I imagine A < B in terms of numbers of people; and B ≈ C, given you are pre-selecting for “self-starting EAs”. I think just being dedicated enough to EA to want to spend a year working on it full time is a reasonably strong signal that you would have something to contribute, given that dedication seems to require a strong understanding in the case of EA. And self-starting + dedication + a strong understanding + working full-time on trying to have impact at the margin should = impact at the margin.
Obviously there is then the important detail of how big the impact is, relative to the salary. CEEALAR tries to keep costs to a minimum as a way of raising this ratio, but it’s plausible that much higher salaries (grants) could produce more impact/$.
I think more dedicated self-starting EAs should be funded to work on EA full-time. Bs can be identified by offering grants and seeing who applies (this is already happening to some degree, but could be expanded). Once identified, we vet them to try and estimate whether it’s cost effective to throw a year’s salary at them.
I think just being dedicated enough to EA to want to spend a year working on it full time is a reasonably strong signal that you would have something to contribute
I think being dedicated enough to EA to want to spend a year working on it full time =/= being dedicated enough to EA to actually work on it full-time with minimal management. I agree the latter is a pretty strong signal, especially if you’re able to identify important things to work on. Holden’s post on career choice for longtermists say that this is an important milestone for researchers:
You’re successfully devoting time to this and creating content. (I expect this to be the hardest milestone to hit for many—it can be hard to simply sustain motivation and productivity given how self-directed this work often needs to be.)
I imagine A < B in terms of numbers of people; and B ≈ C, given you are pre-selecting for “self-starting EAs”. I think just being dedicated enough to EA to want to spend a year working on it full time is a reasonably strong signal that you would have something to contribute, given that dedication seems to require a strong understanding in the case of EA. And self-starting + dedication + a strong understanding + working full-time on trying to have impact at the margin should = impact at the margin.
Obviously there is then the important detail of how big the impact is, relative to the salary. CEEALAR tries to keep costs to a minimum as a way of raising this ratio, but it’s plausible that much higher salaries (grants) could produce more impact/$.
I think more dedicated self-starting EAs should be funded to work on EA full-time. Bs can be identified by offering grants and seeing who applies (this is already happening to some degree, but could be expanded). Once identified, we vet them to try and estimate whether it’s cost effective to throw a year’s salary at them.
I think being dedicated enough to EA to want to spend a year working on it full time =/= being dedicated enough to EA to actually work on it full-time with minimal management. I agree the latter is a pretty strong signal, especially if you’re able to identify important things to work on. Holden’s post on career choice for longtermists say that this is an important milestone for researchers:
(Or, if it’s better for EA to stay smaller, then more dedicated self-starting __s should be funded to work on __ full-time.)