Yes, something like that: he of course had an influence on what you could get paid for (which seems hard to avoid given some ppl have more money than others) but I don’t think he had a big influence on people’s thinking about cause pri.
I don’t think SBF impacted cause prioritization by promoting pet causes that weren’t already favored by parts of the EA community. But I do think SBF, through the FTX Future Fund, likely shifted how people prioritized across different EA causes.
My sense is that the easy availability of longetermist funding made people more likely to work in that space, as people were well aware of a dynamic where (in Peter Wildeford’s words): “it’s clear that global poverty does get the most overall EA funding right now, but it’s also clear that it’s more easy for me to personally get my 20th best longtermism idea funded than to get my 3rd best animal idea or 3rd best global poverty idea funded and this asymmetry seems important.”
Yes, I’d basically agree – he didn’t influence the thinking that much but he did impact what you could get paid to do (and that could also have long term impacts on the structure of the community).
Though, given income inequality, the latter problem seems very hard to solve.
Yes, something like that: he of course had an influence on what you could get paid for (which seems hard to avoid given some ppl have more money than others) but I don’t think he had a big influence on people’s thinking about cause pri.
I don’t think SBF impacted cause prioritization by promoting pet causes that weren’t already favored by parts of the EA community. But I do think SBF, through the FTX Future Fund, likely shifted how people prioritized across different EA causes.
My sense is that the easy availability of longetermist funding made people more likely to work in that space, as people were well aware of a dynamic where (in Peter Wildeford’s words): “it’s clear that global poverty does get the most overall EA funding right now, but it’s also clear that it’s more easy for me to personally get my 20th best longtermism idea funded than to get my 3rd best animal idea or 3rd best global poverty idea funded and this asymmetry seems important.”
Yes, I’d basically agree – he didn’t influence the thinking that much but he did impact what you could get paid to do (and that could also have long term impacts on the structure of the community).
Though, given income inequality, the latter problem seems very hard to solve.