Manuel Allgaier

• Manuel Allgaier 8 Apr 2024 21:59 UTC

  5 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: SiebeRozendal’s comment on: Quick Up­date on Leav­ing the Board of EV

  It’s easy to vote for something you don’t have to pay for. If we do anything like this, an additional fundraiser to pay for it might be appropriate.

• Manuel Allgaier 1 Apr 2024 14:57 UTC

  20 points

  10 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Joseph Miller’s comment on: Why hasn’t EA done an SBF in­ves­ti­ga­tion and post­mortem?

  Earning to Give still seems the best way to contribute for many people (e.g. people with exceptionally high earning potential, or people with decently paying jobs who aren’t a good fit for direct work or don’t want to switch jobs). I don’t think we should distance ourselves from it.

• Manuel Allgaier 26 Mar 2024 12:41 UTC

  24 points

  11 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Dean Abele’s comment on: An­nounce­ment on the fu­ture of Wytham Abbey

  While I’m also interested in the finances, I fully understand if they prefer not to share all this info publicly. Afaik it’s not common to share such detailed financial statements publicly, even for non-profits.

• Manuel Allgaier 26 Mar 2024 12:39 UTC

  26 points

  6 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Vanessa’s comment on: An­nounce­ment on the fu­ture of Wytham Abbey

  +1, I’d find this very useful too!
  
  For context: After working full-time in EA meta for >3 years, I’ve been thinking about renting or buying property in/​near Berlin or in a cheaper place in Europe to facilitate EA/​longtermist events, co-working and maybe also co-living. I know many others are thinking about this too, some of whom area already making plans, and such retrospectives would be really helpful to inform our decisions. If you prefer not to share it publicly, you can also email me.
  
  From the limited info I have, Wytham Abbey seemed a good idea at the time, and I appreciate you going for it! The decision to sell was probably pretty hard to make, I hope all involved feel good about it now.

AI Risk Sce­nario Role­play (re­peat from EAGxBer­lin)

• Manuel Allgaier 18 Oct 2023 9:56 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ebenezer Dukakis’s comment on: I’m a Former Is­raeli Officer. AMA

  I like the idea but I also doubt a significant number of Palestinians from Gaza would accept that.
  
  A more realistic option might be to try to make it easier for Palestinians to emigrate to any country that accepts them. Maybe Israel could offer everyone who successfully emigrates a $5-10k incentive /​ “starting budget for a new life abroad” and then maybe some other countries would be more interested in taking them if they have more money to spend. It might also help that most Gazans are young, speak Arabic and many also English, and could help fill labor shortages in other countries.
  
  Which countries might be most open to accepting Palestinian migrants (as refugees, student migrants or work migrants)? Any effective pro-migration interventions there?

• Manuel Allgaier 18 Aug 2023 15:42 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: 20 con­crete pro­jects for re­duc­ing ex­is­ten­tial risk

  This is helpful, thanks!

  I notice you didn’t mention fundraising for AI safety.

  Recently, many have mentioned that the funding bar for AI safety projects has increased quite a bit (especially for projects not based in the Bay and not already well connected to funders) and response times from funders such as EA Funds LTFF can be very long (median 2 months afaik), which suggests we should look for more additional funding sources such as new high net worth donors, governments, non-EA foundations etc.

  Do you have any thoughts on that? How valuable does this seem to you compared to your ideas?

• Manuel Allgaier 18 Aug 2023 15:27 UTC

  14 points

  3 ∶ 1

  in reply to: CuriousEA’s comment on: Up­date on cause area fo­cus work­ing group

  Agree. Inviting at least one person from a major neartermist organisation in EA such as Charity Entrepreneurship would have been helpful, to represent all “non-longtermists” in EA.

  (disclaimer: I’m friends with some CE staff but not affiliated with the org in any way, and I lean towards longtermism myself)

  Also appreciate the transparency, thanks Bastian!

• Manuel Allgaier 23 Jun 2023 11:10 UTC

  12 points

  7 ∶ 5

  on: The flow of fund­ing in EA move­ment building

  TLDR: Recent funding decline seems unfortunate (for EA Berlin specifically), slightly updated that relying on one major doner is riskier than I thought and that groups should maybe diversify funding sources more.

  ---

  Thanks for sharing!

  Some anecdotal data: From EA Berlin’s perspective, the sudden decline in funding earlier this year seemed particularly unfortunate.

  I understand why funders were hesitant to fund city groups after the sexual harassment cases that came out in February, but it still seemed unfortunate that CEA withdrew the previously committed funding for EA Berlin, especially as (to my knowledge) none of the sexual harassment cases happened in Berlin or Germany, and both German and international movement builders (CEA staff etc) have said they consider the German EA community particularly friendly and healthy (I think there’s still room to improve but overall community health seems good, based on what I’ve seen).*

  I’ve updated that fully relying on CEA for funding is riskier than I thought before, and diversifying funding should probably be a higher priority for city and national groups.

  (I think it’s fair to fund groups less when total funding volume decreased and there are strong cases to fund cause/​career groups more and broad EA groups less. Still, having the 7th largest city EA group with 100s of engaged members run by volunteers only and not even fund a part-time position seems suboptimal)

  ---

  *(I was told that CEA withdrew EA Berlin funding mainly because they downprioritised city groups after the sexual harassment cases. There might be more reasons I’m not aware of)

  Disclaimer: I ran EA Berlin 2019-21, funded by a CEA grant. The 2023 funding withdrawal did not affect me personally as I stopped doing paid EA meta work last year and have since only supported and advised the group. The top candidates of the “EA Berlin Community Manager” hiring round where unexpectedly left without funding, though, and the position was canceled (for now))

• Manuel Allgaier 23 Jun 2023 10:45 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Growth and en­gage­ment in EA groups: 2022 Groups Cen­sus results

  Thanks for doing that survey and sharing it. This seems potentially quite helpful for EA meta workers & funders, much appreciated!

  Minor question (feel free to ignore if busy): Results of EA surveys (both this one and others) seem to often be shared >6 months after the data was collected, and to me it feels at least somewhat outdated by then. Curious to hear if you have any thoughts on that and benefits/​costs of sharing sooner.

• Manuel Allgaier 9 Mar 2023 18:40 UTC

  7 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Sugges­tion: A work­able ro­man­tic non-es­ca­la­tion policy for EA com­mu­nity builders

  TLDR: Agree with the risks, unsure if it’s better to restrict flirting for “x weeks” or for “however long there’s a power dynamic and/​or vulnerability etc”
  
  Thanks for sharing! Good to be reminded that this is a risk in any community (especially communities with both personal and professional relationships) and that others may have thought more about this and found better solutions.
  
  This seems most risky in situations in which:
  - Alice is new to EA (still in the “orientation phase”) and looking for jobs.
  - Bob is an experienced (paid or volunteer) EA group organiser, could help Alice professionally (knows people who might have jobs for Alice etc) and also finds Alice attractive.
  
  The risk seems to come from a perceived ^[1]or actual power dynamic, and this is exacerbated if one person is somehow “vulnerable”, like when they’re new to the community and don’t yet know the norms, or do not yet feel comfortable expressing boundaries or reaching out to other community members to ask for advice or support. @Severin Would you agree?
  
  If that’s the case, would it make sense to discourage/​ban flirting not for x amount of weeks but for however long there’s a (perceived or actual) power dynamic and/​or “vulnerability”? This might then vary between one week (?) and forever.
  

  1. ^

     Note that a perceived power difference is sufficient—if Alice thinks that Bob has the power to help or hinder her career (maybe because he mentioned he knows influential person x personally), that will make her hesitant to express boundaries when she receives unwanted attention from Bob, even if it’s not actually true.

• Manuel Allgaier 7 Mar 2023 23:12 UTC

  27 points

  13 ∶ 2

  in reply to: Eugenics-Adjacent’s comment on: Abuse in LessWrong and ra­tio­nal­ist com­mu­ni­ties in Bloomberg News

  I feel like you’re being unfair here.

  The EA community engages quite a lot with its critics, more than the average movement. Of course reactions will differ in a community of ~10k active members, but the most upvoted posts & reactions I read are usually very empathetic and caring.

  Also this post is about the Rationality community, and I think it’d be better to keep the discussion about that and not mix in EA community issues here (there are enough other posts about the EA community).

• Manuel Allgaier 4 Mar 2023 20:17 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: David_Moss’s comment on: An­nounc­ing EA Sur­vey 2022

  @David_Moss

  Any updates on when you’re able to share results?

• Manuel Allgaier 1 Mar 2023 1:14 UTC

  5 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Martin Hrádela’s comment on: Con­fer­ence on EA hubs and offices, ex­pres­sion of interest

  Fwiw: This might locally differ. The EA coworking office in Berlin is going strong and a second related space (Aurea) just opened. I think there’s probably demand for more co-living spaces and maybe also more coworking spaces in the coming year, and they probably could be (mostly) funded by members, so not depending on donors.

Monthly EA Ber­lin Meetup @Teamwork

• Manuel Allgaier 15 Feb 2023 18:09 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Manuel Allgaier’s comment on: EAs should ‘in­vest to give’. SageWealth makes this eas­ier.

  PS: I wonder if you could do both raising awareness of “investing to give” and advertising your products in different posts, without one affecting the other? I think this might be worth a try. You could include disclaimers wherever relevant.

• Manuel Allgaier 15 Feb 2023 18:07 UTC

  13 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: EAs should ‘in­vest to give’. SageWealth makes this eas­ier.

  TLDR: I appreciate Marco, Sana & SageWealth, but do think that this is probably not a good place to advertise such products (based a.o. on feedback from their talk at EAGxBerlin)
  
  Marco’s co-founder Sana gave a talk at EAGxBerlin 2022, and as event lead, I read through all participant feedback. This was one of the more controversial sessions at EAGxBerlin- some (especially those new to investing) found it quite helpful, while others (including some with more investing expertise) were more critical for various reasons.
  
  I don’t know enough about SageWealth’s products to have an informed opinion. Just from reading through the EAGx feedback and comments here, I do share the general sentiment that EA spaces like EAGx or this forum are probably not good places to advertise such products (unless you want to be totally truth-seeking and also include all the reasons against buying the product, alternative products from other companies etc).
  
  I do agree that many EAs probably underestimate the benefits of investing their savings (rather than just keeping them sitting idle on a bank account), and I appreciate Marco & Sagewealth for bringing attention to this! I’m also glad to have Marco & Sana in the EA community—I’ve met them often on various events around Berlin, had many interesting conversations and always enjoyed their company :)

• Manuel Allgaier 9 Feb 2023 8:11 UTC

  8 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Soli­dar­ity for those Re­jected from EA Global

  Rejections always suck, I feel you! :(

  If you still want to go, is there an EAGx nearby you could apply to? In my experience as EAGxBerlin 2022 organiser, for most people EAGx conferences provide about the same amount of value than EAG’s but the admission bar is lower.

  EAGx’s also get similarly high average participant ratings—our EAGxBerlin last year had ~900 attendees (similar to pre-pandemic EAG London) and was rated 8.7/​10, and I heard that some smaller EAGx’s got even better ratings up to 9.x/​10.

• Manuel Allgaier 9 Feb 2023 8:04 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: sapphire’s comment on: Soli­dar­ity for those Re­jected from EA Global

  Which “core EAs”? Many engaged EAs have their own preferences and theories re. EAG size, but in the end, only the CEA events team decides on admissions (sometimes consulting others afaik).

• Manuel Allgaier 8 Feb 2023 10:54 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Larks’s comment on: Shal­low in­ves­ti­ga­tion: Loneliness

  If raising the retirement age is not feasible, another option might be to create more and better opportunities for retired people to engage with and contribute to society in part-time paid or volunteer work?
  
  My impression is that here in Germany, it seems like the potential of retired people might still be underused (based on very anecdotal evidence, I didn’t research this).