“(The) Lightcone is nothing without its people: LW + Lighthaven’s first big fundraiser” by habryka

TLDR: LessWrong + Lighthaven need about $3M for the next 12 months. Donate here, or send me an email, DM or signal message (+1 510 944 3235) if you want to support what we do. Donations are tax-deductible in the US. Reach out for other countries, we can likely figure something out. We have big plans for the next year, and due to a shifting funding landscape we need support from a broader community more than in any previous year.

I've been running LessWrong/Lightcone Infrastructure for the last 7 years. During that time we have grown into the primary infrastructure provider for the rationality and AI safety communities. "Infrastructure" is a big fuzzy word, but in our case, it concretely means:

• We build and run LessWrong.com and the AI Alignment Forum.[1]
• We built and run Lighthaven (lighthaven.space), a ~30,000 sq. ft. campus in downtown Berkeley where we [...]

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Outline:

(03:52) LessWrong

(06:36) Does LessWrong influence important decisions?

(09:37) Does LessWrong make its readers/writers more sane?

(11:37) LessWrong and intellectual progress

(19:08) Lighthaven

(22:04) The economics of Lighthaven

(24:26) How does Lighthaven improve the world?

(28:41) The relationship between Lighthaven and LessWrong

(30:36) Lightcone and the funding ecosystem

(35:17) Our work on funding infrastructure

(37:57) If its worth doing its worth doing with made-up statistics

(38:44) The OP GCR capacity building team survey

(42:09) Lightcone/LessWrong cannot be funded by just running ads

(43:55) Comparing LessWrong to other websites and apps

(45:00) Lighthaven event surplus

(47:13) The future of (the) Lightcone

(48:02) Lightcone culture and principles

(50:04) Things I wish I had time and funding for

(59:31) What do you get from donating to Lightcone?

(01:02:03) Tying everything together

The original text contained 22 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 7 images which were described by AI.

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First published:
November 30th, 2024

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5n2ZQcbc7r4R8mvqc/the-lightcone-is-nothing-without-its-people-lw-lighthaven-s-5

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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