Quick takes

Any hints / info on what to look for in a mentor / how to find one? (Specifically for community building.) I'm starting as a national group director in september, and among my focus topics for EAG London are group-focused things like "figuring out pointers / out of the box ideas / well-working ideas we haven't tried yet for our future strategy", but also trying to find a mentor. These were some thoughts I came up with when thinking about this yesterday:  - I'm not looking for accountability or day to day support. I get that from inside our local group.  - I am looking for someone that can take a description of the higher level situation and see different things than I can. Either due to perspective differences or being more experienced and skilled.  - Also someone who can give me useful input on what skills to focus on building in the medium term.  - Someone whose skills and experience I trust, and when they say "plan looks good" it gives me confidence, when I'm trying to do something that feels to me like a long shot / weird / difficult plan and I specifically need validation that it makes sense. On a concrete level I'm looking for someone to have ~monthly 1-1 calls with and some asynchronous communication. Not about common day to day stuff but larger calls.  

80,000 Hours has completed its spin-out and has new boards We're pleased to announce that 80,000 Hours has officially completed its spin-out from Effective Ventures and is now operating as an independent organisation. We've established two entities with the following board members: 80,000 Hours Limited (a nonprofit entity where our core operations live): * Konstantin Sietzy — Deputy Director of Talent and Operations at UK AISI * Alex Lawsen — Senior Program Associate at Open Philanthropy and former 80,000 Hours Advising Manager * Anna Weldon — COO at the Centre for Effective Altruism and former EV board member * Joshua Rosenberg — CEO of the Forecasting Research Institute * Emma Abele — Former CEO of METR 80,000 Hours Foundation: * Susan Shi — General counsel at EV, soon to move to CEA * Katie Hearsum — COO at Longview Philanthropy * Anna Weldon — An overlapping member of both boards Within our mission of helping people use their careers to solve the world's most pressing problems, we've recently sharpened our focus on careers that can help make AI go well. This organizational change won't affect our core work or programs in any significant way, though we're excited about the strategic guidance our new boards will provide and the greater operational flexibility we'll have going forward as we address these crucial challenges. See our blog post announcing our completed spin-out here.

I'm organizing an EA Summit in Vancouver, BC, for the fall and am looking for opportunities for our attendees to come away from the event with opportunities to look forward to. Most of our attendees will have Canadian but not US work authorization. Anyone willing to meet potential hires, mentees, research associates, funding applicants, etc., please get in touch!

Here are my rules of thumb for improving communication on the EA Forum and in similar spaces online: * Say what you mean, as plainly as possible. * Try to use words and expressions that a general audience would understand. * Be more casual and less formal if you think that means more people are more likely to understand what you're trying to say. * To illustrate abstract concepts, give examples. * Where possible, try to let go of minor details that aren't important to the main point someone is trying to make. Everyone slightly misspeaks (or mis... writes?) all the time. Attempts to correct minor details often turn into time-consuming debates that ultimately have little importance. If you really want to correct a minor detail, do so politely, and acknowledge that you're engaging in nitpicking. * When you don't understand what someone is trying to say, just say that. (And be polite.) * Don't engage in passive-aggressiveness or code insults in jargon or formal language. If someone's behaviour is annoying you, tell them it's annoying you. (If you don't want to do that, then you probably shouldn't try to communicate the same idea in a coded or passive-aggressive way, either.) * If you're using an uncommon word or using a word that also has a more common definition in an unusual way (such as "truthseeking"), please define that word as you're using it and — if applicable — distinguish it from the more common way the word is used. * Err on the side of spelling out acronyms, abbreviations, and initialisms. You don't have to spell out "AI" as "artificial intelligence", but an obscure term like "full automation of labour" or "FAOL" that was made up for one paper should definitely be spelled out. * When referencing specific people or organizations, err on the side of giving a little more context, so that someone who isn't already in the know can more easily understand who or what you're talking about. For example, instead of just saying "MacAskill" or "Will", say "Wi

Productive conference meetup format for 5-15 people in 30-60 minutes I ran an impromptu meetup at a conference this weekend, where 2 of the ~8 attendees told me that they found this an unusually useful/productive format and encouraged me to share it as an EA Forum shortform. So here I am, obliging them: * Intros… but actually useful * Name * Brief background or interest in the topic * 1 thing you could possibly help others in this group with * 1 thing you hope others in this group could help you with * NOTE: I will ask you to act on these imminently so you need to pay attention, take notes etc * [Facilitator starts and demonstrates by example] * Round of any quick wins: anything you heard where someone asked for some help and you think you can help quickly, e.g. a resource, idea, offer? Say so now! * Round of quick requests: Anything where anyone would like to arrange a 1:1 later with someone else here, or request anything else? * If 15+ minutes remaining: * Brainstorm whole-group discussion topics for the remaining time. Quickly gather in 1-5 topic ideas in less than 5 minutes. * Show of hands voting for each of the proposed topics. * Discuss most popular topics for 8-15 minutes each. (It might just be one topic) * If less than 15 minutes remaining: * Quickly pick one topic for group discussion yourself. * Or just finish early? People can stay and chat if they like.   Note: the facilitator needs to actually facilitate, including cutting off lengthy intros or any discussions that get started during the ‘quick wins’ and ‘quick requests’ rounds. If you have a group over 10 you might need to divide into subgroups for the discussion part. I think we had around 3 quick wins, 3 quick requests, and briefly discussed 2 topics in our 45 minute session.

As a community builder, I've started donating directly to my local EA group—and I encourage you to consider doing the same. Managing budgets and navigating inflexible grant applications consume valuable time and energy that could otherwise be spent directly fostering impactful community engagement. As someone deeply involved, I possess unique insights into what our group specifically needs, how to effectively meet those needs, and what actions are most conducive to achieving genuine impact. Of course, seeking funding from organizations like OpenPhil remains highly valuable—they've dedicated extensive thought to effective community building. Yet, don't underestimate the power and efficiency of utilizing your intimate knowledge of your group's immediate requirements. Your direct donations can streamline processes, empower quick responses to pressing needs, and ultimately enhance the impact of your local EA community.

I used to feel so strongly about effective altruism. But my heart isn't in it anymore. I still care about the same old stuff I used to care about, like donating what I can to important charities and trying to pick the charities that are the most cost-effective. Or caring about animals and trying to figure out how to do right by them, even though I haven't been able to sustain a vegan diet for more than a short time. And so on. But there isn't a community or a movement anymore where I want to talk about these sorts of things with people. That community and movement existed, at least in my local area and at least to a limited extent in some online spaces, from about 2015 to 2017 or 2018. These are the reasons for my feelings about the effective altruist community/movement, especially over the last one or two years: -The AGI thing has gotten completely out of hand. I wrote a brief post here about why I strongly disagree with near-term AGI predictions. I wrote a long comment here about how AGI's takeover of effective altruism has left me disappointed, disturbed, and alienated. 80,000 Hours and Will MacAskill have both pivoted to focusing exclusively or almost exclusively on AGI. AGI talk has dominated the EA Forum for a while. It feels like AGI is what the movement is mostly about now, so now I just disagree with most of what effective altruism is about. -The extent to which LessWrong culture has taken over or "colonized" effective altruism culture is such a bummer. I know there's been at least a bit of overlap for a long time, but ten years ago it felt like effective altruism had its own, unique culture and nowadays it feels like the LessWrong culture has almost completely taken over. I have never felt good about LessWrong or "rationalism" and the more knowledge and experience of it I've gained, the more I've accumulated a sense of repugnance, horror, and anger toward that culture and ideology. I hate to see that become what effective altruism is like. -The stori

Speaking from what I've personally seen, but it's reasonable to assume it generalizes. There's an important pool of burned out knowledge workers, and one of the major causes is lack of value alignment, i.e. working for companies that only care about profits. I think this cohort would be a good target for a campaign: * Effective giving can provide meaning for the money they make * Dedicating some time to take on voluntary challenges can help them with burnout (if it's due to meaninglessness)