I think I would spend a substantial amount of money on prizes for people who seem to have done obviously really good things for the world. Giving $10M to scihub seems worth it. Maybe giving $5M to Daniel Ellsberg as a prize for his lifetime achievements. There are probably more people in this reference class of people who seem to me to have done heroic things, but haven’t even been remotely well enough rewarded (like, it seems obvious that I would have wanted Einstein to die having at least a few millions in the bank, so righting wrongs of that reference class seems valuable, though Einstein did at least get a Nobel prize). My guess is one could spend another $100M this way.
I’m really surprised by this; I think things like the Future of Life award are good, but if I got $1B I would definitely not think about spending potentially $100m on similar awards as an EA endeavor. Can you say more about this? Why do you think this is so valuable?
It seems to me that one of the biggest problems with the world is that only a small fraction of people who do a really large amount of good get much rewarded for it. It seems likely that this prevents many people from pursuing doing much good with their lives.
My favorite way of solving this kind of issue is with Impact Certificates, which has decent amount of writing on it, and you can think of the above as just buying about $100M of impact certificates for the relevant people (in practice I expect that if you get a good impact certificate market going, which is a big if, you could productively spend substantially more than $1B).
I’m really surprised by this; I think things like the Future of Life award are good, but if I got $1B I would definitely not think about spending potentially $100m on similar awards as an EA endeavor. Can you say more about this? Why do you think this is so valuable?
It seems to me that one of the biggest problems with the world is that only a small fraction of people who do a really large amount of good get much rewarded for it. It seems likely that this prevents many people from pursuing doing much good with their lives.
My favorite way of solving this kind of issue is with Impact Certificates, which has decent amount of writing on it, and you can think of the above as just buying about $100M of impact certificates for the relevant people (in practice I expect that if you get a good impact certificate market going, which is a big if, you could productively spend substantially more than $1B).