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Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

mothminds.com

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Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#31

Post by barrenko »

koheripbal wrote: post #10

I would like $100k to work on the Collatz conjecture for 6 months. I have an idea that will probably fail, but if I had that money I would quit my job work my ass off for six months to flesh it out. But I have no credentials, no way to write a grant proposal, and even I wouldn't invest in myself. ....and yet if we did this sort of experiment 10000 times over, humanity might make some big breakthroughs because some of…

I'll send you 10 bucks. I really believe Naval x Joe Rogan outlined the whole future of work, together with the movie "Her".

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#32

Post by varelse »

bsedlm wrote: post #13
koheripbal wrote: post #10

I would like $100k to work on the Collatz conjecture for 6 months. I have an idea that will probably fail, but if I had that money I would quit my job work my ass off for six months to flesh it out. But I have no credentials, no way to write a grant proposal, and even I wouldn't invest in myself. ....and yet if we did this sort of experiment 10000 times over, humanity might make some big breakthroughs because some of…

sounds a lot like what VCs are already doing, except they're interested in business, not big breakthroughs

As someone just barely past past the affluence event horizon, VCs are now actively courting me to lead startups to develop their ideas or to invest in their funds. Previously, they just dismissed me as hella smart but clearly not leadership material (apparently net worth is an equivalent virtue signal to academic pedigree, who knew?). I am instead investing in myself and building skills orthogonal to what got me here so as to push senility off into the far off future.

I like the concept here in principle. But I would love to see it expand to also attracting tribes both in terms of time and money to build concepts. These days, I tell startups that want my money that it is off the table, but I offer my time and opinions in exchange for free dinners. It's up to them whether they consider that a good deal or not. Or it's easy to get money if you're willing to search for someone who's already pursuing something similar and you just need to express your concept as if it is their concept. What's hard is finding people who can execute all the way to production. Thank you for attending my TED Talk(tm).

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#33

Post by ok_dad »

I would love to work on open source, well designed, free software to control distributed energy resources and building load. Currently I've worked for several companies doing this, but I think that closed source, non free software will never allow us to truly reach the full electrification and decarbonization we need, and the power grid, both generation and transmission, is only getting more complex to manage with the old school tech approaches I've seen. I want to build the free and open OS for the distributed grid, but I need to support my family first.

This isn't to beg, but imagine all the others who have similar stories to the above, like in medicine or education, and don't have the freedom to actually do those things because they are instead pouring effort into adtech or something else that's not as important to the world (no ad trolls please, it's just an example). Instead, we have risk averse profit motivation as our major path to innovation, and that's quite bad, in my opinion.

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#34

Post by fellowniusmonk »

weego wrote: post #9
nickff wrote: post #4

This is an interesting premise, but I'm not sure that the pool of potential grant recipients will be a very good one. The problem that I foresee is that people working on these sorts of projects seem to fall into two broad categories: -People who don't want to work for someone else, but lack vision and exist on social proof. These people will be attracted to the grant funding, but unable to use it to create something…

I 'run' my own micro arts fund providing support for people in MH communities that would like supplies or tools to help as part of their ongoing rehab or change of career as a way of getting back into a life that means something. The answer really is if you expect a measurable outcome from small-scale investing in people then don't do it, you're in the wrong space. If you view your investment as a path to the outcome…

I put this together as a concept. There are so many tiers of "low bar", I think a lot of people just need a very basic safety net.

There is so much real estate sitting essentially empty and the boomer generation is starting to downsize to smaller places because their homes feel empty and have become unrewarding to own.

After my parents died when I was young I would have killed for a middle class teen/twenties life.

https://www.middleclasspaas.com/

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#35

Post by hyperpallium2 »

japhyr wrote: post #26

This is a wonderful idea, and I will be quite curious to see where it goes. I really, really like the idea of funding individuals we believe in, rather than specific projects. It reminds me of Gittip from a decade ago, which morphed into Gratipay. That original idea of "distributed genius grants", which is reminiscent of MacArthur fellowships, was great. Anyone digging into this space has to be willing to wade deep i…

The article (and title) is about funding work, not people.

Postgraduate scholarships are closer to "funding people", since you can propose any project you like (in my experience, anyway). Academic performance is the credential - not a terrible predictor but of course far from perfect.

And in academia, there are a lot of "moths", who use their position to do their own thing, outside the entire academial-publishing complex. A personal skunkworks.

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#36

Post by coyotespike »

nickff wrote: post #4

This is an interesting premise, but I'm not sure that the pool of potential grant recipients will be a very good one. The problem that I foresee is that people working on these sorts of projects seem to fall into two broad categories: -People who don't want to work for someone else, but lack vision and exist on social proof. These people will be attracted to the grant funding, but unable to use it to create something…

The world is full of smart, curious, active people who are neither brilliant nor delusional.

One problem we do have is that (in the States, especially), our culture is geared around individual careers.

Meaning we don't have a supportive culture for people creating stuff on their own - or really a strong culture of forming small supportive teams.

I do think the tech world (and, even if you really oppose it in general, the crypto world) has a lot of people forming teams to do cool stuff. So that's a culture which is a counterexample to what I just said.

Given such a generally atomized (or actively unhelpful) culture, you're more likely to have a few breakouts ("brilliant") and a lot of more normal folks who can't make it ("delusional").

Nevertheless, I think giving grants to free more people up to start figuring out how to do creative work on their own (or, better, form networks and groups to support them socially) is a very good start.

In other words, it's not about just sorting the wheat from the chaff - it's more about helping more people to start muddling their way to a happy and helpful place.

With that said, I'm glad you've surfaced this concern, as it is certainly a common one.

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#37

Post by tarkin2 »

I like the idea. I wonder how much "return" financial contributors would want. I'd suggest allowing financial contributors to split a set sum between recipients. I've often liked the idea "I'll contribute x amount to whatever, this is how I'll split it per month" and being able to do that easily.

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#38

Post by koheripbal »

ok_dad wrote: post #30
koheripbal wrote: post #10

I would like $100k to work on the Collatz conjecture for 6 months. I have an idea that will probably fail, but if I had that money I would quit my job work my ass off for six months to flesh it out. But I have no credentials, no way to write a grant proposal, and even I wouldn't invest in myself. ....and yet if we did this sort of experiment 10000 times over, humanity might make some big breakthroughs because some of…

For something like this, if you have a good idea, why not explain it and make the idea public so someone with more time can research it? You'll only lose the chance to make a big name for yourself, and if it pans out you'll still get some credit, and the human race will have advanced in knowledge. It's not like you're giving away a possible formula to nuclear fusion. What's the downside I'm not seeing?

I have tried that, but people online don't really have an open mind.

I'll tell you right now... I feel like there is a way to model the 3n+1 system of equations (or really any such generalized system) using Godel numbering as a representation of each operation, as a prime number based programming language of nature, and then try to glean something from the output primes to see if there is something that predicts the single 4->2->1 outcome we always see. e.g. if it is a certain form of Fermat prime or something.

It would require me to put my computers to work because these numbers get very big, but the real limitation is my time because I have three kids and cannot afford to quit my job.

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#39

Post by koheripbal »

kenferry wrote: post #15
koheripbal wrote: post #10

I would like $100k to work on the Collatz conjecture for 6 months. I have an idea that will probably fail, but if I had that money I would quit my job work my ass off for six months to flesh it out. But I have no credentials, no way to write a grant proposal, and even I wouldn't invest in myself. ....and yet if we did this sort of experiment 10000 times over, humanity might make some big breakthroughs because some of…

Maybe I’m misreading, but it SEEMS like this site is reverse kickstarter: I would like to FUND people to work on the Collatz conjecture, please apply.

The site isn't active yet

Re: Moth Minds: Fund individuals doing work you believe in

#40

Post by x0xrx »

mike_d wrote: post #27
benfarahmand wrote: post #6

If the goal is developing grantee self-efficacy, the funding should require pairing with a mentor. Finding a mentor that is willing to guide a grantee to bring an idea to fruition is also validation of that individual's ability to accomplish the task.

I'd love to take a year and just build free security tools for people to use. I don't need a mentor to do that, I just need a salary replacement for that time period. This reeks of the mantra of product managers everywhere... "There is no way a brilliant engineer would be able to create something great without management."

1. Apply for new job, get 30% raise (apparently everyone is doing it).

2. Cut expenses by 30% (how hard can it be? Avocado toast is tre expensive!)

3. Save for just one single year.

4. Hey there’s your salary replacement! Looking forward to awesome security tools (seriously, legit looking forward to it).

(Lest you fear obsolescence;

5. Get your new new job, 30% raise again).

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