How "grifty" is the Foresight Institute? Are they making button soup?

post by Cedar (xida-ren) · 2023-03-07T19:43:32.750Z · LW · GW · No comments

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    10 PeterMcCluskey
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rant / curious / fearful / would love information to establish chain of trust.

Recently received an email from the Foresight Institue. Sent me an application. Quickly accepted for an interview with their CEO. Didn't hear anything particularly valuable from that conversation and gave a lot of information about myself.

Their roster doesn't seem to include any particularly impressive people, and I'm not sure if they've contributed any value other than make a fancy website and schedule meetings (granted, this is somewhat valuable).

Today I received an email inviting me for a workshop. $350 tickets, subsidized.

All my "grift sensors" are ringing and it feels like they're making button soup. My worst-case theory is that they've identified rats as a group that's particularly gullible and bad at coordination / making schelling meetups / etc., and are here to extract value.

Which I'm not opposed of but I really dislike:

  1. reaching out to people via email to market things
  2. not being upfront about what they want and what they get out of things
  3. we could have done this ourselves, and it feels like they are outsiders.

Does anybody have experience with them / a deeper understanding than I do about potential hidden agendas they might have?

PS: [backstory on button soup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup)

Answers

answer by PeterMcCluskey · 2023-03-07T20:02:36.482Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I've been involved with them for over 25 years. They're less productive now than they were when Drexler was vetting their speakers (about 20 years ago, they selected Eliezer and Aubrey de Grey as speakers when those two had approximately no credentials or reputation).

There's no hidden agenda beyond spreading transhumanist and libertarian ideas.

They still get people such as Robin Hanson and Critch to attend some events, so their events are moderately good places to network. Don't expect much more impact than that.

↑ comment by Cedar (xida-ren) · 2023-03-08T19:11:57.737Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Oh! This is really good to know. Thank you so much for speaking up!

answer by Cedar · 2023-03-07T19:47:06.263Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Friend of mine: "people listed seem cool; prolly easy to meet without spending money tho"

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