Maybe this will sound impolite, but are we now in the vulture-feeding business?
Nan Ransohoff's "The Third Wave of American Philanthropy" is the article I've seen shared most widely across influential EA profiles. In it, we read that astronomical figures — $37B to $100B in new philanthropic funding — may soon be on their way, almost all of it (very fortunately) to be deployed according to EA principles.
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Of course, this would be know eventually. We also probably need to start thinking now on how to spend all of this money well and this certanly includes attracting talented people. But is it really a good idea to announce so publicly that we'll soon have many billions of dollars available? Are we attracting the right kind of people to the community by doing that? It immediately reminded me of the article The Vultures Are Circling by CitizenTen. I quote:
"But here's the thing. The message is out. There's easy money to be had. And the vultures are coming. On many internet circles, there's been a worrying tone. 'You should apply for [insert EA grant] — all I had to do was pretend to care about x, and I got $$!' Or, 'I'm not even an EA, but I can pretend, as getting a 10k grant is a good instrumental goal towards [insert-poor-life-goals-here].' Or, 'Did you hear that a 16-year-old got x amount of money? That's ridiculous! I thought EAs were supposed to be effective!' Or, 'All you have to do is mouth the words community building and you get thrown bags of money.'"
Perhaps this warning was quickly forgotten in the wake of the FTX meltdown. I still think it matters. Please, let's try to make only new mistakes.
Thanks for writing this! I'm trying to think through this as I'm writing it. Here are a bunch of not-too-well-formed ideas:
I see many good points in the comments of the original The Vultures Are Circling by CitizenTen that you refer to. Most of mine were somehow expressed there already^^
Hi GV. Thanks a lot for your comments. I believe you are mostly right, I just thought that some discretion would be advisable so we won't be attracting the wrong people, at least not in large numbers.
Yes, "wrong people" can mean a wide range of things. Maybe there is this "pioneer nostalgia" at play when wanting to select only people with deep engagement with EA principles — thanks for bringing that up. However, things can get much worse than just attracting people not very engaged. Even attracting people who will treat the whole thing as "just another job" may turn out ok. What really worries me is that you can have real scammers lured in by this "37–100 billion dollar billboard".