It’s not always easy to distinguish between existentialism and a bad mood.

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • Still, it merits pointing out that this explicitly isn’t happening because the private sector is clamoring to get some of that EY expertise on nothing the moment he’s available, but because MIRI is for all intents and purposes a gravy train for a small set of mutual acquaintances who occasionally have a board meeting to decide how much they’ll get paid that year.

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    The way it actually works is that I’m on the critical path for our organizational mission, and paying me less would require me to do things that take up time and energy in order to get by with a smaller income. Then, assuming all goes well, future intergalactic civilizations would look back and think this was incredibly stupid; in much the same way that letting billions of person-containing brains rot in graves, and humanity allocating less than a million dollars per year to the Singularity Institute, would predictably look pretty stupid in retrospect. At Singularity Institute board meetings we at least try not to do things which will predictably make future intergalactic civilizations think we were being willfully stupid. That’s all there is to it, and no more.

    This is from back when MIRI, then Singularity Institute, was paying him like $120K/y – https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qqhdj3W3vSfB5E9ss/siai-an-examination?commentId=4wo4bD9kkA22K5exH#4wo4bD9kkA22K5exH