Nice! I really like the idea of EAs getting ahead by coordinating in unconventional ways.
The ideas in “Building and EA social safety net” could be indirectly encouraged by just making EA a tighter community with more close friendships. I’m pretty happy giving an EA friend a 0-interest loan, but I’d be hesitant to do that for a random EA. By e.g. organizing social events where close friendships could form, more stuff like that would happen naturally. Letting these things happen naturally also makes them harder to exploit.
I agree with this. Just to expand a bit—wild elephants might generally have net positive lives, but there still might be worthwhile interventions, e.g. to ensures some number that would have been killed by predators instead die in their sleep. The most relevant question is not whether wild animals have net positive lives, but how much their welfare could be improved per dollar.