> I don't understand... why is this a dichotomy? Those are the options for EA-type organizations, aren't they? You accept the money and use it to further your

> I don't understand... why is this a dichotomy? Those are the options for EA-type organizations, aren't they? You accept the money and use it to further your EA goals, or you refuse to accept the money and accept that you're passing up the opportunity to help a lot of people. It's admittedly blurred because a proportion of EA donation goes towards "growing the movement" or controversial "long-termist" causes (as with most or all of SBF's donations aiui), but most (I think 68% last time I looked) goes towards effective global health initiatives. So sure, I get that by refusing to accept the billionaire money you'd send some sort of anticapitalist message. You could tweet about it and probably get a lot of likes. I see why people would like that part, in isolation. But, is that really worth hundreds of thousands of lives? I find it really odd (and frankly horrifying) that anybody would even have to think about that question for longer than a millisecond. 250k is admittedly on the high side of how many lives you could save for $1bn. It's in the ballpark though.