Voting or otherwise delegating selection to the hive mind seems like a good way to minimize any potential impact.
Delegating to an already successful, widely respected authority in the domain is better, but those people are probably already steering most of the effort and funding in the field, either directly or by swaying general opinion.
Nomination-based seems like a good way to tap the wisdom of many different highly qualified people without filtering through a consensus process. It also reduces opportunity for gaming by insincere candidates, reduces the number of people who will spend time applying, and limits the number of applications you have to read.
For example: pick a nominating committee of maybe 10 ppl you think are wise and smart and knowledgeable and independent-thinking and different from each other, who would not be candidates now, but would be in a position to be aware of potential candidates. Ask each of them to nominate one candidate per available slot with a brief statement about why. The nominators’ identities should be secret, even to each other. Your goals and criteria should be articulated to them.
You could either screen those based on the nominator’s statements or invite short preliminary applications from all the nominees, but decide which of them you are personally most excited about and invite only 2-3 full applications or interviews per available slot. In the end pick recipients based on your own judgement.
I buy the reasoning that “delegating selection to the hive” could be suboptimal.
Also, as you have pointed out, the very best of the hive already have budgets to distribute or don’t have spare time for this for other reasons.
Your exact proposal though implies that I can pick 10 wise and smart people (which is somewhat manageable, but I’d be still mostly deferring to a consensus opinion), and that I can make a final pick (which I most certainly can’t, besides doing a “vibe-check”)
I like the idea to make nominators secret to each other, to minimize the influence of social dynamics.
I think this kind of funding has outsized impact.
Voting or otherwise delegating selection to the hive mind seems like a good way to minimize any potential impact.
Delegating to an already successful, widely respected authority in the domain is better, but those people are probably already steering most of the effort and funding in the field, either directly or by swaying general opinion.
Nomination-based seems like a good way to tap the wisdom of many different highly qualified people without filtering through a consensus process. It also reduces opportunity for gaming by insincere candidates, reduces the number of people who will spend time applying, and limits the number of applications you have to read.
For example: pick a nominating committee of maybe 10 ppl you think are wise and smart and knowledgeable and independent-thinking and different from each other, who would not be candidates now, but would be in a position to be aware of potential candidates. Ask each of them to nominate one candidate per available slot with a brief statement about why. The nominators’ identities should be secret, even to each other. Your goals and criteria should be articulated to them.
You could either screen those based on the nominator’s statements or invite short preliminary applications from all the nominees, but decide which of them you are personally most excited about and invite only 2-3 full applications or interviews per available slot. In the end pick recipients based on your own judgement.
I appreciate your thoughts.
I buy the reasoning that “delegating selection to the hive” could be suboptimal.
Also, as you have pointed out, the very best of the hive already have budgets to distribute or don’t have spare time for this for other reasons.
Your exact proposal though implies that I can pick 10 wise and smart people (which is somewhat manageable, but I’d be still mostly deferring to a consensus opinion), and that I can make a final pick (which I most certainly can’t, besides doing a “vibe-check”)
I like the idea to make nominators secret to each other, to minimize the influence of social dynamics.