All of Dicentra's Comments + Replies

I think the Ibrahim Prize was created partly to "bribe" (incentivize) heads of state in Africa into being good leaders and respecting term limits. Iirc it's the biggest prize for an individual in the world

sounds like it's also below Zurich minimum wage (not totally sure if that minimum wage is currently in effect or not) and similar to the London "living wage" (which isn't a required thing)

I currently work at a large EA-ish org that allows me to fully expense EAG travel and I (like some of the other commenters) am pretty strongly in the "prefer hub" camp. Like lots of EAs, I try to intensely optimize my time, and I'd prefer to optimize for work and play separately (so I would prefer to focus on work when going to EAGs, then separately take vacations optimized for being fun for me, e.g. by being in a place that's a great fit for me and my primary partner). I am happy to travel occasionally if there's a strong impact justification, but don't w... (read more)

I strongly disagree with this. I've dated ~ 10 people in my life. I have also been sexually assaulted (not by someone in the community). I would quickly and without hesitation take a trade to experience 1 rape like the one I experienced (non-violent) in return to keep any of my happy relationships I've had in my life (about half of which I think wouldn't have formed absent what the author is calling "sleeping around"). For my best relationship (which initially formed via "sleeping around" and I don't think could easily have done so otherwise, and is now th... (read more)

Why is this not listed as a 'Community' post? (And thereby blocked by default?) 

Sorry to the authors, it's not their faults presumably, I'm just tired of this insular/naval-gazing stuff, was excited to see this more out of my feed

Hi Maya, glad to hear that that was the outcome of your deeper dive. If you're comfortable, I think it might be good if you edited in a comment about this to your top-level post (and maybe that's what Constance meant?), because a lot of people read posts but then don't read the comments, and so they might not otherwise know you updated about this (very important-seeming, to me) question (like something like "Edit: after checking out some of the claims raised in the comments, I now think the situation was more like [whatever you think]") 

When will people hear back about their applications? I think if I were to do something like this, I'd want to plan it well in advance, so hear back soon

The weirdness Linch points at makes sense to me.  Other kinds reactions that channel enthusiasm that seem good to me 

"This is very cool, I'm excited other people also see promise in this work, and I can't wait to get started" 

"I'm honored by the trust that's been placed in me, I take it seriously and will strive to live up to it" 

Or/and you could just generally thank everyone in EA who seems to be doing important jobs well

[Edit: this whole comment makes less sense after Julia's edits. Thanks for helping out with my questions, Julia.]

I'm not trying to be oblivious or facetious, but I don't really understand what it means when Julia and other people say "it's okay to leave EA" or "it's fine to leave if you need to" or conversely for someone else to say, perhaps to themselves "it's not okay to leave EA".  It doesn't feel... concrete enough? For me to make sense of. I want to taboo the words "fine" and "okay" to try to understand better. 

Sometimes EA is hard for me an... (read more)

Huh, I don't feel very sold on this point. 

Regarding your (1),   the idea that the term is unwelcoming and hierarchical, it doesn't really seem that way to me (and certainly doesn't seem that way to me). I hear people talk about hardcore gamers, Christians, sports fans, Republicans, rock and roll enthusiasts, and tons of other things, including both the people in these groups and outsiders looking in on them, all without sounding like they think the hardcoreness is necessarily good, admirable, or high-status. So the term doesn't really feel conno... (read more)

Do you think MIRI at that time was exciting? Do you think other people should think that? (Genuinely asking, and not even necessarily from a MIRI-skeptical position. It seems possible that MIRI at the time was pretty unproductive and unpromising, and also that MIRI at different times was better, and that funding didn't necessarily help that transition take place). 

Interesting! I totally didn't interpret the story as being particularly supportive of cancel culture or indicating that the statue should be removed. I read it more as a straightforward meditation on what extrapolating various current trends might look like, without doing much to nudge the readers towards a particular stance on those trends or on that outcome. 

OTOH my impression is that the Funds aren't very funding-constrained, so it might not make sense to heavily weigh your first two reasons (though all else equal donor satisfaction and increased donation quantity seems good).

I also think there are just a lot of grants that legitimately have both a strong meta/infrastructure and also object-level benefit and it seems kind of unfair to grantees that provide multiple kinds of value that they still can only be considered from one funding perspective/with focus on one value proposition. If a grantee is both produ... (read more)

In the 'Number of New Groups' chart, and where it says "It appears that growth has stalled since a dramatic surge in 2015, with roughly 30 groups starting per year since 2015.", is this on net/does this take into account old groups disbanding? Or does it assume groups don't disband? 

What happened was a terrible tragedy and my heart aches for those involved. That said, I'd prefer if there wasn't much content of this type on the Forum. 8 people died in that horrific shooting. If there was a Forum post about every event that killed 8 people, or even just every time 8 people were killed from acts of violence, that might (unfortunately, because there are ways in which the world is a terrible place) dominate the Forum, and make it harder to find and spend time on content relevant to our collective task of finding the levers that will help u... (read more)

Sorry to say I had difficulty parsing what you were trying to say in the post here. 

What are the best changes (in terms of tractability and importance) that you think could take place in the journalism industry in the next 20 years, and how can people help make them happen? 

What's the biggest bottleneck on the positive impact of your work?

How did you make the choice to go freelance? 

I like the reframing, but I don't feel like it centrally addresses the problem of demandingness. With your example (and knowing a man was pinned under machinery) and seeing a drowning child, I imagine wanting to leap into action. If I dragged a child out of a pond, and I imagine being wet and cold but looking at the child and seeing that they're okay, and maybe the parents are grateful and people around me are happy, I feel actively glad I jumped in the pond, and would feel similar regret if I passed by. 

The unpleasant feeling of wondering if I can ge... (read more)