Also, another consideration you haven't mentioned is the belief that focusing on improving the "product of EA" (e.g., quality of research, etc.) is better for movement building purposes than outright outreach. For example, Paul Christiano:

Sometimes “movement-building” is offered as an example of an activity with very high rates of returns. At the moment I am somewhat skeptical of these claims, and my suspicion is that it is more important for the “effective altruism” movement to have a fundamentally good product and to generally have our act together than for it to grow more rapidly, and I think one could also give a strong justification for prioritization research even if you were primarily interested in movement-building. But that is a much longer discussion.

This seems plausible to me, though I'm not completely convinced.

Yeah, I am already working on my own games. I worked on one for two hours earlier today.

My eternal problem is that I can only think big. When I was a little kid I would constantly envision these 1000-page epics I was going to write, type about seven pages or so, and then get bored and start a new project the next week. I constantly try to come up with ideas for small, fun little games that I could realistically make by myself in a few months but I can never come up with anything that appeals to me even a little. My current project seems like it will take a few years to complete and it will in all probability never see the light of day since I have never actually completed a game before. This is the most irrational habit I have and I hate it but I don't know how to stop.

EDIT: I typed this out in the hopes that somehow the act of writing it down and LW users commenting on it would kick my brain into realizing how irrational it was being, and it worked exactly as planned. I will start working on a small project starting tomorrow. Thanks guys.

Here's my experience: I started a Ph.D program in computer science (focus in systems and/or programming languages and/or certified programming). I took a few classes in those areas which were really fun and reasonably challenging. I also started research, which was boring, but it was only the first semester and I wasn't working on my own project.

Then I got an offer to co-found a startup that I couldn't refuse, so I left my Ph.D program after one semester and went to do startups.

While I was reasonably happy with my life in academia for the time I was there, I have been generally (though not always) more self-satisfied with my work in startups. I currently expect to make a greater impact with my work on startups. The only way I could imagine work in academia being more impactful is if I were working on a research project whose fruits I expected to be directly used by people doing impactful work (top candidate would be making a certified programming language that could be used to build and prove a Friendly AI correct). I could definitely see myself heading in that direction but progress felt very slow -- that even with very good use of time in my PhD program, I am not sure would have advanced my skills enough to do a good job at succeeding at such a task. Whereas I feel like I'm making really fast progress towards startups that will succeed.

One thing that surprised me personally is that many of these people had never spent time exploring Quora.

Could you explain more about that point? I use stackexchange sites a lot when I have some question to which I need an answer. For what purposes should I investigate Quora?

I try to apply the hybrid philosophy of: "work hard, make money, give what you can afford to give today, give yourself a near-mode incentive to make more money, and create savings for the future".

The savings one is a big one you didn't mention. I feel like my future self has a high chance to smack me if I commit too much money now. It seems like the places I would give today can benefit more now from my donation than in the future, but I may find better places to spend the money or give it away in the future. Hence the hybrid.

High-functioning in terms of IQ or in terms of ability to get things done?

(Has anyone come up with a motivation enhancer? Nicotine used to work for me, but not anymore.)

I'm working on a new imperative programming language called Akasha. It's a language where genetic programming can be done in a few lines. The language will allow for the user to use a default function set or they can specify what function set to include in their program generation. The programs generated will be Turing complete unless otherwise specified by the user by limiting the function set. Users will be allow to specify the amount of time a program generated will be allowed to run to prevent infinite loops. Also, the language will allow for a memory limit. It will also allow for program generation by other methods such as hill-climbing or simulated annealing.

The user will be allowed to specify parts of the program he wants generated. So for example, they might know the code they want is in a for loop, but don't know the content of the for loop. They can write something like: for(int i = 0; i < 10000; i++){ <generate code length="100"> }

I just started a new business: software for sending money from the US to foreign countries. We compete with Western Union and Moneygram. We are starting with Kenya and sending money to the mobile money system in use there, M-Pesa.

The goals are: 1) to make money (which, once earned, will mostly be spent on effective altruist causes); and 2) make direct impact by a) reducing fees to send money to the developing world, and b) growing the remittance market resulting in wealth redistribution.

Why this project and not others? I believe that for people who have the capability to start companies, starting for-profit companies is one of the best things they can do. Occasionally startups hit it big, and when they do, they tend to make direct positive impact as well as money for the founders. I have selected this startup idea as a pretty good balance between direct impact and chances of success.

Recent progress: Today I talked to six Kenyan immigrants who worked in the US. Five of them currently send money using Western Union, and all five were quite enthusiastic about our product, enough to offer help and introductions. Two of them were most excited about M-Pesa as the way recipients could receive the money, and the other three were most excited about lower fees.

The website is currently at http://www.waveremit.com . I'm looking to talk to people who a) send money to other countries regularly; b) have experience with federal or state money transmitter laws; or c) have other potentially useful information that I haven't thought of.

Could you post a quick update a month or two from now, preferably once you've been through a really intense work period?

A summary of those tools: LeechBlock and Nanny block certain websites during certain time periods; Beeminder keeps track of your progress with goals and lets you punish yourself for not going fast enough; and Focus@Will and Coffitivity play "attention-amplifying music" and ambient sounds (like a coffee shop), respectively.