1) Effective altruism needs more 'megaprojects'.
Most projects in the community are designed to use up to ~$10m per year effectively, but the increasing funding overhang means we need more projects that could deploy ~$100m per year.
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2) Suppose the choice was having 3 megaprojects or 10 medium-sized ones. The megaprojects could be one third as cost-effective, but the total impact would be higher.
Megaprojects also have big positive externalities from training staff, becoming widely known etc.
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3) It's striking that the projects that were biggest in pre-2015 (OP, GiveWell, MIRI, CEA, 80k, FHI) are still among the biggest today, when additional resources should make new types of project possible.
(Tho there are some exceptions like CSET.)
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4) There is plenty of funding, a fair number of interested junior employees, and also some ideas for megaprojects.
The biggest bottleneck seems like leadership.
Second would be more and better ideas.
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I had thought the funding overhang in effective altruism might be shrinking, but now it seems bigger than ever.
This means there are even bigger skill bottlenecks for grantmakers, people with new ideas, those able to run big projects, and related roles.
80000hours.org/2021/07/effect
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5) We need more EA nonprofit entrepreneurs.
Though the skills needed can be pretty different from silicon valley style entrepreneurship.
And it's NOT easy.
More discussion here:
forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zA6AnNnY
How to get started:
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7) There's now a 145 comment thread discussing ideas on the EA Forum:
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Everybody has to read "Seeing Like A State" first.
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They don't need to be authoritarian, top down projects! Eg GiveDirectly is a megaproject, founding a university could be another.
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If EA is truly talent constrained, spend millions/billions training/educating smart 10-20 years olds with specialized high schools/university focused on EA related concerns. Fully optional, fully funded preparation to best help the world.
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I think this could happen if there was someone to lead it.
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