Thanks for this report! I think that this is a very important research topic, and that this report makes quite valuable contributions to it.
Iām looking forward to seeing further developments in relation to the proposed Long-Term Investment Fund. I also hope this report will help inspire, help guide, and/āor be followed up by further research in this area. In particular, Iād be keen to see more analysis regarding how strong the argument for giving now for the sake ofācompound returns on givingā and/āor āinvestment-like funding opportunitiesā is, as the possibility that that argument is strong is the main reason I remain unsure whether we should invest to give. (I think I lean towards investing to give on the margin, but I see those benefits from giving now as the main reason I might be wrong about that.)
[I provided comments on a draft of this report, and already said to Sjir roughly whatās in this comment.]
Investment-like giving opportunities also seem most relevant to me and Iād love seeing more thought on this topic. My current intuition leans towards giving now, though my understanding feels pretty simplistic, mostly based on impressions that
many very smart people are currently directing their intellectual and altruistic ambitions suboptimally because they never thought about prioritisation and longtermism
there is not too much competition in offering them positions in an intellectual and altruistic environment where they can work on priority issues
I likely got this wrong, but as a concrete plausibly not actually true example, Iām thinking about a researcher like David Roodman, independently doing excellent work that caught the attention of GiveWell, influencing him to down the road directing his attention on longtermist issues. I expect there are many more people like him at different stages of their career and Iād love to see more Open Philanthropy Projects and Future of Humanity Institutes and MIRIs (maybe Edward Kmett as a similar example) and so forth where they can work or with whom theyād want to collaborate.
Thanks for this report! I think that this is a very important research topic, and that this report makes quite valuable contributions to it.
Iām looking forward to seeing further developments in relation to the proposed Long-Term Investment Fund. I also hope this report will help inspire, help guide, and/āor be followed up by further research in this area. In particular, Iād be keen to see more analysis regarding how strong the argument for giving now for the sake ofācompound returns on givingā and/āor āinvestment-like funding opportunitiesā is, as the possibility that that argument is strong is the main reason I remain unsure whether we should invest to give. (I think I lean towards investing to give on the margin, but I see those benefits from giving now as the main reason I might be wrong about that.)
[I provided comments on a draft of this report, and already said to Sjir roughly whatās in this comment.]
Investment-like giving opportunities also seem most relevant to me and Iād love seeing more thought on this topic. My current intuition leans towards giving now, though my understanding feels pretty simplistic, mostly based on impressions that
many very smart people are currently directing their intellectual and altruistic ambitions suboptimally because they never thought about prioritisation and longtermism
there is not too much competition in offering them positions in an intellectual and altruistic environment where they can work on priority issues
I likely got this wrong, but as a concrete plausibly not actually true example, Iām thinking about a researcher like David Roodman, independently doing excellent work that caught the attention of GiveWell, influencing him to down the road directing his attention on longtermist issues. I expect there are many more people like him at different stages of their career and Iād love to see more Open Philanthropy Projects and Future of Humanity Institutes and MIRIs (maybe Edward Kmett as a similar example) and so forth where they can work or with whom theyād want to collaborate.