainly a problem of “degree” to each of the concerns I wrote about in the comment, so arguments both for and against it should be taken into account. (To be clear, I wasn’t raising my points to dismiss your approach; Instead, they’re things that I think need to be taken care of, if we’re to take such approach.)
I have to say I’m not sure why the most influential time being in the future wouldn’t imply investing for that time though—I’d be interested to hear your reasoning.
Caveat: I haven’t spend much time thinking about this problem of investing vs direct work, so please don’t take my views too seriously. I should have made this clear in my original comment, my bad.
My first consideration is that we need to distinguish between “this century is more important than any given century in the future” and “this century is more important than all centuries in the future combined”. The latter argues strongly against investing for the future; But the former doesn’t seem to, as by investing now (patient philanthropy, movement building, etc.) you can potentially benefit many centuries to come.
The second consideration is that there’re many more factors than “how important this century is”. The need of the EA movement is one (and is a particularly important consideration for movement building), personal fit is another, among others.
Thanks for the reply, your points make sense! There is certainly a problem of “degree” to each of the concerns I wrote about in the comment, so arguments both for and against it should be taken into account. (To be clear, I wasn’t raising my points to dismiss your approach; Instead, they’re things that I think need to be taken care of, if we’re to take such approach.)
Caveat: I haven’t spend much time thinking about this problem of investing vs direct work, so please don’t take my views too seriously. I should have made this clear in my original comment, my bad.
My first consideration is that we need to distinguish between “this century is more important than any given century in the future” and “this century is more important than all centuries in the future combined”. The latter argues strongly against investing for the future; But the former doesn’t seem to, as by investing now (patient philanthropy, movement building, etc.) you can potentially benefit many centuries to come.
The second consideration is that there’re many more factors than “how important this century is”. The need of the EA movement is one (and is a particularly important consideration for movement building), personal fit is another, among others.