dbaupp comments on Cult impressions of Less Wrong/Singularity Institute - Less Wrong

29 Post author: John_Maxwell_IV 15 March 2012 12:41AM

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Comment author: dbaupp 16 March 2012 02:50:19AM *  5 points [-]

all of it goes to them or their "associates"

What else should it go to? (Under the assumption that SI's goals are positive.)

As Larks said above, they are doing thought work: they are not trying to ship vast quantities of food or medical supplies. The product of SI is the output from their researchers, the only way to get more output is to employ more people (modulo improving the output of the current researchers, but that is limited).

Comment author: timtyler 16 March 2012 11:19:01AM *  7 points [-]

So, to recap, this is a proposed part of a list of ways in which the SIAI resembles a cult. It redistribtutes economic resources from the "rank and file" members up the internal heirarchy without much expenditure on outsiders - just like many cults do.

Comment author: dbaupp 16 March 2012 01:12:02PM *  4 points [-]

(Eh. Yes, I think I lost track of that a bit.)

Keeping that in mind: SI has a problem because acting to avoid appearing to exist to give money to the upper ranks means that they can't pay their researchers. There are three broad classes of solutions to this (that I can see):

  • Give staff little to no compensation for their work
  • Use tricky tactics to try to conceal how much money goes to the staff
  • Try to explain to everyone why such a large proportion of the money goes to the staff

All of those seem suboptimal.

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