Comment by gcghhb on (The) Lightcone is nothing without its people: LW + Lighthaven's big fundraiser · 2025-01-17T16:17:04.335Z · LW · GW

IMO counterfactuals in history are not really worth studying, unless you have some special insights into it and really want to study it. 

Both funders and employees are ultimately influenced by memes. Human behaviour is hard to predict. It’s difficult to get the outcome in practice of an alternate history where a meme was less influential or more influential. 

(And yes IMO you may want to be thinking in terms of “which memes should I fund” not “which projects should I fund”. Actually persuading people of an idea is often more scarce than funding, you can’t pay someone to actually care about an idea, let alone to care enough that they work full time on it out of choice. Memes can self-replicate once you provide the initial fuel for them to take off from the ground.)