One thing I like about the EA Hotel is that there is a selection effect in that people who aren’t committed to EA are unlikely to want to move there. Given the huge amount of funds in EA, I think that we ought to greatly expand this kind of thing, although perhaps we might want to be wary about locating such an institute in a major city.
This is an important point. You want some barrier to entry, while also minimizing deadweight loss from signaling / credentialing. So “you can join EA and get funding, but only if you complete a bunch of arbitrary tasks” is bad, but “you can join EA and get funding, but only if you move to this town” is pretty good!
Of course it would be nice to have an EA Hotel equivalent that is more amenable to people with visa/family/health restrictions (Especially now that the UK is not part of the EU and has Covid-related entry requirements), but I think it’s a fairly good model for unblocking potential talent without throwing money around.
There is also significant loss caused by moving to a different town, i.e. loss of important connections with friends and family at home, but we’re tempted not to count those.
My original idea (quote below) included funding people at equivalent costs remotely. Basically no one asked about that. I guess because not many EAs have that low a living cost (~£6k/yr). And not that many could without moving to a different town (or country), and there isn’t much appetite for that / coordination is difficult.
Maybe we need a grant specifically for people to work on research remotely that has a higher living cost cap? Or a hierarchy of such grants with a range of living costs that are proportionally harder to get the higher the costs are.
For consistency, grants should be given in general to any EA whose living costs are low enough… Providing grants only at low levels of living costs [can be] a better investment for the donor, but it also leaves a gap for people who don’t want to—or aren’t in a position to—radically alter their lifestyles but still need their living costs covered in order to do (more) useful EA things. Given that EA (as a movement) seems to have plenty of cash at the moment, perhaps there is room for this space to grow. I can envisage a hierarchy where the bigger grants have more stringent demands and more competition. I guess this is just the current non-profit (and for profit!) landscape, but for individuals instead of organisations.
That’s true, but feels less deadweight to me. You have fewer friends, but that results in more time. You move out of one town, but into another with new opportunities.
One thing I like about the EA Hotel is that there is a selection effect in that people who aren’t committed to EA are unlikely to want to move there. Given the huge amount of funds in EA, I think that we ought to greatly expand this kind of thing, although perhaps we might want to be wary about locating such an institute in a major city.
This is an important point. You want some barrier to entry, while also minimizing deadweight loss from signaling / credentialing. So “you can join EA and get funding, but only if you complete a bunch of arbitrary tasks” is bad, but “you can join EA and get funding, but only if you move to this town” is pretty good!
Of course it would be nice to have an EA Hotel equivalent that is more amenable to people with visa/family/health restrictions (Especially now that the UK is not part of the EU and has Covid-related entry requirements), but I think it’s a fairly good model for unblocking potential talent without throwing money around.
There is also significant loss caused by moving to a different town, i.e. loss of important connections with friends and family at home, but we’re tempted not to count those.
My original idea (quote below) included funding people at equivalent costs remotely. Basically no one asked about that. I guess because not many EAs have that low a living cost (~£6k/yr). And not that many could without moving to a different town (or country), and there isn’t much appetite for that / coordination is difficult.
Maybe we need a grant specifically for people to work on research remotely that has a higher living cost cap? Or a hierarchy of such grants with a range of living costs that are proportionally harder to get the higher the costs are.
Yeah, a hierarchy of grants would make sense.
That’s true, but feels less deadweight to me. You have fewer friends, but that results in more time. You move out of one town, but into another with new opportunities.