FIRE is not EA directly, you’re right, but they are competently optimizing for high saving rate which is very similar practically to optimizing for high donation rate. I’d also feel much more comfortable about EA’s stability if a good portion of highly engaged EAs were financially independent, and could focus on whatever they thought was the most valuable without any worry about needing to rely on funding applications.
My read is many of the best projects are started by enthusiasts in their free time, like ALLFED, because there’s no need to worry about proving yourself to funders immediately so you can just focus on doing the most good. And an even larger fraction of the best projects are by groups with enough financial slack that they’re not forced into short-term thinking by finances.
This implies that something we should be doing is giving committed, highly engaged EAs something like a $2M unconditional grant for personal use so they could focus on whatever they thought was most valuable.
FIRE is not EA directly, you’re right, but they are competently optimizing for high saving rate which is very similar practically to optimizing for high donation rate. I’d also feel much more comfortable about EA’s stability if a good portion of highly engaged EAs were financially independent, and could focus on whatever they thought was the most valuable without any worry about needing to rely on funding applications.
My read is many of the best projects are started by enthusiasts in their free time, like ALLFED, because there’s no need to worry about proving yourself to funders immediately so you can just focus on doing the most good. And an even larger fraction of the best projects are by groups with enough financial slack that they’re not forced into short-term thinking by finances.
This implies that something we should be doing is giving committed, highly engaged EAs something like a $2M unconditional grant for personal use so they could focus on whatever they thought was most valuable.