āWorking with ALLFED was greatly influenced by effective thesis, as it allowed me to contact them in the first place. I might have come across ALLFED without effective thesis, but I am relatively sure that I would not have contacted them.ā
Iām glad Effective Thesis had this impact. But that quote also gave me the feeling that we also need to simply more strongly push the message to just reach out to people. Similar to the message just apply for things. There are costs to reaching out to people and applying (a bit of time from both parties), but theyāre usually quite small, really. And the upsides can be hugeāit seems it can often meaningfully improve oneās research or career plans, and perhaps even sometimes more than double the lifetime impact one will have. (I donāt have any data on this, but it seems very plausible.)
It seems like there might be many EAs waiting for āpermissionā or āvalidationā, or self-selecting out of reaching out to people, applying to things, doing cheap tests of fit, etc. I donāt know how to resolve that issue at scale, but hopefully harping on about the value of just going for it can help a bit.
Iām glad Effective Thesis had this impact. But that quote also gave me the feeling that we also need to simply more strongly push the message to just reach out to people. Similar to the message just apply for things. There are costs to reaching out to people and applying (a bit of time from both parties), but theyāre usually quite small, really. And the upsides can be hugeāit seems it can often meaningfully improve oneās research or career plans, and perhaps even sometimes more than double the lifetime impact one will have. (I donāt have any data on this, but it seems very plausible.)
It seems like there might be many EAs waiting for āpermissionā or āvalidationā, or self-selecting out of reaching out to people, applying to things, doing cheap tests of fit, etc. I donāt know how to resolve that issue at scale, but hopefully harping on about the value of just going for it can help a bit.