Okay but what is that signal value? 

For me, it felt like the cost of being vegan was 5 - 10 hours of attention each week. I think that would have fallen over time, but when I went on holiday it was much of what I was thinking about every meal and indeed around meals - will I be hungry etc etc. If readers are people who find it easier to cook and incorporate new processes then maybe it's a great idea. I don't, so it felt pretty costly to me. 

I doubt the signal value is worth more that that.

Is the amount of time/energy you’d need to invest (discounted for the fact that likely you wouldn’t otherwise be spending this all on altruism) not worth it to unlock the benefits for animals of being vegan for the rest of your life?

This argument doesn't hold as strongly as you think - because I can decide to be vegan later, so it's more like "benefits for animal until being vegan becomes a priority". And also perhaps animal suffering falls at some future time. 

And for me it's less about energy and more about focus. I don't feel like I get to pick too many things to focus on in any weak, usually 1-2 (eg this week I'm mainly focusing on "getting work done" and "going to bed one time"). Veganism felt like it took up .2-1 of a slot for most of the time I did it. So yeah, I don't think it was worth it. 

I think the fuelling activism point is kind of good - I did find it easier to talk about animals when I knew I was taking pains to avoid them. 

But there is a deeper kind of activism I might want to fuel, that of trying to do the most effective thing. It did feel a bit incongruous to spend mine and others time to avoid eating animals while my company wasn't at the point I wanted it to be. And most of my impact will probably be through my work. Someone pointed out that this was inconsistent and I think they were right.

At some point veganism might be a top priority for me, but I'm not convinced it is now. 

I had a decision and someone sent me this. Thanks for writing it.

Wow this is wonderful news.

Not the only reason though. The only way to cash out was donations and some people didn't want to.

I went vegan for about 3 months, but found it was often a really large part of my thought process for the day "will I have enough to eat" "what will I eat". I imagine I could get it to a stable place in 6 - 12 months of it being a priority, but that focus seems better used elsewhere, even if animals are my top focus. 

If you find veganism easy or fulfilling, I would recommend it. But I'm not sure I'd recommend it in general, other than being  predictive of moral seriousness (though it's not clear which way causation goes there).

The move to 1000:1 is prompted by the fact that we have currently roughly $1.2m of mana issued against $1.5m cash in bank. As we move to sweepstakes, we want to make sure we can fully back this and still have a healthy runway. (fwiw, I think currency rate change is a terrible solution to this and think there's a small chance, 15%?, that we can avoid this)

1. This seems like a bad situation to have gotten into. Did this happen because manifold didn't plan well or was it Future fund related? If my mana is gonna take a haircut the difference seems pretty important. 
2. Personally I like manifold a lot and if they said "hey we screwed up (or were screwed) and so don't have assets how can we figure this out" I would be pretty amenable to that. I know it's easy to see this as a run on the bank, but the only way to do so is to donate the money, so you have an unusually charitable group to negotiate with. I really liked the way they didn't trash Mr King in the Whales vs Minnows thing. Forgiveness is real and they have a reasonable amount of my good will to play with in situations where people screw up. 
3. But with very short notice saying "we're doing this" feels like I am being defected against and leaves me a lot more likely to donate everything (I have $320 on manifold). Feels like this kind of behaviour should be punished.
4. Also why the need for a 10x devaluation. wouldn't this also work if they devalued by like 30%? Not sure why 1/10 was the right number.

It's easy to see this as capital controls etc etc, but the only place the money can go is to charities and if things collapse manifold may die and I don't want that. In both cases, I am differently motivated than if manifold is a faceless bank.

Best of luck on Manifund, though it's a shame you've left manifold cos I liked manifold and value is fragile. Hope you're well!

I don't respond or read fully posts that are this much longer than my posts. 

Allowing debate of, e.g., white supremacy on the EA Forum, besides being simply off-topic in most cases, creates a no-win situation for the people whose rights and value are being debated and for other people who care a lot about them. If you engage in the debate, it will exhaust you and distress you, which your interlocutors may very well enjoy. If you avoid the debate or debate a bit and then disengage, this can create the impression that your views can’t be reasonably defended. It can also create the impression that your interlocutors’ views are the dominant ones in the community, which can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (See: "Nazi death spiral".)

Let's note that white supremacy is not regularly discussed on the EA forum and you, yes literally you, are the cause of most of this previous discussion. 3 or 4 times now I have seen people say they didn't see this discussion until they read this post. 

I am not particularly worried about people thinking that sterilisation is a good solution, for instance. Perhaps if there was a post every week arguing for it, then I would want to talk about that.

I get that there are people who don't want this to be a space where these ideas are regularly discussed. There are large costs to them, similar to the costs around engaging with with Bostrom's email. These costs are real. I sense people want confidence that others will join them in pushing back when stuff like this happens. 

I don't know how to give people that confidence, except to say, I see the costs of othering groups in society. How what starts as "wouldn't it be convenient if" can end up as "let's put them in camps". I don't really know how to convey this to you, but a part of me is very concerned by this. 

But again, right know, the equilibrium feels okay and not a high priority to change. Let's come back to it in 6 months.

Here is the abstract:

Starting from the premise that growth is essential for some of the poorest countries, this note suggests some less obvious investments complementary to the usual approaches that encourage capital transfers and technical assistance in specific areas (e.g., by private foundations or the World Bank). It uses a framing that places a key reason for lagging growth in the agency of those with power and influence — the elite — and the coalition among them — their elite-bargain — that is not conducive to growth. Proposals are articulated that try to increase the upside of growth and reduce downside risks from a commitment to growth, that make power coalitions that go against growth harder, and that foster the formation and sustainment of growth coalitions.