FTX EA Fellowships

To some extent TBD: this is a bit experimental. That said, some examples of who I'd imagine this might be a good fit for:

• people working on PhD writing or research that can be done remotely
• EA group organizers who want to spend time coworking with each other in person
• people founding startups and looking for space from their current routines

But also just excited to see what applications we get!

FTX moved there due primarily to the friendly regulatory environment: on crypto specifically, they're basically the first country in the world to put out a comprehensive framework for crypto regulation, while most countries have been working on this for years and will probably still be working on it for years to come. More generally, the government seems excited about encouraging tech/innovation and cutting back on red tape. 

It's a fairly small country, and I think if a lot of EAs move there EA could end up being a somewhat influential force in the country: as is I think there's a decent chance of a lot more crypto moving there and it becoming somewhat of a crypto/fintech hub.

Other nice things: easy travel to the US, low tax, beaches!

(It's not perfect and actually shares many of the downsides people often talk about re: the Bay Area :P cost of living/housing is pretty high, crime rate is high, and transit/amenities aren't the best. But I'd guess the benefits make it worth having an EA community there.)

Thank you very much for this offer. Would this also apply for people who will be accepted. Are travelling in January. And after living for one week do the calculations and see that the expense for ~6 month would be too much?

I am personally surprised by the debate around cost of living but I am also aware that I come from a naive perspective because I can live/survive of less than 1,000 $ per month (including rent and food) in Berlin, Germany.

Disclosure: I applied. 

Haven't decided on a minimum, was figuring we'd see how long people want to stay/what their other commitments are and work around that

probably sometime February-April?

• fellows starting to come in ~1.5 months, so before then there will be fewer EAs and less infrastructure set up before then (though still some)
• I expect highest density of people being here from current round of fellowships/visits to be from late January through late May, more uncertainty after that
• weather is best in December-March, worst in June-September (unless you like hurricanes)

oops sorry, should work now!

Hmm, even though I'm someone who'd be excited to go to the Bahamas and am happy to subsidize others interested in doing so, I agree that from the outside this is a really funny situation, and I think it's reasonable to laugh at ourselves a little for it. 

But ultimately, we are a movement primarily bottlenecked not by small-donor $s, PR, or appearance of moral rigor, but by a) lacking the strategic clarity to confidently know what we're doing and b) having enough people to act on the directions that we are moderately confident about what's right to do.

Building a community of people next to the richest company in EA seems like a reasonable bet for us to get better at both.

There is much that could be said in response to this.

0. The tone of your comment is not very constructive. I get that you're upset but I would love if we could aim for a higher standard on this platform.

1. The EA community is not a monolithic super-agent that has perfect control over what all its parts do -- far from it. That is actually one of the strengths of the community (and some might even say that we give too much credit to orthodoxy). So even if everyone on this forum or the wider community did agree that this was a stupid idea, then we could still do nothing about it since it is FTX's money and theirs to do with what they want. It does not make sense to talk about this in terms of "the EA community" launching this fellowship in the same way that it does not make sense to say that "the EA community" thinks that [cause XYZ] is the most important one. You could of course argue that the post received a lot of positive attention and that indicates support from the wider community and that would be a good argument, but it's far from being equivalent to everyone (or even the majority) of the EA community agreeing that this is the best way to spend a few million marginal dollars (ballpark estimate I just made up).

2. You are getting the direction of causality wrong. FTX moved to the Bahamas because it is crypto-friendly. That makes sense because FTX is a crypto exchange. Afaict, they want to build an EA community there because that's where they are located which also makes sense from their perspective (I don't necessarily agree it's the best place for this kind of project but I can at least understand the reasoning).

3. You seem to be mixing two arguments here. One is the "PR disaster" angle which might be valid regardless of the actual merits of the project. The other one seems to be an argument against the actual merits of the project, but you don't provide actual arguments on the object level, so I don't know what to respond here.

I haven't received anything on my side. I think a confirmation by email would be nice, yes. Otherwise, I'll send the application a second time just in case.

oops thank you, should be fixed now?

fixed now hopefully?

Some of my  RP colleagues and I are considering having a contingent or informal work retreat in the Bahamas, yes. 

Note that the Bahamas is close to uniquely bad from a "saving money" perspective. If you just want warm weather, fast internet, and good beaches, Thailand is probably a lot better.

I am considering the option of working on an EA-related full-time project that I will start in December in part remotely as a digital-nomad, especially in order to know people from other EA communities mainly all around Europe.

I'm not FTX, but this may answer your question.

In retrospect, it's good that someone was holding FTX's feet to the fire, even when they were dangling money in front of us

It's 10k plus travel plus housing plus co-working space, so it sounds like other than food basically the whole 10k would be disposable income. Potentially the housing provides food also. I'm not sure what cost of living is like in the Bahamas but that hardly sounds like "really low pay"

Isn't the $10k additional to the salary that you'll keep receiving from your employer?