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wilkox comments on Mini-camp on Rationality, Awesomeness, and Existential Risk (May 28 through June 4, 2011) - Less Wrong
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Comments (84)
That's a good point. An increase in donations from a specific group of people should be easy to measure too, so the SIAI could use it to directly assess the effectiveness of these programs.
Holding a program for the purpose of increasing donation revenue makes me feel uncomfortable. Maybe we should stick to the party line about raising the sanity waterline.
The idea of holding a program to increase donations actually made me more comfortable, as it seems more like a long term investment in reducing existential risk then money squandered on something fun but not obviously essential.
You'll have to run that calculation by me. I don't see how expected utility of the the former is higher than the latter.
By way of analogy, suppose a cancer charity has $10,000 to spend. It could invest the money directly into research, for a marginal expected return in decreased cancer suffering, or it could spend it on a glitzy event where potential donors get to "try their hand" at working in a research lab for a day. The second option could sound like a waste of money, as the donors probably won't do anything worthwhile in a day of messing around in a lab. However, if they go on to contribute $100,000 more to the charity than they otherwise would have, that money can be reinvested in research for a 9x greater return on investment than investing the original $10,000 directly into research would have yielded (ignoring discount rates and assuming linear return on research investment). If any of the participants did happen to go on and become great cancer researchers, this would just be an excellent bonus effect.
The idea that this program will result in increased donations makes me more comfortable because it seems this is a more likely way the program will directly reduce existential risk than the vaguer goal of 'raising the sanity waterline'. If it does succeed in raising the sanity waterline in a way that reduces existential risk, that would be an excellent bonus.
Your analogy makes sense, but why do you think the numbers will go that way?
I don't know they will - see my above comment suggesting the SIAI actually measure donations from program participants. It does seem more likely now, however, that the program will at least break even on reducing existential risk, hence my increased comfort with the idea.
Does it seem that the program will break even because you've anchored yourself to 9x ROI?
Possibly, although I didn't think of that analogy until your comment. It seems more likely that the program will break even when I consider the potential for increased donation compared to my previous estimate, which was based only on AnnaSalamon's described expected outcomes for the program ("more rational, effective people"). I'm not sure that the program actually will break even in terms of existential risk reduction, which is why I'm very interested in seeing SIAI measure any increase in donations.
Ah, I see. That makes sense.