A note on what we mean when we talk about “marginal EtGers”.
In some sense all EtGers look marginal, in that they could shift the margins by moving onto direct work. But there’s a coordination issue. Really the people who have the highest comparative advantage at EtG should be pursuing that, and whether we have the right balance determines where the cut-off should be between people choosing EtG or direct work. “Marginal EtGers” are people who only just decided on EtG. They could be people already in EtG careers, but they will more often be people who haven’t started, because experience and specialisation shifts your comparative advantage.
I expect this is all exactly as you were thinking, but I’ve been confused about this before so the clarification seemed like it might be useful for somebody!
They could be people already in EtG careers, but they will more often be people who haven’t started, because experience and specialisation shifts your comparative advantage.
I’m only twenty-two years old, and I haven’t completed a university or college certification yet. When I first encountered 80,000 Hours and effective altruism, I opted for earning to give because I didn’t think of myself as having many skills. I don’t know what soft or general skills I’ll learn in various careers by the time I’m thirty or forty, but I know the names of jobs which earn lots of money. Earning to give is what seems available to me. I’m aiming for it because it’s the only thing I can concretely imagine myself doing right now. I think this might be the case for lots of young(er) effective altruists, so I think Owen’s correct.
Didn’t we all already mean that when we said ‘marginal EtGers’? Like—the people whose decision to be in an earning-to-give career rather than charity is marginal? And I agree that it applies more frequently to early-career-stage. But yes, I agree that anyone could theoretically do a little less earning and a little more volunteering for example.
We probably did, but the meaning of “marginal EtGers” should be context-dependent[1], so it seemed worth clarification.
[1] For example if we’re talking about the value of persuading people to re-cast their professional career as earning-to-give, we could want to refer to people who were only just persuaded, or people in different areas who might be reached by expanding the efforts—either of which is a different margin.
Thanks for clarifying! Yup, the coordination problem is pretty hard. (Personally, I actually basically have no idea whether I should actually consider myself a marginal EtGer, and don’t really know how to answer the parts of this question that require information about the rest of the EA community.)
A note on what we mean when we talk about “marginal EtGers”.
In some sense all EtGers look marginal, in that they could shift the margins by moving onto direct work. But there’s a coordination issue. Really the people who have the highest comparative advantage at EtG should be pursuing that, and whether we have the right balance determines where the cut-off should be between people choosing EtG or direct work. “Marginal EtGers” are people who only just decided on EtG. They could be people already in EtG careers, but they will more often be people who haven’t started, because experience and specialisation shifts your comparative advantage.
I expect this is all exactly as you were thinking, but I’ve been confused about this before so the clarification seemed like it might be useful for somebody!
I’m only twenty-two years old, and I haven’t completed a university or college certification yet. When I first encountered 80,000 Hours and effective altruism, I opted for earning to give because I didn’t think of myself as having many skills. I don’t know what soft or general skills I’ll learn in various careers by the time I’m thirty or forty, but I know the names of jobs which earn lots of money. Earning to give is what seems available to me. I’m aiming for it because it’s the only thing I can concretely imagine myself doing right now. I think this might be the case for lots of young(er) effective altruists, so I think Owen’s correct.
Didn’t we all already mean that when we said ‘marginal EtGers’? Like—the people whose decision to be in an earning-to-give career rather than charity is marginal? And I agree that it applies more frequently to early-career-stage. But yes, I agree that anyone could theoretically do a little less earning and a little more volunteering for example.
We probably did, but the meaning of “marginal EtGers” should be context-dependent[1], so it seemed worth clarification.
[1] For example if we’re talking about the value of persuading people to re-cast their professional career as earning-to-give, we could want to refer to people who were only just persuaded, or people in different areas who might be reached by expanding the efforts—either of which is a different margin.
Thanks for clarifying! Yup, the coordination problem is pretty hard. (Personally, I actually basically have no idea whether I should actually consider myself a marginal EtGer, and don’t really know how to answer the parts of this question that require information about the rest of the EA community.)
Would you be the first to jump ship, around the middle or towards the end?