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Rain comments on The $125,000 Summer Singularity Challenge - Less Wrong
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Comments (259)
I just put in 5100 USD, the current balance of my bank account, and I'll find some way to put in more by the end of the challenge.
Thank you SO MUCH for the clarification VNKKET linked to. I was worried. I would usually discourage someone from donating all of their savings to any cause including this one, but in this case it looks like you have thought it through and what you are doing a) make sense and b) is the result of a well thought out lifestyle optimization process.
I'd be happy to talk with you or exchange email (my email is public) to discuss the details, both to better learn to optimize my life and to try to help you with yours, since I expect that efforts will be high return, given the evidence that you are a person who actually does the things that you think would be good lifestyle optimizations at least some of the time.
I'm also desperately interested in better characterizing people who optimize their lifestyles and who try to live without fear etc.
If you have an email exchange and neither of you minds making it public, please do so.
Nice! And for anyone freaked out by the "current balance of my bank account" part, there's an explanation here.
You deserve praise. Would you like some praise?
Thanks! :-)
Praise Rain, for being such a generous benefactor! :)
I vote that we change the referent in the phrase "make it rain" to refer to the LW member instead of the meteorological event.
This is admirable.
However, it's important to note that the path that maximizes your own individual hardship is not necessarily the one that maximizes your contribution to humanity's future. For example, it's possible that by keeping some of that money, you could buy luxuries (like, say, a Netflix subscription) that would allow you to recover more quickly from work-related weariness and spend your evenings starting an online company (or acquiring the skills necessary to start an online company, and then starting an online company) that would result in a larger expected donation to SIAI in the long term.
I used to have your attitude of "live very frugally and give SIAI every spare dollar". My new attitude is optimize for both high income and low expenses (keeping in mind that spending money on myself increases my expected income up to a certain point), and to not donate to SIAI automatically--I'm thinking of starting a rival charity in the long run (due to vague intuition, based on very limited evidence, that healthy competition can be good for charities, and the fact that I have some ideas that I think might be better than SIAI's that Michael Vassar doesn't seem interested in).
By the way, I declare Crocker's Rules--it would be extremely valuable if someone provided persuasive evidence that I'm on the wrong track.
I am not a super hero or an ascetic. I'm a regular random internet person with a particular focus on the future. I only donated 26 percent of my gross income last year. And I have a Netflix subscription.
Your superpower is willpower and you exist as a hero to many :)
Your dumb, i wish i could be more like Rain.
Just had to get that out of my system, but as a whole i act in accordance with what you just stated and i hope you do start that charity if it turns out competition is good for charities. Furthermore, i hope that i can get to the point where i can invoke Crocker's Rules on my own points.
Thanks for the feedback!