finm and I are interviewing Ben Todd on our podcast next week. Ben is the CEO & co-founder of 80,000 Hours, which you likely have heard of.
We want to introduce 80k and the significance of career choice to non-EA listeners, but also to explore some questions you are curious about!
If you have a question you would like to ask Ben, we would love to hear it. This could be about the core ideas behind 80k, 80k strategy, questions about career choices, and things EA might be getting wrong (etc.)
Fin and I always find these comments useful, and we will pick our favourites on Friday 9th July. Thanks all!
How and when did 80,000 Hours decide to focus more on longtermism and create longtermist content and career advice? If Ben is willing to share, whether through the Forum or the podcast, I'd love to know the story behind how this happened. Or if anyone else knows the basic story, feel free to comment it here too.
(I'm not saying it's a bad thing that 80K focused on longtermism.)
I'm not sure if this question is too advanced for the podcast, but maybe he's willing to answer it on the Forum: If you could change Open Philanthropy's grantmaking (i.e. what causes they focus on, or what organizations/interventions they grant to), in what key ways would you change it? Would you like to see them do more of certain types of grants?
Hi Luca, thanks for presenting this opportunity. A question about career choices:
I currently live in Denmark and am an active member of EA Denmark. One thing that strikes me is that many of our most committed members go off to other countries, particularly the UK or US to make an EA career. Is this a sensible decision in terms of impact?
My thinking is, although matchmaking possibilities are better in a bigger country (i.e. not many cultured meat companies in DK). Much of what pushes people to move abroad might be "bigger country = bigger impact", without considering that there is (in a best case scenario) a linear scaling of competition for said impact. In short, that it may be better to be a "big fish in a small pond". Especially in small Scandinavian countries that have more functional politics than the UK & US, and lots of other benefits in the same line.
Some people want only their own or their family's happiness and do not care about strangers much, let alone future of generations. Do think the career advice on 80000 hours can still be helpful for them? In what way?