L

Larks

13398 karmaJoined Sep 2014

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Larks
8h11
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Could you explain which parts you thought were 'thoughtful' and 'great' ?

Also, if Wytham were a legally separate entity, pretty detailed information would have to be released as a matter of course on Charity Commission filing (UK) or on the Form 990 (US). So, I don't think I view asking for ~ that level of information separated out for a financially significant project as a huge departure from normal practice.

This seems like a pretty weak argument to me. If Apple was to spin off its Apple Watch business as a separate publicly traded company, that new firm would have to release pretty detailed financial information. But because they are part of Apple, they don't, and basically no firm would choose to release this information. You're right that, if Wytham was a separate org, it would be standard practice for them to disclose the info - but they are not, and the standard practice for subsidiaries is to release much less info.

I think EAs spend a lot of time thinking about things. They think about things because EAs want to be smart, and smart people spend lots of time thinking. That’s why EAs make enourmous google docs, substacks, tweet a lot, go on forums and become researchers.

This seems false to me. People spend a lot of time thinking about things because they want to come to the right answer, not because they are cargo-culting what smart people do. In fact EAs probably spend more time thinking about things than typical smart people do.

Larks
5d20
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How many talks are you expecting to have? These seem very prescriptive, and things like multiple 1% categories will be difficult to achieve if you have <100 talks. I would worry that a strict focus on distribution like this would lead to having to sacrifice quality.

I think a place where there is a disconnect is that these PF basically think being EA-aligned means you have to be a major pain in the ass to your grantees.

The more I think about this, the more strange it seems to me. At least for the grant-making processes I'm familiar with, there is very little burden on the applicants/grantees. They will in a short (by the standards of grant applications) form that indicates what information is required, maybe answer a few follow-up questions (or maybe not) and then get the money with very few follow-ups. In contrast my understanding of government grantmakers is they require a lot more paperwork and are much more time consuming. PIs at major universities seem to spend a huge fraction of their time fundraising - that is not my impression of EA org leaders. If anything I think EA grantees would generally like more ongoing engagement and feedback from grantmakers.

For people not clicking through the first link, I thought this youtube video was pretty impressive: almost a hundred years of leading politicians claiming that each election is the or one of the most important elections of our lives / the century / all time.

I have had cybersecurity issues and have been advised to be more careful about clicking on unfamiliar links and to avoid certain forums. 

Someone told you not to go on lesswrong for cybersecurity reasons?

Would it be possible to analogously execute adults by injection into the heart if this was a more humane method?

This is very interesting, I hadn't heard of TBP before, thanks for sharing.

I'm surprised you think that low, especially considering the President often will have been a Senator or Governor or top businessman before office, so the longer average term in Congress is not a big advantage. 

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