FAQ

Why is there such a large difference between the original document and the current one?

The original document was intentionally written in a critical tone, which was intentionally chosen because it had been observed that critical/negative toned essays generate pageviews in the rationalsphere

Unfortunately, even though it generated pageviews as predicted the conversion rate was rather low, in addition, there were many instances of people assuming this was an attack on the ideas of rationalism or the majority of the people in it despite this being the opposite of our intentions.

The current document is an attempt to clear up these misconceptions.

I’m an EA/Xrisk researcher/Wild animal suffering activist/Tech worker in London or San Fransisco, why should I be interested in this project?

There is a difference between not directly focusing on these groups, and having goals that aren't compatible with them. This project is intended to be more like an index fund than a bet on a promising stock, not putting all our eggs in one basket provides a better median outcome, even if it slightly decreases the potential upside.

Being in a low-cost, English-speaking cosmopolitan city is something that could benefit a lot of people and organisations. The benefits of clustering together to share ideas and talented individuals would be advantageous for all parties involved.

Despite disagreeing with CFAR’s recent change of mission, I would wholeheartedly welcome a CFAR satellite office within walking distance of our housing cluster. And they would benefit from both easy access to London by train (for perspective, SF to San Jose is 1hr 45m, London to Manchester is 2h) and the much lower rents, allowing them to offer their services at a reduced price.

If you are an EA, you would have more discretionary income to give to your chosen charities, saving £250 on rent means you can buy over 100 more bednets a month without lowering your standard of living. If you run a Xrisk institute, you could do more research with the same money or not need to push for donations as frequently as you currently do. If you’re a vegan, your shorter commute times will free up more time and energy to prepare meals, meaning you are less likely to lapse on your ethical commitments. If you are an activist of any kind, there is less cause advocacy outside of London and people are less busy in general, so you will be able to get more of people’s time and attention for the ideas you are advocating.

How much will rent cost, assuming it isn’t subsidized?

Rent per double room should be in the ballpark of £300 per month, and will likely decrease slightly when we own property outright.

Why is the starting goal so modest?

Because you need to test your assumptions before you extrapolate from them, especially when you are building something ambitious.

If you are building a shed you only need a shallow bed of sand as a foundation to support it, but if you are building a skyscraper you need to pour a foundation multiple metres thick of super high compressive strength rebar reinforced concrete. If you attempt to build a skyscraper on top of a poor foundation, it will collapse under it’s own weight.

As such, the focus is on recruiting a solid pioneering team of 4 to 8 people to move to Manchester, figure out how to live together in relative harmony, solve problems that arise, get to know the area and learn local information that isn’t readily available on the internet. Only once this information is known, and beliefs have been grounded in reality, do we proceed.

Why do you plan to have decentralized infrastructure?

Because in our scenario of pursuing varying goals, with varying levels of risk, each requiring different approaches and skillsets, do not benefit from being run in a centralised manner. It is more efficient to have each part funded and run independently, and if some high risk ventures fail they can fail without affecting the rest of the project.

Why don't you just join the accelerator project?

A fair question. The answer is that I did, and until pretty recently was one of the most active volunteers for them. The reasons I am starting my own project instead of working within theirs, are as follows:
 * A significant change in goals, away from residential living towards a three month coding-style bootcamp for rationality

What's wrong with normal LessWrong style rationality?
 * Not providing enough research and hard numbers to justify high risk decisions for me to feel comfortable betting the next few years of my life on that project
 * Having a narrow set of goals they are optimizing for, which do not include mine

The ideology that has grown around LessWrong style rationality (different to the literal interpretation of the sequences) has a tendency to focus on deriving things from principles and brings a lot of unquestioned baggage from the demographic it draws heavily from.  

In my opinion, someone who relies on LessWrong style ideological rationality is more dangerously unprepared for tackling problems in the real world than if they had no training. In the same way someone taught karate is more dangerously unprepared for an actual street fight than if they had no training. It serves as a faulty harness, which is more dangerous than not wearing one at all, because at least then you are acting in the knowledge that you don't have something to protect you should things go wrong.

How will you fund this?

The prototype will be funded by people who are moving, using the money they normally spend on rent in their current location to pay the rent required for the grouphouse.

In the medium term, starting sometime between 2018 to 2020, we will be buying actual houses so we can customise living spaces to our needs, and these will either be bought by one person and rented out at approximately market rates or crowdfunded in exchange for reduced or no rent, proportional to how much each person contributes. We will also be renting things for pilot projects until they are proven to be viable.

In the long term, beyond 2020, we will likely be building bespoke houses, by default if cost effective land becomes available or as an option if it turns out to be more expensive yet enough people are willing to pay a premium for it.

Isn't renting throwing money away?

To be brief, no. The transaction cost to buy property, find out it isn’t suitable, then sell it a year later is usually in excess of the price to rent it for a year.

And assuming you aren’t buying something in cash, you are essentially just borrowing property from a bank instead of a landlord.

We will be ideologically neutral on buying vs renting, just doing which thing makes the most economic sense for a given set of goals and constraining factors.

What are the criteria for joining the first house?

Three things: 1. being rationalist or rat adjacent 2. being able to live and support yourself in Manchester for the duration of tenancy 3. being approved by all of the existing people who have committed to move

What sort of structure will exist in the first house?

there will be a general encouragement of practicing instrumental rationality, sharing techniques, documenting how we solve problems.

while there will be no formal mandate to do these things, the group is self selected strongly enough through location and joining the project that there is a fairly low chance they just want to spend all their time living vicariously through Elon Musk, they can do that from their parent's house for free.