This is a great idea!
Jeremy
Karma: 941
I didn’t realize this existed. I have often wished it was easier to listen to YouTube videos while on the go. Great idea!
I’m adding the LessWrong For EA tag to this since this is a perfect example of the type of stuff I endeavor to repost under that.
I agree. When I was facilitating the In Depth virtual program, people often had difficulty finding practical ways to make predictions. It would have been helpful to be able to refer them to this. I emailed to suggest that it be added to the syllabus.
I’ve seen it referred to as a hybrid PAC, but I’m not sure what that means exactly. I guess that part of it is unlimited in funding but can’t donate to candidiases and part of it is limited and can.
I believe the comment you linked to in 1 is referring to the Protect Our Future super PAC, which was, in Carrick’s case buying ads for him and could not donate to his campaign directly.
My understanding is that the GAP (non-super) PAC donates directly to candidates (up to $5000), that they can then spend those funds the same as any other campaign contribution.
The benefit, as it was explained to me, was that GAP is in contact with the candidates, does some amount of vetting, and the candidates see that the money comes from them. An individual donation would not carry any association with preventing pandemics. Important because these are candidates that are not EA aligned or necessarily that committed to pandemic preparedness.
I believe that is the basic case for it. That said, it seems unlikely to be anywhere close to as impactful as a donation to an EA aligned candidate (not sure there are any of those right now though), and I am not aware of any kind of cost effectiveness analysis comparing such a donation to AMF or anything like that.
There is also the $5000 limit that you can donate to GAP as well.
There was this post from GAP about it a while back, but I didn’t find that it made a very strong case for it.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Btm562wDNEuWXj9Gk/guarding-against-pandemics
My understand is that this is different (maybe a PAC rather than super PAC?) and that, the way it is setup, it actually donates directly to the candidates, but is limited to $5000 per candidate, and $5000 per person donating to GAP.
Strongly agree as well!
I am looking to have the 1-to-2 hour long, 2-to-5 person thoughtful conversation, on literally dozens of existing and EA-adjacent topics.
I sympathize with this as it does seem like there aren’t currently a ton of these opportunities like this.This forum, unfortunately, has presented me with consistent misrepresentations and fallacies, which the commentators refuse to address when I point them out.
This is a pretty strong statement that seems like it would benefit from some examples to support it—though maybe it is beside the point as the forum probably isn’t going to be the “1-to-2 hour long, 2-to-5 person thoughtful conversation” you are looking for anyway.
My intuitive understanding of the Alice personality type (independent, skeptical, etc.) is that they are often very entrepreneurial (a skill EA desperately needs), but not usually “joiners”. I have no doubt that a lot could be improved about community building, but there may always be some tension there that is difficult to resolve.
It may be that the best we can hope for in a lot of those cases are people who understand EA ideas and use them to inform their work, but don’t consider themselves EAs. That seems fine to me. Like person 1 in your real life example seems like a big win, even if they don’t consider themselves EA. If the EA intro talk she attended helped get her on that track, then it “worked” for her in some sense.
I have more-or-less come to this same conclusion. As I mentioned in a reply below, Guarding Against Pandemics has a PAC that can receive up to $5000 from individual donors, and can, in turn, donate up to $5000 directly to campaigns.
As the linked post explains, “Donations to the PAC would go towards supporting candidates who are champions for pandemic preparedness in Congress and in state and local offices. ”, so, not necessarily EA aligned in other ways. They could also be from either political party.
This seems potentially pretty impactful, but probably more risky than donating directly to an EA aligned candidate. I am curious what others think about this, or if anyone has done an analysis or anything.
Zach, can you provide a source that it is “about zero”?
My understanding is there are different kinds of PACs. Guarding Against Pandemics has a PAC that cannot receive more than $5000 from individual donors, but can donate up to $5000 directly to campaigns.
Will do!
I am thinking along similar lines Miranda, and I may have some of that comparative advantage too :)
I don’t like to talk about plans too much before actually getting down to doing, but I am working on a project to find ways to support people coming to EA mid-career/mid-life (as I did). I expect to write a top level post about this in the next few weeks.
The goals are crystalizing a bit:
1. helping to keep people engaged and feeling like a part of the community even if they can’t (aren’t a good fit for, or aren’t yet ready to) consider a high impact career change
2. helping people figure out how to have the most impact in the immediate term, within current constraints
3. helping people work towards higher impact, even if it’s in the longer termSome ideas for how to do it:
1. compiling and organizing resources that are specifically relevant for the demographic
2. interfacing with EA orgs (80k, local groups, EA Anywhere, Virtual Programs, etc.) in appropriate, mutually beneficial ways
3. peer-based support (because situations mid-career/life vary widely) - IE probably taking the form of a group to start and then hopefully figuring out what kind of 1-on-1 stuff could work too (mentorship, buddy system, etc.)
Sorry to hear about your illness. I hope you feel better! It was very helpful the one time I used it, so I hope you guys can find a way to keep it going. Thanks!
Related thoughts in the recent 80k SBF interview (which I have only half finished, but is excellent). This link should take you directly to the audio of that part, or you can expand the full transcript on the page and ctrl/cmd-f to “Near-term giving” to read.
I think having 1% of humanity lightly engaged in EA-related activities is more valuable than having 0,0001% deeply engaged.
I agree that this is the crux, but I don’t think it’s an either-or scenario. I guess the question may be how to prioritize recruiting for high priority EA jobs, while also promoting higher-absorbency roles to those that can’t work in the high priority ones.
Being “mediocre, average, or slightly above average” is not always going to be a permanent state. People develop career capital and skills, and someone who isn’t a good fit for a priority role out of university (or at any particular moment), may become one over time. Some of Marc’s suggestions could be thought of as stepping stones (he mentioned this in a few places, but it seems worth calling out).
Related to that, the EA jobs landscape is going to change a lot in the next few years as funding pours in, and projects get started and need to staff-up. It seems worthwhile to keep the “collateral damage” engaged and feeling like a part of the EA community, so that they can potentially help fill the new roles that are created.
I really appreciated this post as well. One thought I had while reading it—there is at least one project to red team EA ideas getting off the ground. Perhaps that’s something that would be interesting to you and could come closer to helping you form you views. Obviously, it would not be a trivial time commitment, but it seems like you are very much qualified to tackle the subject.
Of particular relevance I think to people coming to EA mid-career.
And brilliantly, succinctly summarized by Villiam in the top comment.