Yea I have no idea if they actually need money but if they still want to hire more people to the AI team wouldn't it be better to give the money to RAND to hire those policymakers rather than like the Americans for Responsible Innovation - which open phil currently recommends but is much less prestigious and I'm not sure if they are working side by side with legislators. The fact that open phil gave grants but doesn't currently recommend for individual donors makes me think you are right that they don't need money atm but it would be nice to be sure. 

Haven't seen anyone mention RAND as a possible best charity for AI stuff and I guess I'd like to throw their hat in the ring or at least invite people to tell me why I'm wrong. My core claims are approximately:

• Influencing the US (federal) government is probably one of the most scalable cost-effective routes for AI safety.
• Think tanks are one of the most cost-effective ways to influence the US government.
• The prestige of the think tank matters for getting into the room/influencing change.
• Rand is among the most prestigious think tank doing AI safety work.
• It's also probably the most value-aligned, given Jason Matheny is in charge.
• You can earmark donations to the catastrophic risks/emerging risks departments
  
  I'll add I have no idea if they need/have asked for marginal funding.
  
   

The get-out-of-RSP-free card

If I'm reading this correctly it seems quite vaguely written, so expecting them to pull this out literally whenever they want but maybe I'm overly skeptical. Bush invading Iraq vibes. 

do you feel confident about your moral philosophy?

adding on that wholefoods https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/quality-standards/statement-on-broiler-chicken-welfare
has made some commitments to switching breeds, we discussed this briefly at a Chicago EA meeting. I didn't get much info but they said that going and protesting/spreading the word to whole foods managers to switch breeds showed some success.  

No I don’t but effective altruism should not be a small movement. I think about 1/3 of all people could get on board. Applied utilitarianism should be a small movement, and probably not democratic. I’ll just write up a more coherent version of my vision and make a quick take or post though. I would agree democracy is not great for a small movement though I’m not expert.

It was such a token effort though. I’m literally giving that much away myself. How about every single person at an ea org steps down and we have an election for the new boards, or they can drop the ea name? (I’m only half joking)

Yea I think I can feel better about giving to manifund so that’s a good shout. Functionally giving money to them still feels like I’m contributing to the larger ea political oligopoly though. I want to enrich a version of ea with real de jure democratic republic institutions

Nope I think the grants you are doing seem good, I don’t mean it like that.

I mean the idea of giving these semi central ea orgs/ funds money doesn’t make sense to me. EA is supposed to be a cause agnostic decentralized movement. If it was called the utilitarian fund this would probably be about 70% of the way towards me being willing to donate. When my dad asks why you guys did x and I have to respond by saying ea isn’t a monolith and then he asks me where the Chicago donation fund is and then I have to say well dad that’s not effective because (insert large moral circle utilitarian calculus) and then he asks me “oh so is ea a utilitarian movement” … maybe you see where I am going with this? It’s a bit of a meta point and perhaps now is not the right time to bring it up.

I mean political representation like if there is an organization with ea in its name then I should be able to vote for the board as a member of ea.

My two cents on why I am not giving to any effective altruism funds: I have no political representation in this movement.