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

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)

TLDR: LessWrong + Lighthaven need about $3M for the next 12 months. Donate here, or send me an email, DM or signal message ([phone]) 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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Images from the article:

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