I want to illustrate the “larger organizations are much more risk averse” point. When I worked at Rethink Priorities, I felt less freedom to publicly share unpolished and controversial thoughts because that could hurt Rethink Priorities reputation. And the bigger Rethink Priorities grew, the more there was to lose, the more this became a problem. Because of this, articles that I didn’t think were very promising but worth publishing (e.g., aquatic noise) took more time to finish as every claim went through more scrutiny than it would be optimal if I was an independent researcher. Also, I never publicly shared my preliminary findings on things that I didn’t think were promising because it would’ve taken too much time. Finally, it was more difficult to express some bold opinions like Wild Animal Welfare is not very promising because it could hurt Rethink Priorities’ Wild Animal Welfare funding and relationships with some other organizations.
I want to illustrate the “larger organizations are much more risk averse” point. When I worked at Rethink Priorities, I felt less freedom to publicly share unpolished and controversial thoughts because that could hurt Rethink Priorities reputation. And the bigger Rethink Priorities grew, the more there was to lose, the more this became a problem. Because of this, articles that I didn’t think were very promising but worth publishing (e.g., aquatic noise) took more time to finish as every claim went through more scrutiny than it would be optimal if I was an independent researcher. Also, I never publicly shared my preliminary findings on things that I didn’t think were promising because it would’ve taken too much time. Finally, it was more difficult to express some bold opinions like Wild Animal Welfare is not very promising because it could hurt Rethink Priorities’ Wild Animal Welfare funding and relationships with some other organizations.