What is the LTFF’s position on whether we’re currently at an extremely influential time for direct work? I saw that there was a recent grant on research into patient philanthropy, but most of the grants seem to be made from the perspective of someone who thinks that we are at “the hinge of history”. Is that true?
At least for me the answer is yes, I think the arguments for the hinge of history are pretty compelling, and I have not seen any compelling counterarguments. I think the comments on Will’s post (which is the only post I know arguing against the hinge of history hypothesis) are basically correct and remove almost all basis I can see for Will’s arguments. See also Buck’s post on the same topic.
I think this century is likely to be extremely influential, but there’s likely important direct work to do at many parts of this century. Both patient philanthropy projects we funded have relevance to that timescale—I’d like to know about how best to allocate longtermist resources between direct work, investment, and movement-building over the coming years, and I’m interested in how philanthropic institutions might change.
I also think it’s worth spending some resources thinking about scenarios where this century isn’t extremely influential.
Whether we are at the “hinge of history” is a gradual question; different moments in history have different degrees of influentialness. I personally think the current moment is likely very influential, such that I want to spend a significant fraction of the resources we have now, and I think on the current margin we should probably be spending more. I think this could change over the coming years, though.
What is the LTFF’s position on whether we’re currently at an extremely influential time for direct work? I saw that there was a recent grant on research into patient philanthropy, but most of the grants seem to be made from the perspective of someone who thinks that we are at “the hinge of history”. Is that true?
At least for me the answer is yes, I think the arguments for the hinge of history are pretty compelling, and I have not seen any compelling counterarguments. I think the comments on Will’s post (which is the only post I know arguing against the hinge of history hypothesis) are basically correct and remove almost all basis I can see for Will’s arguments. See also Buck’s post on the same topic.
I think this century is likely to be extremely influential, but there’s likely important direct work to do at many parts of this century. Both patient philanthropy projects we funded have relevance to that timescale—I’d like to know about how best to allocate longtermist resources between direct work, investment, and movement-building over the coming years, and I’m interested in how philanthropic institutions might change.
I also think it’s worth spending some resources thinking about scenarios where this century isn’t extremely influential.
Whether we are at the “hinge of history” is a gradual question; different moments in history have different degrees of influentialness. I personally think the current moment is likely very influential, such that I want to spend a significant fraction of the resources we have now, and I think on the current margin we should probably be spending more. I think this could change over the coming years, though.