The key words there are “if there were enough resources.”
As a practical matter, what EA does is inevitably and heavily influenced by what gets funded. That, and what will people think will get funded, influence what gets talked about at conferences, what areas new EAs go into, and so on. And, for the most part, what gets funded is ultimately up to a few people and their delegates.
Imagine a world in which SBF existed (in non-fraudulent form) and the FTX Animal Fund was handing out $150MM a year to animal-welfare organizations and peanuts to longtermism. I’d suggest that EA would already look significantly different than it did in October 2022, and would have looked even more significantly different in October 2027.
I don’t think the original poster is wrong that megadonors have an outsized influence on which cause areas EA is doing significant work in.
The key words there are “if there were enough resources.”
As a practical matter, what EA does is inevitably and heavily influenced by what gets funded. That, and what will people think will get funded, influence what gets talked about at conferences, what areas new EAs go into, and so on. And, for the most part, what gets funded is ultimately up to a few people and their delegates.
Imagine a world in which SBF existed (in non-fraudulent form) and the FTX Animal Fund was handing out $150MM a year to animal-welfare organizations and peanuts to longtermism. I’d suggest that EA would already look significantly different than it did in October 2022, and would have looked even more significantly different in October 2027.
I don’t think the original poster is wrong that megadonors have an outsized influence on which cause areas EA is doing significant work in.