1. Could an “ideas” constraint make sense, in theory?
- A production function often looks something like Value= f(K,L), where inputs (e.g funding (K) and people (L)) generate impact.
- But within EA,[1] we could potentially be constrained by (I): the number of ideas.
- An “Idea” could be both at the cause level (i.e. Cause X), or at the intervention level (e.g. a mega-project)
- I think it could be clearer and more useful to separate out ideas as their own input - theoretically it seems possible to have great people and lots of money, but no ideas about what to do with those resources, and hence have no impact.
- But maybe ideas are just a multiplier of both capital and labour - ideas can increase impact, but they ultimately can’t be a constraint. This seems to be the theory behind Ben Todd’s talk at EAG.
- I feel like ideas as a separate input makes sense. But does this just confuse things?
2. If so, is EA idea constrained today?
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It seems like early on, EA was funding constrained. This seems no longer true.
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Then, EA was “people” constrained, in various capacities.[2]
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Now, EA could be ideas constrained. Is this true?
And (if I can squeeze a 3rd question in), what can be done about this?
It’s also possible similar constraints exist in an economy more broadly - e.g. Entrepreneurship ↩︎
E.g. “talent”, “management”, “network”, “skills”, “risk”. ↩︎
Very much agree with your points, this one in particular. I think in a perfect world we would all have a way of knowing of what others in the EA community are thinking about, working on and what they need help with. I'd love to have a way to share more openly (but without wasting other's attention) what I'm focusing on so that others who think about similar things could be made aware of this opportunity for collaboration. But I don't really know of any practical ways to achieve this. Write a forum post saying "Hey everyone I'm really interested in X recently and plan to spend the next 3 months diving into that topic"? Probably not.
EA G(X) could be helpful, because you can share your (current) interests in your profile on the networking app. And theoretically find others who mention the same keywords. But then swapcard comes along and doesn't support proper searching, so I missed out on many potentially great relevant contacts. :( Plus of course it doesn't happen all that often, and always contains only a relatively small subset of the community.