[habryka]

Oh, hey HN! I run Lightcone Infrastructure which runs this residency (as well as LessWrong.com and the venue, Lighthaven.space).

Happy to answer questions if anyone has any. Ben (one of my co-founders) is more centrally in charge of it, but I should have enough context to answer really any question.

[gorgoiler]

I could be the only person to have thought this, but when I saw this was a residency advertising money and accommodation I assumed this was a grant for an arts/culture programme. If it’s just me that thought that then I’m clearly too naive, but if ten people do then it might be worth adjusting the copy.

[habryka]

Makes sense, it certainly is the case that these programs tend to pay people, though I have kind of learned to treat that with a bit of suspicion (having run lots of programs of that kind).

As they say, "if you are not the customer, you are the product", and I really wanted this fellowship to not be the kind of thing where the actual underlying motivation is some kind of recruitment scheme that drives the program objectives, while looking on the surface like a thing that is optimized to help the residents.

[pclmulqdq]

Yeah, the point of most artist residencies is that the artists are the product, not the customer. The general idea is that artists and art make a place more attractive to visit, so the residency brings artists to your place to attract an art-consuming customer demographic. Professional artists understand this dynamic and are very comfortable with it, and being the product in this way can be a very symbiotic relationship since (1) you get paid and (2) being in the new place with new people brings new ideas.

This seems to be more of a training camp or a writing intensive than a residency, but I am not sure what the appropriate name for that is.

[venkii]

Any sense if applying later will be detrimental?

The main reason to delay: I've started writing relatively recently, and expect I might have more posts I'd showcase in my application by then.

[habryka]

My guess is not much? Because we are doing rolling applications, so we are somehow trying to judge how many good applicants in total we are going to get (classical secretary problem). Applying early means we might let you in with a lower bar if we end up getting a lot of great applications later and raise our bar. Applying later might be better if we realize we were overly conservative in the beginning and are disappointed in the later applications.

Thinking about it, my guess is we will probably let promising people who applied early know that they are on some kind of waitlist and extend an invite to them if we end up disappointed with the later applications, so if you are flexible, I think that makes early strictly easier. I don't expect the effect to be that large though.

[TimorousBestie]

Any sweetheart deals with a blogging platform yet? I expect the Nearly Free Speech folks or the bearblog dev would hear you out.

[habryka]

Not yet! My guess is Substack is the best choice for most people, just because it's easy to set up, has a bunch of UI problems solved, and has a non-terrible way to get towards getting food on the table (even if you don't paywall anything).

[TimorousBestie]

Substack? Talk about unfortunate connotations. Hopefully their drama dies down before November.

[wink]

Is "endorsing nazi content" a drama that can die down?

[TimorousBestie]

In this media environment? Yeah probably. We’ve all gotten very good at forgetting inconvenient facts.

Should it go away? Probably not.

[dotcoma]

How do you earn money with Substack if you don’t paywall anything?

[habryka]

You use it more like a Patreon. I don't think it's easy, but it works for at least some people like Scott at AstralCodexTen (who arguably has some paywalled essays, but it's extremely rare and I doubt it's the reason why almost anyone is subscribed to him).

[dotcoma]

So content is free, and readers can make a donation?

[habryka]

Yep, something like that.