Just to understand your argument—is the reputational risk your only concern, or do you also have other concerns? E.g. are you saying it’s intrinsically wrong to pay such wages?
“There is a good chance, I think, that EA ends up paying professional staff significantly more to do exactly the same work to exactly the same standard as before, which is a substantive problem;”
At least in this hypothetical example it would seem naively ineffective (not taking into account things like signaling value) to pay people more salary for same output. (And fwiw here I think qualities like employee wellbeing is part of “output”. But it is unclear how directly salary helps that area.)
At least in this hypothetical example it would seem naively ineffective (not taking into account things like signaling value) to pay people more salary for same output.
Right, though I guess many would argue that by paying more you increase the output—either by attracting more productive staff or by increasing the productivity of existing staff (by allowing them to, e.g. make purchases that buy time). (My view is probably that the first of those effects is the stronger one.)
But of course the relative strength of these different considerations is tricky to work out. There is no doubt some point beyond which it is ineffective to pay staff more.
Just to understand your argument—is the reputational risk your only concern, or do you also have other concerns? E.g. are you saying it’s intrinsically wrong to pay such wages?
“There is a good chance, I think, that EA ends up paying professional staff significantly more to do exactly the same work to exactly the same standard as before, which is a substantive problem;”
At least in this hypothetical example it would seem naively ineffective (not taking into account things like signaling value) to pay people more salary for same output. (And fwiw here I think qualities like employee wellbeing is part of “output”. But it is unclear how directly salary helps that area.)
Right, though I guess many would argue that by paying more you increase the output—either by attracting more productive staff or by increasing the productivity of existing staff (by allowing them to, e.g. make purchases that buy time). (My view is probably that the first of those effects is the stronger one.)
But of course the relative strength of these different considerations is tricky to work out. There is no doubt some point beyond which it is ineffective to pay staff more.