2) Focusing on non-EAs and people on the borders of the community rather than on EAs—it seems to me so far that many people who are highly involved in EA can find similarly good advice as we would be able to give them in their own circles so the counterfactual impact in this group is smaller.
That sounds right to me, and indeed like an argument that pushes in favour of focusing on non-EAs or people on the borders. (Though I don’t know how to balance that against other arguments.)
In fact, a related point that came to mind is that it seems possible Effective Thesis could be a good intervention simply from the perspective of expanding the EA community, separate from expanding the EA-aligned researcher community or the amount of high-impact research done.
For example, maybe Effective Thesis looks to non-EA uni students like a concrete service they just want to engage with for their own career plans, without them having to be sold yet on anything more than a vague sense of “having an impact”. And then via Effective Thesis and the coaching, they learn about EA and priority cause areas, learn how they can help, and get useful EA connections. And then even if they move out of research later, they might do something like working on important problems in the civil service or founding a high-impact charity, and maintain an EA mindset and connections to the community.
Whereas a EA group at their university might not have appealed to that person, as it didn’t obviously advance their existing plans in a concrete way.
I think part of why that seems plausible to me is that I think a similar process might help explain why 80,000 Hours and GiveWell have both served well for expanding the EA community. They both offer a service that can seem directly useful to anyone who at least just wants to “have an impact”, in some vague sense, even if that person isn’t yet bought into things like utilitarianism or caring about various neglected populations (people in other countries, future generations, nonhumans, etc.).
Have you thought about how much impact ET might be able to have on just expanding the EA community?
That sounds right to me, and indeed like an argument that pushes in favour of focusing on non-EAs or people on the borders. (Though I don’t know how to balance that against other arguments.)
In fact, a related point that came to mind is that it seems possible Effective Thesis could be a good intervention simply from the perspective of expanding the EA community, separate from expanding the EA-aligned researcher community or the amount of high-impact research done.
For example, maybe Effective Thesis looks to non-EA uni students like a concrete service they just want to engage with for their own career plans, without them having to be sold yet on anything more than a vague sense of “having an impact”. And then via Effective Thesis and the coaching, they learn about EA and priority cause areas, learn how they can help, and get useful EA connections. And then even if they move out of research later, they might do something like working on important problems in the civil service or founding a high-impact charity, and maintain an EA mindset and connections to the community.
Whereas a EA group at their university might not have appealed to that person, as it didn’t obviously advance their existing plans in a concrete way.
I think part of why that seems plausible to me is that I think a similar process might help explain why 80,000 Hours and GiveWell have both served well for expanding the EA community. They both offer a service that can seem directly useful to anyone who at least just wants to “have an impact”, in some vague sense, even if that person isn’t yet bought into things like utilitarianism or caring about various neglected populations (people in other countries, future generations, nonhumans, etc.).
Have you thought about how much impact ET might be able to have on just expanding the EA community?