Manifest should blow up in some unexpected way.
Elon Musk should announce he is giving all his money to EA causes.
EA should fund SBFs appeal process
Will Mac Askill should launch a new cryptocurrency "AskCoin", where rich people buy large amounts of the cryptocurrency for the poorest people on earth, driving up the value.
Love it
9. EA should publicly support Israel's war effort
10. Buy a large coal mine and employ the world's poorest people
11. Only fund community builders who say they are longtermist
12. Publish the secret deal with Huel as EA's main sponsor
Meal replacement companies were there for us, through thick and slightly less thick.
Donating to SBF's appeal process may be the highest impact charity we have ever seen.
In randomized controlled trials from 2022, SBF had donated over 130 million dollars in less than a year, and a successful appeal would counterfactually create this benefit for 25 years. An expensive criminal trial in the US can cost as much as $15,000. Even if $15k increases the odds of winning the appeal by 0.1%, that is still an expected 217x amplification of every dollar donated.
The money amplified goes in to effective charities like GiveWell, so if we use GiveWell's one life saved per $4,500 measure, donating to SBF's appeal fund would save a life for every 20 dollars.
This is just a back of the napkin calculation, so my numbers might be off a little, but this seems to be the most effective charity by *many* orders of magnitude.
Does anyone know where he has been funding all his defense expenses from, and how much firepower is left there? If you'd merely be funging with his own assets, the Bank of Mom & Dad, or a D&O insurance policy, the giving would be rather ineffective.
He has to have been paying the bills, else it is unlikely new sentencing stage counsel would have signed up.
If trial counsel were somewhat competent, they already know what their best chances on appeal would be. Appeals are done on the record generated below, so the marginal returns to extra $ are likely minimal beyond a certain point.
Scandals don't just happen in the vacuum. You need to create the right conditions for them. So I suggest:
[Meta: I'm not claiming anyone is doing these things on purpose! It would be nice, though, if more people were trying to counter these risk factors for scandals and generally bad epistemics.]
Scandals don't just happen in the vacuum
Has anyone tested this? Because if we could create them in a vacuum, that might save a lot of energy usually lost to air resistance, and thus be more effective
Even scandal-prone individuals can't survive in a vacuum. (You may be thinking of sandals, not scandals?)
Is it definitely established that a living person is required for every scandal?
It's been at least a few months since the last proper EA scandals, and we're now desperately trying to squeeze headlines out of the past ones.
On the contrary, a few scandals have been wrapped up:
Indeed, even OpenPhil's involvement in the Whytham Abbey sale shows they're now less willing to fund new scandals.
Therefore it seems to me that EA is now neither funding- nor talent-constrained, but rather scandal-constrained.
This cannot go on. We've all become accustomed to a neverending stream of scandals, and if that stream dwindles, we might find ourselves bored to death - or worse, the world might stop talking about EA all the time.
I therefore raise a few ideas for discussion - feel free to add your own:
Our data suggests that the highest impact scandals are several times more impactful than other scandals (bear in mind that this data is probably not capturing the large number of smaller scandals).
Looks like someone should attempt a pivotal act. If you think you might be the right person for the job - you probably are!
Thank you! This is the kind of important work EA must now strive for.