Cool... this sort of thing is far more actionable than "seeming like a cult."
So, next question. Taking you as representative of the group (which is of course not necessarily true, but we start from where we are)... what is your sense of where each of these falls on the spectrum between "this is legitimately worrying; in order to be less at risk for actual bad consequences LW should actually change so as not to do this" on the one hand, and "this is merely superficially worrying; there are probably no real risks here and LW should merely take steps to reassure worriers not to worry about it"?
I'm legitimately worried about the money and the incentives it creates. What would a self-interested agent (LW seems to use "agent" in exactly the opposite sense to what I'd expect it to mean, but I hope I'm clear) in the position of the LW leadership do? My cynical view is: write some papers about how the problems they need to solve are really hard; write enough papers each year to appear to be making progress, and live lives of luxury. So what's stopping them? People in charities that provide far more fuzzies than LW have become disenchanted. P...
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.