Frequently Asked Questions
This is a FAQ for Balsa Research. It was last updated on April 9th, 2024.
Q: What does Balsa Research do?
Balsa Research is a nonprofit think tank focused on identifying particularly low-hanging fruit in American federal policy where key bridging work is not being done.
We strive to find changes that would be big wins, find the ways those changes might come about, and to do the work required to allow others to seize such opportunities.
To that end, we intend to specialize in identifying not only potential changes but also the right questions to ask about the present problem and the impact of those changes. We then commission credible academic work to find and quantify those answers. The questions that matter are often going to be the ones that are going to matter in a Congressional staff meeting or hearing, breaking down questions that particular constituencies and members care about. We aim to eventually expand to a full stack approach for policy advocacy.
There is far more hope for improvement than almost anyone realizes. Lobbying when done right is remarkably cheap and effective, and enabling lobbying to be done right is even more cheap and effective. Secret congress can be productive. Many marginal improvements are highly valuable, with no substantial downsides and compounding benefits. If you want to do something rather than be someone, campaigns ultimately costing millions can unlock trillions.
Q: This seems like it will be very hard?
A: Yes. It will be very hard.
Q: Don’t most policy projects fail?
A: Yes, they do.
Q: What will you do differently to succeed at this hard problem where most others fail?
Short A: Our focus will be on cutting the enemy, not growing, fundraising and hitting vanity metrics.
Long A: Good question. We plan to do a bunch of things differently, including but not limited to:
Backward chaining from success. Most projects don’t do this.
Focus on champions. As part of backward chaining, most lose sight of this. As an example, Scott Wiener was this for YIMBY.
Correct incentives. Most projects focus on enabling fundraising and growing. We won’t. We believe our motivations are unusually robust and that we can preserve that.
General interest motive. Having a general interest ‘special interest’ group helps solve the diffuse benefits problem for many useful actions. Someone needs to be the champion.
Academic studies and quantification of things that matter to legislators and key interest groups. Many things that would be very helpful simply aren’t being quantified right now.
Drafting legislation. If you don’t write the bill, don’t expect someone else to do it.
Unique intellectual approach. Almost no one takes a similar intellectual approach to the one motivating Balsa, which can also be seen on Zvi’s Substack. This has already created unique useful resources that many people rely upon. If that approach can be scaled sufficiently, the sky's the limit.
Do something, not be someone. Credit matters for momentum effects but ultimately what matters is cutting the enemy, not who everyone remembers as doing the cutting.
The right moment. This is a unique moment both in terms of the power of LLMs/AIs, and also in terms of potential support for a policy initiative centered around growth and life, also known as The Abundance Agenda. As Sarah Constantin puts it in that post: This is the basic thesis of what Derek Thompson calls the "abundance agenda”, Ezra Klein calls “supply-side progressivism”, Noah Smith calls “new industrialism”, Katherine Boyle of Andreessen Horowitz calls “American dynamism”, and the Institute for Progress simply calls “progress.” The degree to which, after consideration, people embrace the underlying goals, and also see the need to push for them, is remarkable. So is the level of resources available on the sidelines that could be unlocked, but has mostly been rightfully disillusioned with past attempts.
More details are available throughout the blog posts.
Q: Won’t you probably fail anyway?
A: Yes, the effort probably fails. Most startups and ambitious projects fail. It is still worth trying. The willingness to accept this rather than create a story to claim a fake ‘win’ is part of why it might work.
Q: Practically speaking, what does your work look like on a day to day basis?
We consult others doing work in our research areas, and review the literature and the discourse to get a sense of how to best advance reasonable policy goals within them. Considering our own areas of expertise, this currently shakes out to designing and fundraising for academic studies to fill knowledge gaps, and eventually, working with lawyers and policy professionals to draft legislation when we are satisfied that we have an adequate understanding of the issue, and realistic solutions.
Q: How big do you intend Balsa Research to get and how fast?
A: We intend to take it relatively slow. The policy branch will look to add a few full-time employees when we find the right people. We’re not afraid to wait until we find the right ones, or to keep it small and low-cost until we hit a critical moment.
Q: How do you prioritize issues?
Short A: Best balance of biggest win versus difficulty of winning, with a focus on issues where the case seems indisputable and there are few if any real losers, and it would build momentum.
Longer A: Issue selection balances many criteria, with the most important being (1) how big a win is available and (2) the estimated difficulty of the win, where win includes both the direct physical impact of the change and the momentum effects it generates. We also want to (3) aggressively avoid overly partisan or culture war issues, especially when they represent value disagreements, and (4) want to start by focusing on areas where the win seems ‘clean’ and overwhelmingly clear, where the failure to have already addressed the problem is a visible sign of our civilizational inadequacy. We want win/win situations where there are few if any losers, and what losers there are could be reasonably compensated. Ideally the people opposing the change are making a mistake on their own terms.
Also (5) we want to focus on where we would be a good messenger and can reasonably quickly and affordably ‘make the case.’ If we have strong expertise making itself available on an issue, it will get higher priority. Finally, one must admit there is some amount of (6) what catches our attention and makes us care. Some of that is that it will inspire others too, some of that is that motivation matters.
Q: How much of your agenda is convincing the government to do new things versus convincing them to stop doing things they are already doing?
A: The bulk of the low hanging fruit is in convincing the government to stop doing harmful things it is already doing. That does not mean that such actions are trivial, or that they are shovel ready. One must still provide an alternative course of action. This new course must transition us from the current equilibrium to a new one, putting a new policy regime in place even if the final destination is mostly to not interfere. Without good answers about how that works, one won’t get buy-in.
Without knowing who is in charge of getting the harmful thing to stop and how to get them to actually stop, your plan won’t work. When it involves convincing states or local governments to stop, it is even trickier. In other places, like tax policy, the line between doing things and not doing things can be highly unclear. There are also places where Balsa will advocate for genuinely new ideas or for doing additional things, which are anticipated to mostly not be the low-hanging fruit and thus not prioritized short term.
Q: What will be your top issue priorities?
A: Our first priority is Jones Act repeal. Later we intend to pursue an ambitious approach to NEPA reform and otherwise enabling new energy infrastructure, and innovative ways for the Federal government to enable building more housing where people want to live. All three are areas where there are clear cases to be made that aren’t being made and things to try that aren’t being tried. All three are immensely valuable, and can be done at the Federal level.
We also care deeply about AI policy and mitigating AI-related existential risks, which is the subject of most of our founder’s other work. However we believe the right way to support that cause at this time is through other organizations, not starting yet another one.
That does not mean there aren’t better opportunities out there, and we encourage anyone to make the case for that. We will continue to gather information on all of our research areas.
Q: How do you overcome the problem of concentrated benefits versus diffuse costs when trying to do something like Jones Act repeal?
Short A: Fight fire with fire, you can be (and recruit) the champion on the other side, and the core actual concentrated benefits are often vanishingly small enough to make everyone whole.
Longer A: Fight fire with fire by being the other side of the coin that would enjoy a concentrated benefit, a special interest in opposition, that builds the Explicit Coalition of general interests to counter the Implicit Coalition of special interests that all work together to protect rent seeking and concentrated benefits in general. Spell out exactly how small are the benefits, and how large are the costs.
Also by buying off or convincing those who think they have concentrated benefits that they are wrong and should stand down, as even they get more benefit from ending the diffuse costs or can gain in trade far more than they stand to lose.
For example, while it is reasonable for shipbuilders and owners of existing Jones Act ships in particular to oppose Jones Act repeal for selfish reasons, the total value of their financial interests is so vanishingly small they can easily be made whole including via navy contracts, as can the particular unions and workers that would be put at risk. Whereas unions in general should strongly support repeal, as on top of other benefits it would create many good union jobs directly, strengthen the role of union-dominated trades and contribute greatly to American manufacturing by reducing transportation costs specifically for American-made goods.
Q: Why are you focusing on federal policy/elections, when it may be easier to win and make change happen on the state level?
Short A: The stakes are higher, even relative to the additional difficulty. Comparative advantage.
Longer A: Our comparative advantage lies at the Federal rather than the state level, and the stakes are higher even relative to the level of difficulty. There is lots of value available at the state level and it is our hope that others will pick up that ball and run with it, but this is one place where we have a clear focus. A few intuition pumps behind this decision are:
Our base of supporters is highly geographically diverse. Zvi’s audience is mostly nationwide if not international. Those who want to help come from across the country. Focusing on one state would be a poor fit. Focusing on many states is a mess.
The state level is easier in some ways, harder in others. States are idiosyncratic and particular, and local special interests are more powerful there. If you want to attack concentrated benefits, often it helps to operate in a larger rather than a smaller sphere. Expanding the pool of decision makers strengthens the diffuse and general interests.
As a concrete example, the most encouraging state level win recently has been the YIMBY/housing legislation coming out of California. It is not a coincidence, in Zvi’s opinion, that this is happening in America’s largest state, where the state has wide scope (California is a top 10 world economy) to take on the locals, where everyone enjoys the benefits of housing built elsewhere. If California was split into several regional states things would be a lot harder. There are constitutional barriers that complicate any Federal effort to get more housing built where people want to live, but everyone getting to enjoy the benefits of everyone else building all at once gives us hope that turning YIMBY into a Federal cause could make things much easier, and also we feel that the intervention space Federally has not been well-explored.
State power in particular is far more tied up in local relationships and dynamics, and local interests, and individuals we do not know and have no connections into. That is not the game we are good at playing.
Many key issues can only be properly addressed at the Federal level, such as the FDA, NEPA or the Jones Act. The Federal level has constitutional checks on how much it can impact the states but the states have essentially no chance against the Feds.
Federal action impacts the culture and zeitgeist more. These are key things we want to impact. State policies often won’t cross over as much as one might want or hope.
This is what is new, it seems exciting, and we see a path to success.
None of this means we won’t opportunistically help with state and local policy, if we see opportunity and/or are asked nicely, especially if the tools we already have built and evidence and work we have already assembled and done directly applies. There is far from zero temptation to get involved in NYC, SF or California, or to work somewhat with those doing so.
Q: How will you avoid losing epistemic rigor/becoming just another partisan advocacy group?
A: We are keenly aware of this danger. It is Balsa’s second most likely failure mode behind a basic failure to get traction or raise funds. We are happy to make major sacrifices, in terms of ability to raise money and grow and notch short term optical wins, in order to avoid or at least postpone this. If it did happen, Zvi would hope he would notice, consider the project no longer interesting or worthwhile, and walk away. Careful and slow hiring with this danger in mind is a crucial aspect here, as is raising money with a keen eye towards those who would move incentives in this direction. Effort will continue to be made to build up a brand that is not compatible with partisan advocacy. If we became another partisan advocacy group, that would destroy what makes us special. Periodic reminders of the unique destructive madness of both parties should also be helpful.
Still, despite all this, the danger remains. Over a sufficiently long time horizon, especially over decades and as founder effects fade, things like this become increasingly inevitable. It is the fate of all organizations, in the end. When that happens, one must learn to start over again.
Q: Can I contribute to Balsa in a particular policy area I’m interested in (for example, FDA reform)?
A: Yes! Or at least, we’d love to have you give it a shot. A lot of people with policy interest or expertise have already reached out to us via our Google form, and we encourage more people to do the same. In case it was not obvious, the only way Balsa is going to cover its bases is by getting this kind of help.
If you think you can help us in a collaborative way, please get in touch at hello@balsaresearch.com, or fill out this Google Form.
Q: It seems like your goals are very broad and ambitious, how will you accomplish that with a smaller team?
A: While we plan to express a wide variety of views, we have narrowed our focus in the sense that we have selected key areas to focus on, where we will commission studies. Eventually we hope to spin out a c4 to hire lobbyists if things go well - we don’t intend to and couldn’t grow the team to the point where we could do that across the board. We also work with volunteers and academics, and will commission outside help.
Ultimately the goal is not to have Balsa in particular cause most or all (or even that many) of the desired changes to individually happen. To the extent there is a goal, it is to get some of them, worthwhile in their own sake, and encourage others to see that it is possible and use that momentum.
Q: What will you do about AI policy/existential risk concerns?
A: The news on this front has been very good. In addition to export controls of AI hardware, the key practical intervention right now is monitoring of large concentrations of compute and training of compute-intensive frontier models, with an eye towards imposing security and safety requirements and compute limits when and if that becomes necessary. There are also other things that would be good to do, like dealing with deepfakes and fixing copyright and liability law.
There are several good organizations already working to promote these ideas. Zvi is in communication with many of them, and believes that it is best at this time for Balsa not to create another parallel effort.
Q: Is this an effective altruist project?
A: No. While all the core members know many EAs, we may have EA-associated volunteers, and some EA donors may choose to fund us, we do not consider ourselves EAs and never have. Nor do we consider this an EA project.
We do still share the principle that you should do things that would be positively impactful, and find the best ways of doing them. If we did not think this was worth doing, we wouldn’t do it.
Q: How are you structured legally?
A: Balsa Policy Institute is a 501c(3). We anticipate potentially having a second entity in the future, likely a 501c(4), to help with lobbying and campaigning, if the project overall is sufficiently successful and there is sufficient financial support for that idea.
Q: Will you be affiliated with a particular party?
A: No. One of our top priorities, as noted above, is to avoid becoming one more partisan advocacy organization.
Q: How are you funded?
A: Balsa Research is a 501c(3) funded by donations.