Marcel van Diemen

I feel that the project could be potentially valuable, and I hope Marcel will be a bit more ambitious/have a bit more runway and leeway. I feel that there could be room for more funding, but I'd want some specific commitments in exchange.

I think this is interesting and would want to hear how it's going.

I've made Marcel an offer of $2.5k. This is not necessarily the last offer I make to this project; I'm giving a smaller amount in order to get money out the door more quickly and to provide a credible signal to other regrantors.

This grant seems fairly straightforward to evaluate. On the one hand,

• The early project looks great. I am and others are deriving value from it already.
• The way in which this project would contribute to "raising the sanity waterline" is clear (at least, on its own terms; see my distrust of this kind of thing in general below).
• Trusted members of my network are excited about the project.
• Marcel's answer to my question about scaled-down budget seems sensible. It feels like this project can absorb only partial funding fairly well.

On the other hand,

• I'm somewhat distrustful of forecasting/IIDM projects by default, because the connection between the 95th percentile version of these projects and improved outcomes has often been unclear to me. (I like Linch's post as a counterweight.) I feel this for Marcel's project too.
• I am more excited about some other projects, do definitely don't want to go all-in on this.

Overall, I'm happy to give partial funding to this project, on the substance and as a signal to others.