EA and the current funding situation

Abstract

EA is in a very different funding situation than it was when it was founded. This is both an enormous responsibility and an incredible opportunity. It means the norms and culture that made sense at EA’s founding will have to adapt. It’s good that there’s now a serious conversation about this. There are two ways we could fail to respond correctly:By commission: We damage, unnecessarily, the aspects of EA culture that make it valuable; we support harmful projects; or we just spend most of our money in a way that’s below-the-bar. By omission: we aren’t ambitious enough, and fail to make full use of the opportunities we now have available to us. Failure by omission is much less salient than failure by commission, but it’s no less real, and may be more likely. Though it’s hard, we need to inhabit both modes of mind at once. The right attitude is one of judicious ambition.