Ceteris paribus, the lower the price people charge, the better for me. If there are enough people who will do things for free, I’ll be all the happier. However, money does help resolve frictions and disagreements about what’s more important to work on. Somebody who is not perfectly aligned with my goals might use my offer of money as enough reason to work on them.
Did you forget how Wikipedia’s 35 million articles were created in the first place? Last I checked they were written by a community who just wanted to contribute to general knowledge and learning. It would be pretty lame if effective altruists were unable to meet the standard set by Wikipedia editors.
In general, I’ve found that the very act of offering money shows my seriousness of belief, even for people who don’t need the money per se, and even if they, individually, decide to ask for less or for nothing at all.
To me it shows that you’re trying to buy EAs’ time instead of working on problems collaboratively. Altruists throwing money at each other doesn’t show seriousness of anything because it’s a zero-sum game. Anyone can write a fat check, bringing people on board to a team and leading a project is the thing that requires determination.
I’m curious what you think of the whole subcategory of the EA movement that donates to EA orgs. Do you think the criticism of your final paragraph applies to that subcategory?
Did you forget how Wikipedia’s 35 million articles were created in the first place? Last I checked they were written by a community who just wanted to contribute to general knowledge and learning. It would be pretty lame if effective altruists were unable to meet the standard set by Wikipedia editors.
To me it shows that you’re trying to buy EAs’ time instead of working on problems collaboratively. Altruists throwing money at each other doesn’t show seriousness of anything because it’s a zero-sum game. Anyone can write a fat check, bringing people on board to a team and leading a project is the thing that requires determination.
I’m curious what you think of the whole subcategory of the EA movement that donates to EA orgs. Do you think the criticism of your final paragraph applies to that subcategory?
Nope.