"the measure Pomodoro-maximization might accidentally become the target, even though the intended target is goal completion."

Nonsense.

Overall we are way more talent constrained rather than funding constrained. The UK xrisk ecosystem has managed to get something like $10m from non-EA sources, and now recruitment is our biggest bottleneck. As mentioned below, we do hire people without PhDs to our 'postdoc' positions.

We do hire people without PhDs—appropriate edits done :)

And the paper on it (http://www.amirrorclear.net/academic/papers/moral-trade.pdf)

Good point, this certainly wouldn't work for lobbying. But over 50% of donations still come from wealthy individuals or small donations, so it's a substantial absolute amount of money that still could benefit from moral trade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States

I envision this targeting the general public.

I suppose I have a higher credence in a wide audience finding this really appealing. By spending X dollars, you're canceling out X dollars of the other side while simultaneously sending 2*X dollars to an actual charity.

Nobody likes the negative ads in the US - plenty of people donate in order to 'prevent the other side from winning' more than supporting their own candidate.

I suppose I will forever be denied this rite of passage, as I totally took it from Toby's paper about year ago :)

:)