Thanks for raising this. I agree strongly with your sentiment.
Sharing some of my quick opinions on the topic: The forum is like any other marketplace, requiring both sufficient demand and supply to drive meaningful engagement and discourse. To drive interest, there need to be incentives on both sides. Here I consider demand to be those reading and engaging with material, and supply to be those seeding new ideas and pushing the discourse forward.
My sense is that GHD has seen systematic shifts over the past couple of years from both the supply and demand side, as the data-driven or evidence-backed component of global health and development has become more mainstream. On the supply side, many organizations that would formerly be considered EA global health and development organizations are becoming more mainstream. Also from a supply side perspective, my anecdotal experience is that a lot of engagement is associated with building eminence, often related to seeking funds or finding jobs, and both of these purposes have found newer, more targeted spaces elsewhere. Seeing the plethora of organizations supporting impact-focused job searches and new, more professionalized funding mechanisms.
Finally, the level of philosophical discourse around GHD has shifted in the past couple of years, especially as the philanthropic sector has seen massive changes, combined with a relative increase in marginal EA funding being directed towards other cause priority areas, particularly AI safety.
All this being said, I personally hope to engage more with GHD on this forum, both on the demand and supply side. I find it an incredibly intellectually stimulating area with values-aligned individuals, and I hope that this kind of seeding, as you’ve suggested, can drive more engagement with global health and development within EA.
Thanks for raising this. I agree strongly with your sentiment.
Sharing some of my quick opinions on the topic: The forum is like any other marketplace, requiring both sufficient demand and supply to drive meaningful engagement and discourse. To drive interest, there need to be incentives on both sides. Here I consider demand to be those reading and engaging with material, and supply to be those seeding new ideas and pushing the discourse forward.
My sense is that GHD has seen systematic shifts over the past couple of years from both the supply and demand side, as the data-driven or evidence-backed component of global health and development has become more mainstream. On the supply side, many organizations that would formerly be considered EA global health and development organizations are becoming more mainstream. Also from a supply side perspective, my anecdotal experience is that a lot of engagement is associated with building eminence, often related to seeking funds or finding jobs, and both of these purposes have found newer, more targeted spaces elsewhere. Seeing the plethora of organizations supporting impact-focused job searches and new, more professionalized funding mechanisms.
Finally, the level of philosophical discourse around GHD has shifted in the past couple of years, especially as the philanthropic sector has seen massive changes, combined with a relative increase in marginal EA funding being directed towards other cause priority areas, particularly AI safety.
All this being said, I personally hope to engage more with GHD on this forum, both on the demand and supply side. I find it an incredibly intellectually stimulating area with values-aligned individuals, and I hope that this kind of seeding, as you’ve suggested, can drive more engagement with global health and development within EA.