About your second point, I totally agree with the spirit of what you say, specifically that:
1. Contrary to what might be implied from my post, EAs are clearly not the only ones who think that impact, measurement and evidence are important, and these concepts are also gaining popularity outside of EA.
2. Even in an area where most current actors lack the motivation or skills to act in an impact-oriented way, there are more conditions that have to be met before I would deem it high-impact to work in this area. In particular, there need to be some indications that the other people acting in this area would be interested or persuaded to change their priorities once evidence is presented to them.
My experience working with non-EA charities is similar to yours: while they also talk about evidence and impact, it seems that in most cases they don’t really think about these topics straightly. I’ve found that in most cases it’s not very helpful to have this conversation with them, because, in the end, they are not really open to change their behavior based on evidence (I think it’s more a lip service for charities to say they want to do impact evaluation, because it’s becoming cool and popular these days). But in some cases (probably a minority of non-EA charities), there is genuine interest to learn how to be more impactful through impact evaluation. In these cases I think that having EAs around might be helpful.
I think we are probably agreed that we should be cautious against prescribing EAs to go to charities or cause areas where the culture doesn’t seem welcoming. Especially given the younger age of many EAs, and lower income and career capital produced by some charities, this could be a very difficult experience or even a trap for some people.
I think I have updated based on your comment. It seems that having not just acceptance but also active discussion or awareness of “non-canonical” cause areas seems useful.
I wonder, to what degree is your post or concerns addressed if new cause areas were substantively explored by EAs to add to the “EA roster”? (even if few cause areas were ultimately “added” as a result, e.g. because they aren’t feasible).
I totally agree with you that many charities and causes can be a trap for young EAs and put their long-term career in danger. In some cases I think it’s also true of classic EA cause areas, if people end up doing work that doesn’t really fit their skill set or doesn’t develop their career capital. I think this is pretty well acknowledged and discussed in EA circles, so I’m not too worried about it (with the exception, maybe, that I think one of the possible traps is to lock someone with career capital that only fits EA-like work, thereby blocking them from working outside of EA).
As to your question, if new cause areas were substantively explored by EAs, that would mitigate some of my concerns, but not all of them. In particular, besides having community members theoretically exploring diverse causes and writing posts on the forum summarizing their thinking process (which is beneficial), I’d also like to see some EAs actively trying to work in more diverse areas (what I called the bottom-up approach), and I’d like the greater EA community to be supportive of that.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
About your second point, I totally agree with the spirit of what you say, specifically that:
1. Contrary to what might be implied from my post, EAs are clearly not the only ones who think that impact, measurement and evidence are important, and these concepts are also gaining popularity outside of EA.
2. Even in an area where most current actors lack the motivation or skills to act in an impact-oriented way, there are more conditions that have to be met before I would deem it high-impact to work in this area. In particular, there need to be some indications that the other people acting in this area would be interested or persuaded to change their priorities once evidence is presented to them.
My experience working with non-EA charities is similar to yours: while they also talk about evidence and impact, it seems that in most cases they don’t really think about these topics straightly. I’ve found that in most cases it’s not very helpful to have this conversation with them, because, in the end, they are not really open to change their behavior based on evidence (I think it’s more a lip service for charities to say they want to do impact evaluation, because it’s becoming cool and popular these days). But in some cases (probably a minority of non-EA charities), there is genuine interest to learn how to be more impactful through impact evaluation. In these cases I think that having EAs around might be helpful.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I think we are probably agreed that we should be cautious against prescribing EAs to go to charities or cause areas where the culture doesn’t seem welcoming. Especially given the younger age of many EAs, and lower income and career capital produced by some charities, this could be a very difficult experience or even a trap for some people.
I think I have updated based on your comment. It seems that having not just acceptance but also active discussion or awareness of “non-canonical” cause areas seems useful.
I wonder, to what degree is your post or concerns addressed if new cause areas were substantively explored by EAs to add to the “EA roster”? (even if few cause areas were ultimately “added” as a result, e.g. because they aren’t feasible).
I totally agree with you that many charities and causes can be a trap for young EAs and put their long-term career in danger. In some cases I think it’s also true of classic EA cause areas, if people end up doing work that doesn’t really fit their skill set or doesn’t develop their career capital. I think this is pretty well acknowledged and discussed in EA circles, so I’m not too worried about it (with the exception, maybe, that I think one of the possible traps is to lock someone with career capital that only fits EA-like work, thereby blocking them from working outside of EA).
As to your question, if new cause areas were substantively explored by EAs, that would mitigate some of my concerns, but not all of them. In particular, besides having community members theoretically exploring diverse causes and writing posts on the forum summarizing their thinking process (which is beneficial), I’d also like to see some EAs actively trying to work in more diverse areas (what I called the bottom-up approach), and I’d like the greater EA community to be supportive of that.