Maybe I'm living under a rock but I don't see any concrete evidence of these claims of people saying the jobs that are paying ridiculous amounts of money have 10-1000x impact.
As someone who fits into the trifecta I think it's less about identities and more about upbringing / messaging associated with identities. I grew up in a family context with strong filial piety, respect for authority, lots of comparisons with other people which leads to feeling not good enough, EA is dismissed as something that's stupid to do by "authority figures".
I do think that I need to unlearn a lot from my family's messaging. For me personally, I'd say it's much more than 10-25% as a source of stress given how much I need to re-program my brain from all the messaging I received. I'd maybe say like 80%?
Cool article! I enjoyed reading it. Seems like a great way to apply effective altruism style thinking into a different cause area.
My main takeaway from this is currently domestic aid is not neglected but highly ineffective. Making something that already has lots of resources going into it (and a lot more people willing to put resources into it) much more effective can be extremely impactful.
I'm curious how likely it is for US domestic aid to be a lot better given that a lot of people care about making it go well / political resistance.
I have mixed feelings about this because I don't know enough about the situation.
Conflicts:
There are things that people are naturally better at and worse at, and the law of comparative advantage does make sense
vs.
There are things that people could get good at but don't because they don't believe in themselves and don't try aka imposters syndrome.
(I think this may result in some lack of diversity in tech, STEM, EA, etc.)
I think the EA community might lean more towards trying really hard to match people with what they are good at / not bad at. I think the EA community may underestimate that when people try and want to get better at a skill (or that they aren't good at something because they don't believe in themselves and don't try to get better), they can get much better at it and surprise themselves and others by how much progress they've made.
It seems to me that community building is what excites you a lot at the moment, which means that there is a lot of potential for improvement because you care about improving.
Are there other things that also excite you as well? It could be good to enjoy community building and try other things too (though I realize that this may come with a lot of emotional baggage)! (As someone who's been rejected from community building grants, I still feel the emotional baggage and it still makes it hard to make clear-headed decisions)
CEA has a different perspective than the community members who are seeing the community building happen on the ground. I think that getting feedback from the people who in your community is more accurate. I agree with notabot that grant-seeking and community building are different skills. I also agree with Dancer with it being very plausible that CEA made the right decision given the little information they had, but it doesn't mean that you did anything wrong with your community building.
This isn't exactly related to the post, but I am a little bit wary about the connotation of more students should have internships / work experience at EA Orgs rather than corporate roles.
I talked to some EAs that say that it's good for EA uni students to get a job outside of EA first. This makes me think that the issue of EA Orgs not having that many uni interns aren't actually a big problem.
Why it may be good to pursue a corporate role:
Mistakes made earlier in my career will be much more low stakes
Experiencing the world outside the EA bubble
Skills such as dealing with people in a workplace, learning how a company runs things are transferrable
Financial independence from EA
Other personal reasons (financial independence in general, funding for self-improvement stuff like coaching and good therapy)
On the other hand, there are good reasons for EA Interships
EA internships can be good for community building because it makes uni students more excited about EA!
students can test fit for wide variety of cause areas sooner rather than later.
Maybe I'm living under a rock but I don't see any concrete evidence of these claims of people saying the jobs that are paying ridiculous amounts of money have 10-1000x impact.
As someone who fits into the trifecta I think it's less about identities and more about upbringing / messaging associated with identities. I grew up in a family context with strong filial piety, respect for authority, lots of comparisons with other people which leads to feeling not good enough, EA is dismissed as something that's stupid to do by "authority figures".
I do think that I need to unlearn a lot from my family's messaging. For me personally, I'd say it's much more than 10-25% as a source of stress given how much I need to re-program my brain from all the messaging I received. I'd maybe say like 80%?
There is also the EA coworking discord server: https://discord.gg/5FGY4PyEcT
You can book a time to cowork with me here: https://calend.ly/coworkwithemily
What is the main difference between SPAR and AI Safety Camp?
Cool article! I enjoyed reading it. Seems like a great way to apply effective altruism style thinking into a different cause area.
My main takeaway from this is currently domestic aid is not neglected but highly ineffective. Making something that already has lots of resources going into it (and a lot more people willing to put resources into it) much more effective can be extremely impactful.
I'm curious how likely it is for US domestic aid to be a lot better given that a lot of people care about making it go well / political resistance.
Thanks again for this article!
The discord link no longer seems to work.
I have mixed feelings about this because I don't know enough about the situation.
Conflicts:
I think the EA community might lean more towards trying really hard to match people with what they are good at / not bad at. I think the EA community may underestimate that when people try and want to get better at a skill (or that they aren't good at something because they don't believe in themselves and don't try to get better), they can get much better at it and surprise themselves and others by how much progress they've made.
It seems to me that community building is what excites you a lot at the moment, which means that there is a lot of potential for improvement because you care about improving.
Are there other things that also excite you as well? It could be good to enjoy community building and try other things too (though I realize that this may come with a lot of emotional baggage)! (As someone who's been rejected from community building grants, I still feel the emotional baggage and it still makes it hard to make clear-headed decisions)
EA Mental Health and nEArodivergent discord server: https://discord.gg/e6Nxy4N5xu Not super active at the moment, but it does exist.
EA Mental Health and nEArodivergent discord server: https://discord.gg/e6Nxy4N5xu Not super active at the moment, but it does exist.
This isn't exactly related to the post, but I am a little bit wary about the connotation of more students should have internships / work experience at EA Orgs rather than corporate roles.
I talked to some EAs that say that it's good for EA uni students to get a job outside of EA first. This makes me think that the issue of EA Orgs not having that many uni interns aren't actually a big problem.
Why it may be good to pursue a corporate role:
On the other hand, there are good reasons for EA Interships