“We did include more people from organisations focused on long-termism. It’s not clear what the right method is here, as organisations that are bigger and/or have more influence over the community ought to have more representation, but we think there’s room for disagreement with this decision.”
I think one potential reason there are more people interested in EA working at LTF organisations is that EA and LTF are both relatively new ideas. Not many people are considering careers in these areas, so it is much easier for a community to found and staff the majority of organisations.
If global development had been ignored until 5 years ago, it’s very likely most of the organisations in this area would be founded by people interested in EA, and they might be over represented in surveys like this.
There may be talent gaps in other cause areas (beyond development and animals) that are missed out as they don’t have leaders with EA backgrounds but that doesn’t mean that those gaps should be under weighted.
It may be worth having a separate survey trying to get opinions considering talent gaps in priority areas whether they are led by people involved in EA or not.
“It may be worth having a separate survey trying to get opinions considering talent gaps in priority areas whether they are led by people involved in EA or not.”
Ultimately our goal going forward is to make sure that we and our readers are highly informed about our priority paths (https://80000hours.org/articles/high-impact-careers/). About six out of ten of our current priority paths get direct coverage in this survey, while four do not.
I agree in future we should consider conducing different surveys of other groups—including people who don’t identify as part of the EA community—about opportunities they’re aware of in order to make sure we stay abreast of all the areas we recommend, rather than just those we are closest to.
Looking at this part -
“We did include more people from organisations focused on long-termism. It’s not clear what the right method is here, as organisations that are bigger and/or have more influence over the community ought to have more representation, but we think there’s room for disagreement with this decision.”
I think one potential reason there are more people interested in EA working at LTF organisations is that EA and LTF are both relatively new ideas. Not many people are considering careers in these areas, so it is much easier for a community to found and staff the majority of organisations.
If global development had been ignored until 5 years ago, it’s very likely most of the organisations in this area would be founded by people interested in EA, and they might be over represented in surveys like this.
There may be talent gaps in other cause areas (beyond development and animals) that are missed out as they don’t have leaders with EA backgrounds but that doesn’t mean that those gaps should be under weighted.
It may be worth having a separate survey trying to get opinions considering talent gaps in priority areas whether they are led by people involved in EA or not.
Tackling just one part of this:
“It may be worth having a separate survey trying to get opinions considering talent gaps in priority areas whether they are led by people involved in EA or not.”
Ultimately our goal going forward is to make sure that we and our readers are highly informed about our priority paths (https://80000hours.org/articles/high-impact-careers/). About six out of ten of our current priority paths get direct coverage in this survey, while four do not.
I agree in future we should consider conducing different surveys of other groups—including people who don’t identify as part of the EA community—about opportunities they’re aware of in order to make sure we stay abreast of all the areas we recommend, rather than just those we are closest to.