{"id":125,"date":"2008-02-03T17:39:32","date_gmt":"2008-02-04T00:39:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/?p=125"},"modified":"2017-04-16T22:27:49","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T05:27:49","slug":"spending-effectively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/spending-effectively","title":{"rendered":"Spending Effectively"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, the Singularity Institute raised over $500,000<\/a>. The World Transhumanist Association raised $50,000<\/a>. The Lifeboat Foundation set a new record for the single largest donation<\/a>. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology\u2019s finances are combined with those of World Care, a related organization, so the public can\u2019t get precise figures. But overall, it\u2019s safe to say, we\u2019ve been doing fairly well. Most not-for-profit organizations aren\u2019t funded adequately; it\u2019s rare for charities, even internationally famous ones, to have a large full-time staff, a physical headquarters, etc.<\/p>\n

The important question is, now that we\u2019ve accumulated all of this money, what are we going to spend it on? It\u2019s possible, theoretically, to put it all into Treasury bonds and forget about it for thirty years, but that would be an enormous waste of expected utility. In technology development, the earlier the money is spent (in general), the larger the effect will be. Spending $1M on a technology in the formative stages has a huge impact, probably doubling the overall budget or more. Spending $1M on a technology in the mature stages won\u2019t even be noticed. We have plenty of case studies: Radios. TVs. Computers. Internet. Telephones. Cars. Startups.<\/p>\n

The opposite danger is overfunding the project, commonly called \u201cthrowing money at the problem\u201d. Hiring a lot of new people without thinking about how they will help is one common symptom. Having bloated layers of middle management is another. To an outside observer, it probably seems like we\u2019re reaching this stage<\/a> already<\/a>. Hiring a Vice President In Charge Of Being In Charge doesn\u2019t just waste money; it causes the entire organization to lose focus and distracts everyone from the ultimate goal.<\/p>\n

I would suggest a top-down approach: start with the goal, figure out what you need, and get it. The opposite approach is to look for things that might be useful, get them, then see how you can complete a project with the stuff you\u2019ve acquired. NASA<\/a> is an interesting case study, as they followed the first strategy for a number of years, then switched to the second one.<\/p>\n

The second strategy is useful at times, particularly when the goal is constantly changing. Paul Graham<\/a> suggests using it as a strategy for personal success, because the \u2018goal\u2019 is changing too rapidly for any fixed plan to remain viable. \u201cPersonal success\u201d in 2000 is very different from \u201csuccess\u201d in 1980, which was different from \u201csuccess\u201d in 1960. If Kurzweil\u2019s graphs are accurate, \u201csuccess\u201d in 2040 will be so alien that we won\u2019t even be able to recognize it.<\/p>\n

But when the goal is clear- save the Universe, create an eternal utopia, develop new technology X- you simply need to smash through whatever problems show up. Apparently, money has been the main blocker for some time, and it looks like we\u2019ve overcome that (in the short-term) through large-scale fundraising. There\u2019s a large body of literature out there on how to deal with organizational problems; thousands of people have done this stuff before. I don\u2019t know what the main blocker is now, but odds are it\u2019s in there somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year, the Singularity Institute raised over $500,000. The World Transhumanist Association raised $50,000. The Lifeboat Foundation set a new record for the single largest donation. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology\u2019s finances are combined with those of World Care, a related organization, so the public can\u2019t get precise figures. But overall, it\u2019s safe to say, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,20,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","category-futurism","category-lifeboat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52017,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/52017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}