So the incentives are not pointing in the right direction. Capable forecasters can earn significantly more by predicting societally-useless sports stuff, or simply by arbitraging between the big European sports-houses and crypto markets. Meanwhile, the people who remain forecasting socially useful stuff on Metaculus, like whether Russia will invade the Ukraine or whether there will be any new nuclear explosions in wartime, do so to a large extent out of the goodness of their heart.
I think that the clear solution to this is to either increase the overall willingness to pay forecasters, or to be willing to subsidize liquidity in prediction markets for questions that are of general value.
I think I don’t quite see it this way. I agree that more money directed towards forecasters is good. However, there are different lessons one could take here.
Altruistic jobs often pay less than very selfish ones. A big reason why is because many people care about altruistic roles more, and are willing to do them for much cheaper. The “selfish” companies essentially have to pay more for people to be willing to work for them.
Telsa and SpaceX both paid less, and had worse working conditions, than other silicon valley companies, for example. Nonprofits often pay even lower. (Some of this is unjustified, but my guess is that some of it just comes from higher supply of workers).
do so to a large extent out of the goodness of their heart
I feel like the phrase “goodness of their heart” implies that it’s unusual for people to do things out of altruism or meaning. But I think it’s very frequent. Basically all of the Wikipedia editors, and almost all of Open Source, is done due a mix of interest/altruism. Much of the funding would be due to altruism, so this really doesn’t seem much different.
I think I don’t quite see it this way. I agree that more money directed towards forecasters is good. However, there are different lessons one could take here.
Altruistic jobs often pay less than very selfish ones. A big reason why is because many people care about altruistic roles more, and are willing to do them for much cheaper. The “selfish” companies essentially have to pay more for people to be willing to work for them.
Telsa and SpaceX both paid less, and had worse working conditions, than other silicon valley companies, for example. Nonprofits often pay even lower. (Some of this is unjustified, but my guess is that some of it just comes from higher supply of workers).
I feel like the phrase “goodness of their heart” implies that it’s unusual for people to do things out of altruism or meaning. But I think it’s very frequent. Basically all of the Wikipedia editors, and almost all of Open Source, is done due a mix of interest/altruism. Much of the funding would be due to altruism, so this really doesn’t seem much different.