I see. Maybe there’s some interesting philosophical disagreement behind our respective attitudes around what to do when you are a beneficiary of an action; to be very very exaggerated, my attitudes seems more towards “duty, loyalty, obligation, consider how to repay your benefactors” and yours are more “neutrality, impartiality, universalizability, consider what rules society should adopt”. Obviously I think both attitudes have their time & place.
I’d characterize a chunk of my recent work as stemming from the former motivation. For example, I/Manifund have hosted the last two rounds of ACX Grants at no charge and some months of work from my side, because I know how important ACX Grants round 1 was in the creation of Manifold. Similarly, I feel strongly about promoting regranting as a concept partly because regranting was how Manifold got its seed investment. I run Surplus, not because I’ve been in YC myself, but partly because PG’s essays have been formative for how I operate my projects. And obviously, I’ve been much more consistently willing to work with people who have “FTX/Future Fund/Foundation” on their resume—Caroline, but also again Ross Rheingans-Yoo, Joel Becker, Nishad Singh among others. (But in all these cases, I’m also trying to ensure that the work or collaboration can stand on its own merits.)
All this is to say that I think it’s reasonable and honorable to express concerns about people/orgs you’ve benefited from, but, also, maybe about as important to emphasize the degree to which you benefited from their actions, because the beneficiaries are best placed to describe what the impact of those actions were, compared to neutral third parties.
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Anyways, I’m trying to write more in general about both my viewpoints and my history of actions so that, among other things, you and others will have a good picture of eg whether I am really 90th percentile to lose Manifund funds in an irreplaceable/harmful way. Let me know if there are any cruxes or questions that would help you understand me better; I appreciate all the effort you’ve put into speaking with and advising me to date.
I see. Maybe there’s some interesting philosophical disagreement behind our respective attitudes around what to do when you are a beneficiary of an action; to be very very exaggerated, my attitudes seems more towards “duty, loyalty, obligation, consider how to repay your benefactors” and yours are more “neutrality, impartiality, universalizability, consider what rules society should adopt”. Obviously I think both attitudes have their time & place.
I’d characterize a chunk of my recent work as stemming from the former motivation. For example, I/Manifund have hosted the last two rounds of ACX Grants at no charge and some months of work from my side, because I know how important ACX Grants round 1 was in the creation of Manifold. Similarly, I feel strongly about promoting regranting as a concept partly because regranting was how Manifold got its seed investment. I run Surplus, not because I’ve been in YC myself, but partly because PG’s essays have been formative for how I operate my projects. And obviously, I’ve been much more consistently willing to work with people who have “FTX/Future Fund/Foundation” on their resume—Caroline, but also again Ross Rheingans-Yoo, Joel Becker, Nishad Singh among others. (But in all these cases, I’m also trying to ensure that the work or collaboration can stand on its own merits.)
All this is to say that I think it’s reasonable and honorable to express concerns about people/orgs you’ve benefited from, but, also, maybe about as important to emphasize the degree to which you benefited from their actions, because the beneficiaries are best placed to describe what the impact of those actions were, compared to neutral third parties.
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Anyways, I’m trying to write more in general about both my viewpoints and my history of actions so that, among other things, you and others will have a good picture of eg whether I am really 90th percentile to lose Manifund funds in an irreplaceable/harmful way. Let me know if there are any cruxes or questions that would help you understand me better; I appreciate all the effort you’ve put into speaking with and advising me to date.
People were unwilling to work with Ross Rheingans-Yoo?! People were unwilling to work with Joel Becker?!
Absurd. Obviously neither of them did anything wrong whatsoever. Nor did anyone else at the satellite orgs.