I don't think we have much data on the effects of these [upskilling] grants several years out, as we have only been making them for 1-2 years, but I think that people often move into doing impactful work pretty quickly after their upskilling grant anyway.

I thought the first upskilling grant took place in early 2019?

Orpheus Lummis ($10,000): Upskilling in contemporary AI techniques, deep RL, and AI safety, before pursuing a ML PhD

Arguably the Lauren Lee grant also qualifies.

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g/long-term-future-fund-april-2019-grant-recommendations

Thanks very much for sharing this! I really appreciate the insight into your decision process and help predicting what sorts of projects donations to the LTFF will support in the future.

Fertility rate may be important but to me it's not worth restricting (directly or indirectly) people's personal choices for. ... I think it's better to encourage people who are already interested in having kids to do so, through financial and other incentives.

Providing financial and other incentives to do X, if provided by the government, mean higher taxes on people who don't do X, an indirect restriction on their choices.

Does this argument imply a general social conservatism? Many changes, new lifestyles etc. reduce participation in traditional options, have potential for negative outcomes, and few of them are first tested on over-30 year olds with a medical diagnosis.

Which subjects do you wish to study that Oxford and Cambridge don't offer?

Some yes, sometimes years after the event, but generally without quantification of the impact. The highlight was probably Mustafa Suleyman mentioning it, though I only learned of this a long time later, and I'm not aware of any specific actions he took as a result.

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing this!

You/readers might also be interested in my post here, published between when you wrote and published this, arguing the static nature of the long reflection with regards competition and material progress might undermine our ability to engage in truth-seeking inquiry.

Buying a coal mine ( a common occurrence that normal people do, though it turns out Will misunderstood the process in a way that probably invalidated the plan ) seems sufficiently different from buying a country ( a very rare occurrence with no established process, normal people do not do ) that I don't think you should take Will's serious interest in the former as much evidence about the latter.