If I attend EA Global Boston, will I consider it a better use of my time than the counterfactual?
23
395
470
Dec 16
62%
chance

This question resolves to my best guess by one month after EAG.

For this market, I will weight professional/impact-oriented goals (e.g. meeting donors or potential hires, or helping others) at 75%, and personal goals (e.g. making personal connections, scoping out whether Boston is a better place to live than the Bay) at 25%.

The counterfactual is me remaining in Berkeley. It's hard to predict activities a month in the future, but most likely I'll do a combination of grant evaluations, fundraising, and public communications. I estimate the trip to cost ~1.5 workdays (~0.5 each from flights, being distracted, and needing to recuperate after the conference) and ~2 weekend days, plus maybe* $1k in hotel costs (surprisingly expensive atm).

I will resolve it to ex-post rather than ex ante estimates (e.g. if I talk to a large donor at EAG but nothing came out of it, I count that as ~neutral).

Note that you might be hit by "bad luck" by the resolution criteria (e.g. if I get covid I might resolve as negative even if the rest of the conference goes fine, if I meet someone awesome at the airport but hate the rest of EAG it might resolve positive)

*though as a commenter pointed out, I might be able to get free lodging.

Get Ṁ200 play money
Sort by:

@Linch Can this resolve by now?

predicts YES

Boston driving is a hellhole. Get a cab or bus or the subway, do NOT drive in Boston.

@Linch curious about your take on this? A little relevant for me deciding whether to go to the upcoming EAG Bay Area haha

I'm too illiquid to bet now, but my guess is that fit-testing for a hometown that beats berkeley would not work over a simple EAG. If it were me, I'd need at least a week to collect anything resembling information I care about (and I'd prefer 3-5).

I feel like in the air alone is 0.5 workday, getting to airport and dealing with TSA on top of that could make it upwards of 1.2 workdays each way? If you're good at working in the air that might be pretty different.

@Quinn on a flight I think I'm maybe 30% efficiency working, and maybe 60% efficiency sleeping.

(a) you need an end paren at the end of the description
(b) what would you do in Berkeley?
(c) you could maybe stay on someone's couch rather than getting a hotel room

@DanielFilan re c) I did say "maybe"