those interested in pursuing careers in Global Poverty & Health, broader Animal Welfare work, Climate Change, Mental Health, Scientific Research, and other potentially effective cause areas currently cannot access guidance or even content aimed at them.
This seems to me like an overstatement?
These people could get guidance from e.g. local EA groups, talking to people from EA orgs focused on these areas (e.g., at online EA conferences), or finding other EAs or non-EAs who work in these areas and talking to them (e.g., here).
And thereās a wealth of content on each of these areas (e.g., the vast academic literature on climate change + several EA reports on the topic), just not necessarily focused on careers. But I think thereās even some careers-focused content for these areasāe.g. many of 80kās older problem profiles and career reviews, the careers-focused parts of some 80k podcast episodes (e.g., on climate change), this admittedly very short page from HLI, or various posts on the Forum.
But Iād agree with the following version of that claim:
There is some careers-focused guidance and content available to those interested in pursuing careers in Global Poverty & Health, broader Animal Welfare work, Climate Change, Mental Health, Scientific Research, and other potentially effective cause areas. However, thereās relatively little of this guidance and content, and that which exists tends to be relatively shallow, as thereās no organisation focused on providing it.
The intended meaning was that EA materials directed at this need specifically donāt exist. But I think youāre correct and that this wasnāt clear. I also like your version better, so will be updating the doc accordingly. Thank you!
I agree that the statement needs rewording and agree with your re-write for factual correctness. However, I think the case for this is really strong, and many of the reasons for this arenāt captured in the original document/āwhat youāve said above:
The lack of careers advice content is a very big and important gap in the existing resourcesābased on my own research amongst group organisers & interviews with members of the EA community, itās very rare to find 1) good career advice in general, and 2) apples to apples/āconsistent comparisons of different jobs, causes etc.
Itās really hard for individuals to do this research, making it less likely for individuals to do this themselves. It seems really valuable to give people at least a starting point to make it easier to do more research & be more knowledgeable (I think detailed practical knowledge is especially important, and is what is missing currently, where existing content is not targeted at people seriously considering these paths)
Although its feasible to get guidance from other sources as you mention, it requires a lot of (collective) community resources, and could be harder for the person to parse through the information. I donāt think this is a very efficient
Even thought some topics have a lot of content, I think ātranslatingā non-EA to EA content is very valuable. It can be difficult for people to know how to parse outside resources, or where to begin, or have the time to do this. This is especially important for getting people to consider areas outside their current expertise.
For example, itās hard to know, despite the vast literature on climate change, what could be some of the effective things to do within that cause area, or how to compare climate change with scientific progress if you donāt have a background knowledge of one or the other.
In general, having a well-organized and easy to navigate set of resources that follow a consistent research apporach or style (like 80Kās articles) will save a lot of collective time and be a valuable resource for movement builders.
Yeah, that all makes sense to me. Thanks for adding those points :)
To be clear, I only meant to highlight that some relevant resources exist, and thus that the particular phrasing I quoted was inaccurate. I definitely didnāt mean to suggest that the existing resources are sufficient and leave no room for additional valuable work to be done here.
And a lot of what you say aligns well with my sense that summaries and collections can often provide a lot of value, as can analyses that draw on existing work in order answer questions that that work didnāt explicitly address (e.g., drawing on literature on climate change to discuss concrete career pathways in which EAs might have a lot of counterfactual impact).
Perhaps some of what you say could be captured by tweaking what I said above to instead say something like:
There is some careers-focused guidance and content available to those interested in pursuing careers in Global Poverty & Health, broader Animal Welfare work, Climate Change, Mental Health, Scientific Research, and other potentially effective cause areas. However, thereās relatively little of this guidance and content, and that which exists tends to be relatively shallow, scattered across many places, and inconsistent in structure and approach, as thereās no organisation focused on providing it. (emphasis added just to highlight whatās different here)
In the Impact doc, you write:
This seems to me like an overstatement?
These people could get guidance from e.g. local EA groups, talking to people from EA orgs focused on these areas (e.g., at online EA conferences), or finding other EAs or non-EAs who work in these areas and talking to them (e.g., here).
And thereās a wealth of content on each of these areas (e.g., the vast academic literature on climate change + several EA reports on the topic), just not necessarily focused on careers. But I think thereās even some careers-focused content for these areasāe.g. many of 80kās older problem profiles and career reviews, the careers-focused parts of some 80k podcast episodes (e.g., on climate change), this admittedly very short page from HLI, or various posts on the Forum.
But Iād agree with the following version of that claim:
Thanks!
The intended meaning was that EA materials directed at this need specifically donāt exist. But I think youāre correct and that this wasnāt clear. I also like your version better, so will be updating the doc accordingly. Thank you!
I agree that the statement needs rewording and agree with your re-write for factual correctness. However, I think the case for this is really strong, and many of the reasons for this arenāt captured in the original document/āwhat youāve said above:
The lack of careers advice content is a very big and important gap in the existing resourcesābased on my own research amongst group organisers & interviews with members of the EA community, itās very rare to find 1) good career advice in general, and 2) apples to apples/āconsistent comparisons of different jobs, causes etc.
Itās really hard for individuals to do this research, making it less likely for individuals to do this themselves. It seems really valuable to give people at least a starting point to make it easier to do more research & be more knowledgeable (I think detailed practical knowledge is especially important, and is what is missing currently, where existing content is not targeted at people seriously considering these paths)
Although its feasible to get guidance from other sources as you mention, it requires a lot of (collective) community resources, and could be harder for the person to parse through the information. I donāt think this is a very efficient
Even thought some topics have a lot of content, I think ātranslatingā non-EA to EA content is very valuable. It can be difficult for people to know how to parse outside resources, or where to begin, or have the time to do this. This is especially important for getting people to consider areas outside their current expertise.
For example, itās hard to know, despite the vast literature on climate change, what could be some of the effective things to do within that cause area, or how to compare climate change with scientific progress if you donāt have a background knowledge of one or the other.
In general, having a well-organized and easy to navigate set of resources that follow a consistent research apporach or style (like 80Kās articles) will save a lot of collective time and be a valuable resource for movement builders.
Yeah, that all makes sense to me. Thanks for adding those points :)
To be clear, I only meant to highlight that some relevant resources exist, and thus that the particular phrasing I quoted was inaccurate. I definitely didnāt mean to suggest that the existing resources are sufficient and leave no room for additional valuable work to be done here.
And a lot of what you say aligns well with my sense that summaries and collections can often provide a lot of value, as can analyses that draw on existing work in order answer questions that that work didnāt explicitly address (e.g., drawing on literature on climate change to discuss concrete career pathways in which EAs might have a lot of counterfactual impact).
Perhaps some of what you say could be captured by tweaking what I said above to instead say something like: