I think the key question is what portion of EA’s total funding goes toward genuine discovery versus optimization within existing spotlights. Your examples may well be real successes. But if they represent a tiny fraction of total resource allocation, that’s consistent with my argument rather than a counter to it.
I do think an argument over funding allocation is importantly different from the one made in your post — for example, I think convincing EA groups to do more of this work could be an effective way to improve the situation that could also be essentially free. Although if you’re trying to make a point similar to Doing Prioritization Better (“Since cross-cause prioritization work (and to a lesser extent cause prioritization) is presently rare, and has considerable benefits, the EA community may well be radically misallocating its prioritization efforts.”) then I broadly agree. :)
I’m also curious whether you think CEARCH matches the solution you’re thinking of?
The funding allocation question and the structural argument aren’t as separable as you’re suggesting. Nobody decided 89% within-cause was optimal. It’s the revealed preference of a system where within-cause work is legible, fundable, and career-safe, and discovery work is none of those things.
I’d also draw a distinction the RP piece doesn’t make: even the 9% classified as “cause prioritization” is mostly ranking known cause areas against each other. That’s a different task from discovering new ones. CEARCH is the closest thing to dedicated cause discovery in EA, and it’s a tiny team doing top-down desktop research. There’s no intake mechanism where a community member with unusual domain knowledge can surface an observation. EA Funds is organized into four pre-existing cause area buckets with no “other” category, and even within those buckets the lens is narrow. The entire system is built to optimize within the existing map. Nobody’s job is to ask what’s not on it.
To be clear, I don’t think shutting down the Forum is the answer. But the Forum needs a real connection to the power structure. Right now, someone could discover Cause X and post it here, and in all likelihood it would get modest engagement from people without allocation power, sit for a day or two, and sink. The people who could actually act on it probably aren’t reading the Forum systematically, and there’s no process that routes a promising signal to them. That’s what I mean by performance of openness. The door is open but it doesn’t lead anywhere.
The suggestion that this work could be done essentially for free by volunteer EA groups is itself revealing. Nobody suggests within-cause prioritization should be unpaid side work. The system prices discovery at what it’s willing to pay for it.
I think the key question is what portion of EA’s total funding goes toward genuine discovery versus optimization within existing spotlights. Your examples may well be real successes. But if they represent a tiny fraction of total resource allocation, that’s consistent with my argument rather than a counter to it.
I do think an argument over funding allocation is importantly different from the one made in your post — for example, I think convincing EA groups to do more of this work could be an effective way to improve the situation that could also be essentially free. Although if you’re trying to make a point similar to Doing Prioritization Better (“Since cross-cause prioritization work (and to a lesser extent cause prioritization) is presently rare, and has considerable benefits, the EA community may well be radically misallocating its prioritization efforts.”) then I broadly agree. :)
I’m also curious whether you think CEARCH matches the solution you’re thinking of?
The funding allocation question and the structural argument aren’t as separable as you’re suggesting. Nobody decided 89% within-cause was optimal. It’s the revealed preference of a system where within-cause work is legible, fundable, and career-safe, and discovery work is none of those things.
I’d also draw a distinction the RP piece doesn’t make: even the 9% classified as “cause prioritization” is mostly ranking known cause areas against each other. That’s a different task from discovering new ones. CEARCH is the closest thing to dedicated cause discovery in EA, and it’s a tiny team doing top-down desktop research. There’s no intake mechanism where a community member with unusual domain knowledge can surface an observation. EA Funds is organized into four pre-existing cause area buckets with no “other” category, and even within those buckets the lens is narrow. The entire system is built to optimize within the existing map. Nobody’s job is to ask what’s not on it.
To be clear, I don’t think shutting down the Forum is the answer. But the Forum needs a real connection to the power structure. Right now, someone could discover Cause X and post it here, and in all likelihood it would get modest engagement from people without allocation power, sit for a day or two, and sink. The people who could actually act on it probably aren’t reading the Forum systematically, and there’s no process that routes a promising signal to them. That’s what I mean by performance of openness. The door is open but it doesn’t lead anywhere.
The suggestion that this work could be done essentially for free by volunteer EA groups is itself revealing. Nobody suggests within-cause prioritization should be unpaid side work. The system prices discovery at what it’s willing to pay for it.