There are two types of content that we have started producing and plan to continue in the short term: First, a new guide\introduction to effective careers that is more agnostic than the ones that currently exist. We think this might be useful as an introduction to new and prospective members of the community as some of them might not yet be fully aligned with many of the values in the community. Though this guide will obviously refer to existing introductions (most notably 80,000 Hoursā Key Ideas), the guide will explicitly attempt to be relevant to a wider range of people. This guide will then refer people to articles or relevant organizations according to their preferences (or the ideas they are willing to explore).
At first glance, this sounds perhaps fairly similar to 80kās old career guide (at least based on my memory of that from 2018). Do you expect your guide/āintroduction to differ from 80kās career guide in substantial ways (and, if so, how)? Or is there a different reason for producing your own one? (E.g., to speculate, perhaps 80k prefers you not refer people to that guide, as it no longer reflects their most up-to-date views and could thus confuse people?)
The guide weāre working on is indeed similar in some aspects to 80kās old guide.
Weāre still working on it (and are at relatively early stages) so none of this is very certain but I expect that:
* The guide will differ in our framework for thinking about it (so things like the thought process and steps you go through to make a decision).
* I expect the guide will differ on some specific areas where we are more agnostic than 80k, but wonāt differ on most.
* Specifically, 80k have updated their 2017 guide to focus on longtermism more than it originally did. That would be a specific area where we will differ.
* Quite sure we pretty much agree on a lot of the meta-considerations (things like āitās a very important decision and is worth a lot of considerationā or āfor most people, making an effort to expand the scope of the search is worthwhileā).
Regarding why weāre doing this: Even if this was 80kās current guide, Iād think a second general viewpoint on how to approach career decisions would be valuable to a lot of people. Given that 80k consider this their āolderā guide, I really think it would be helpful to have another one.
Also (and probably more importantly), a general guide is just a really useful way to put the most important general information that we think is necessary in one place. Thereās a lot of things we think are important that fit very well into this format.
In your Short-term Plans doc, you write:
At first glance, this sounds perhaps fairly similar to 80kās old career guide (at least based on my memory of that from 2018). Do you expect your guide/āintroduction to differ from 80kās career guide in substantial ways (and, if so, how)? Or is there a different reason for producing your own one? (E.g., to speculate, perhaps 80k prefers you not refer people to that guide, as it no longer reflects their most up-to-date views and could thus confuse people?)
The guide weāre working on is indeed similar in some aspects to 80kās old guide.
Weāre still working on it (and are at relatively early stages) so none of this is very certain but I expect that:
* The guide will differ in our framework for thinking about it (so things like the thought process and steps you go through to make a decision).
* I expect the guide will differ on some specific areas where we are more agnostic than 80k, but wonāt differ on most.
* Specifically, 80k have updated their 2017 guide to focus on longtermism more than it originally did. That would be a specific area where we will differ.
* Quite sure we pretty much agree on a lot of the meta-considerations (things like āitās a very important decision and is worth a lot of considerationā or āfor most people, making an effort to expand the scope of the search is worthwhileā).
Regarding why weāre doing this: Even if this was 80kās current guide, Iād think a second general viewpoint on how to approach career decisions would be valuable to a lot of people. Given that 80k consider this their āolderā guide, I really think it would be helpful to have another one.
Also (and probably more importantly), a general guide is just a really useful way to put the most important general information that we think is necessary in one place. Thereās a lot of things we think are important that fit very well into this format.