Shouldn’t we know better than to update in retrospect based on one highly uncertain datapoint?
We have a number of political data people in EA who thought donating to Flynn was a good investment early in the campaign cycle (later on I was hearing they thought it was no longer worth it). There was also good reason to believe Flynn could be high-impact if elected. Let’s not overthink this.
I agree we shouldn’t update much on the effectiveness of campaign donations. Despite being less enthusiastic about donations to Carrick than [literally every prominent community member I saw comment on the election], I actually think donating to Carrick was totally reasonable, as I mentioned in the post. This post is just about how we collectively reach such decisions; I’m concerned about the process.
This post was originally going to be more about elections, but I didn’t have time to write that. I kept the lede because it is relevant; Carrick lost by quite a lot, and in retrospect marginal donations were wasted, and I think some people wouldn’t have donated if they knew more at the time. (And because the lede explains why I’m posting this now.)
If Carrick won—or if the election was close—I would have written something similar but with slightly different framing/tone.
As a logical point, it also seems like you could have written up an analysis or BOTEC when it seems like it mattered (maybe anonymously under an account “Definitely Not Zach Stein-Perlman”. This is because it could have influenced $10M (or even more).
You could then say “Ah ha, it was I all along”, and this would be a little more convincing that this reasoning was possible.
Fair. If a similar scenario arises in the future, and I disagree with the consensus, I’ll strongly consider sharing analysis. (Also note that major bandwagoning happened quickly, within a day of ASB’s post. Slowing down would allow for people to do more analysis.)
Shouldn’t we know better than to update in retrospect based on one highly uncertain datapoint?
We have a number of political data people in EA who thought donating to Flynn was a good investment early in the campaign cycle (later on I was hearing they thought it was no longer worth it). There was also good reason to believe Flynn could be high-impact if elected. Let’s not overthink this.
I agree we shouldn’t update much on the effectiveness of campaign donations. Despite being less enthusiastic about donations to Carrick than [literally every prominent community member I saw comment on the election], I actually think donating to Carrick was totally reasonable, as I mentioned in the post. This post is just about how we collectively reach such decisions; I’m concerned about the process.
I don’t understand the premise of the post especially given what you just wrote.
Would you write this if Flynn won? I’m a little skeptical you would as your post leads heavily with this outcome.
This post was originally going to be more about elections, but I didn’t have time to write that. I kept the lede because it is relevant; Carrick lost by quite a lot, and in retrospect marginal donations were wasted, and I think some people wouldn’t have donated if they knew more at the time. (And because the lede explains why I’m posting this now.)
If Carrick won—or if the election was close—I would have written something similar but with slightly different framing/tone.
As a logical point, it also seems like you could have written up an analysis or BOTEC when it seems like it mattered (maybe anonymously under an account “Definitely Not Zach Stein-Perlman”. This is because it could have influenced $10M (or even more).
You could then say “Ah ha, it was I all along”, and this would be a little more convincing that this reasoning was possible.
Fair. If a similar scenario arises in the future, and I disagree with the consensus, I’ll strongly consider sharing analysis. (Also note that major bandwagoning happened quickly, within a day of ASB’s post. Slowing down would allow for people to do more analysis.)