By coincidence, I already do this—donating two hours a week to a local charity for children with learning difficulties, and donating cash to the Gates foundation (they seem much better qualified than me to calculate the expected return on charity investement), and a portion of the charity donations from my upcoming wedding is earmarked for the “establishement at which Eliezer works”. I actually did it following the logic of this post, so it wan’t a coincidence either.
This may be the good reaction for rationalists, but how do you feel about it, Eliezer, from your position in the non-profit sector? Do you think you should be teaching people to divide up their fuzzies and utilons, or making your non-profit more fuzzy?
Givewell and its recommended charities probably strictly dominate the Gates foundation, except possibly for affiliation benefits with Gates (like cheering a sports team with a powerful star player). Gates isn’t obviously cool enough to want to affiliate with publicly though. Clinton giving initiative is probably a better choice.
Wedding? Yeah, probably do that right. I may have made a mistake by not doing so and thus greatly antagonizing my blood relatives.
Nameless org. Consider contacting me before large donations so I can inform you of any ways to leverage them, and keep in touch via their blog.
I’m wondering a little bit about all this beating-around-the-bush: I know what nameless org is a reference to, but it seems likely that some readers won’t. You guys are talking about the forbidden topic (and Eliezer touches on it indirectly), so I’m not sure how the spirit of the ban is being fulfilled. Can we speak in plain terms now that April has arrived, or have I forgotten its expiration date?
When Less Wrong starts up, it will, by my own request, impose a two-month moratorium on discussion of “Friendly AI” and other Singularity/intelligence explosion-related topics.
By coincidence, I already do this—donating two hours a week to a local charity for children with learning difficulties, and donating cash to the Gates foundation (they seem much better qualified than me to calculate the expected return on charity investement), and a portion of the charity donations from my upcoming wedding is earmarked for the “establishement at which Eliezer works”. I actually did it following the logic of this post, so it wan’t a coincidence either.
This may be the good reaction for rationalists, but how do you feel about it, Eliezer, from your position in the non-profit sector? Do you think you should be teaching people to divide up their fuzzies and utilons, or making your non-profit more fuzzy?
Givewell and its recommended charities probably strictly dominate the Gates foundation, except possibly for affiliation benefits with Gates (like cheering a sports team with a powerful star player). Gates isn’t obviously cool enough to want to affiliate with publicly though. Clinton giving initiative is probably a better choice.
Wedding? Yeah, probably do that right. I may have made a mistake by not doing so and thus greatly antagonizing my blood relatives.
Nameless org. Consider contacting me before large donations so I can inform you of any ways to leverage them, and keep in touch via their blog.
I’m wondering a little bit about all this beating-around-the-bush: I know what nameless org is a reference to, but it seems likely that some readers won’t. You guys are talking about the forbidden topic (and Eliezer touches on it indirectly), so I’m not sure how the spirit of the ban is being fulfilled. Can we speak in plain terms now that April has arrived, or have I forgotten its expiration date?
It expires in May. See the About page.
um, is it ok to ask what is this forbidden topic on a nameless org, now that the equally unexplained ban has been expired for seven months… ? :)
(the about page does not appear enlightening)...
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ye/and_say_no_more_of_it/
Edit: The “nameless org” of course is SIAI.
Thank you :)
I had guessed that SIAI was the likely answer… but had very little evidence beyond the fact that it’s an org that is strongly correlated with EY :)