In my opinion it was the right call to spend this amount of funding on the office for the last ~6 months of its existence even when we thought we’d likely do something quite different afterwards
This is confusing to me. Why not do “something quite different” from the start?
I’m trying to point at opportunity costs more than “gee, that’s a lot of money, the outcome had better be good!” There are many other uses for that money besides the Lightcone offices.
A smart, competent, charismatic, person with horrible ethics will enter the office because they’ve managed to get good standing in the EA/longtermist ecosystem
My current understanding is that Sam gained good standing as a result of having lots of money for EA causes, not as a result of being charismatic in EA spaces? My sense is that the person you mentioned would struggle to gain good standing in the Lightcone offices without any preexisting money or other power.
My current understanding is that Sam gained good standing as a result of having lots of money for EA causes, not as a result of being charismatic in EA spaces? My sense is that the person you mentioned would struggle to gain good standing in the Lightcone offices without any preexisting money or other power.
No, he gained good standing from being around the EA community for so many years and having sophisticated ethical views (veganism, a form of utilitarianism, etc) and convincing well-respected EAs to work with him and fund him, as well as from having a lot of money and donating it to these spaces. Had the Lightcone Offices existed 5 years ago I expect he would have been invited to work from there (had he asked to), and that was at the start of Alameda.
Sorry if I wrote unclearly. For most of the time (even in the last 6 months) I thought it was worth continuing to support the ecosystem, and certainly to support the people in the office, even if I was planning later to move on. I wanted to move on primarily because of the opportunity cost — I thought we could do something greater. But I believe Habryka wanted to separate from the whole ecosystem and question whether the resources we were providing were actually improving the world at all, and at that point it’s not simply a question of opportunity cost but of whether you’re helping or hurting. If you’re worried that you’re not even helping but just making the problem worse, then it’s a much stronger reason to stop.
You seem to think it wasn’t worth it because of opportunity costs alone? I have been used to the world for a while now where there are two multi-billion dollar funders who are interested in funding x-risk work who don’t have enough things to spend their money on, so I didn’t feel like this was really competing with much else. Just because Lightcone was spending that money didn’t mean another project didn’t get money, none of the major funders were (or are) spending close to their maximum burn rate.
This is confusing to me. Why not do “something quite different” from the start?
I’m trying to point at opportunity costs more than “gee, that’s a lot of money, the outcome had better be good!” There are many other uses for that money besides the Lightcone offices.
My current understanding is that Sam gained good standing as a result of having lots of money for EA causes, not as a result of being charismatic in EA spaces? My sense is that the person you mentioned would struggle to gain good standing in the Lightcone offices without any preexisting money or other power.
No, he gained good standing from being around the EA community for so many years and having sophisticated ethical views (veganism, a form of utilitarianism, etc) and convincing well-respected EAs to work with him and fund him, as well as from having a lot of money and donating it to these spaces. Had the Lightcone Offices existed 5 years ago I expect he would have been invited to work from there (had he asked to), and that was at the start of Alameda.
Sorry if I wrote unclearly. For most of the time (even in the last 6 months) I thought it was worth continuing to support the ecosystem, and certainly to support the people in the office, even if I was planning later to move on. I wanted to move on primarily because of the opportunity cost — I thought we could do something greater. But I believe Habryka wanted to separate from the whole ecosystem and question whether the resources we were providing were actually improving the world at all, and at that point it’s not simply a question of opportunity cost but of whether you’re helping or hurting. If you’re worried that you’re not even helping but just making the problem worse, then it’s a much stronger reason to stop.
You seem to think it wasn’t worth it because of opportunity costs alone? I have been used to the world for a while now where there are two multi-billion dollar funders who are interested in funding x-risk work who don’t have enough things to spend their money on, so I didn’t feel like this was really competing with much else. Just because Lightcone was spending that money didn’t mean another project didn’t get money, none of the major funders were (or are) spending close to their maximum burn rate.