As a policy-maker in child protection/ child welfare and also a foster parent to a previously abused child (but only a lurker on EA and rationality communities), I’m glad to see this topic brought up here. I’d be enthusiastic to try to contribute to this conversation, but I won’t jump deep into it here right now, as I don’t know what is the previous level of knowledge on this topic of you and other readers of this forum, and which parts of my knowledge would be obvious to you and which not; and also, what would be, from the perspective of a cause, the benefit of being a “cause X” in the EA community :)
I would be extremely interested if you were to hypothetically write an “intro to child protection/welfare for EAs” post on this forum! (And it would probably be a great candidate for a prize as well!) I think the number of upvotes on this comment show that other people agree :)
Personally, I have ~zero knowledge of this topic (and probably at least as many misconceptions as accurate beliefs!) and would be happy to start learning about it from scratch.
“Cause X” usually refers to an issue that is (one of) the most important one(s) to work on, but has been either missed or deprioritized for bad reasons by the effective altruism community (it may come from this talk). So I’d expect a cause which the EA community decided was “cause X” to receive an influx of interest in donations and direct work from the EA community, like how GiveWell directed hundreds of millions of dollars to their top charities, or how a good number of EAs went to work at nonprofits working on animal welfare. (For a potentially negative take on being Cause X, see this biorisk person’s take.)
I’d also be very interested in a book review post of The Body Keeps the Score. (I may do this myself at some point, but not sure when I’ll have the capacity.)
I don’t know what is the previous level of knowledge on this topic of you and other readers of this forum, and which parts of my knowledge would be obvious to you and which not;
I think it’s generally best to assume the level of common knowledge you’d expect from a graduate student in an unrelated field.
what would be, from the perspective of a cause, the benefit of being a “cause X” in the EA community
Right now I think the main effect would be more intellectual talent directed towards researching the various strategies that might further the cause. In particular: figuring out the bottlenecks to improving that area, attempting to measure how much those improvements cost (especially if the key bottleneck is “lack of funding”, but even otherwise), and attempting to measure the scope of how much we expect they improve quality of life.
If the outcomes of those analyses suggest that it’s promising, then some potential results would include: funding directed towards those strategies, advising of more people to acquire skills and take careers that directly contribute to those strategies, and more intellectual talent devoted to improving those strategies on a meta level.
As a policy-maker in child protection/ child welfare and also a foster parent to a previously abused child (but only a lurker on EA and rationality communities), I’m glad to see this topic brought up here. I’d be enthusiastic to try to contribute to this conversation, but I won’t jump deep into it here right now, as I don’t know what is the previous level of knowledge on this topic of you and other readers of this forum, and which parts of my knowledge would be obvious to you and which not; and also, what would be, from the perspective of a cause, the benefit of being a “cause X” in the EA community :)
I would be extremely interested if you were to hypothetically write an “intro to child protection/welfare for EAs” post on this forum! (And it would probably be a great candidate for a prize as well!) I think the number of upvotes on this comment show that other people agree :)
Personally, I have ~zero knowledge of this topic (and probably at least as many misconceptions as accurate beliefs!) and would be happy to start learning about it from scratch.
“Cause X” usually refers to an issue that is (one of) the most important one(s) to work on, but has been either missed or deprioritized for bad reasons by the effective altruism community (it may come from this talk). So I’d expect a cause which the EA community decided was “cause X” to receive an influx of interest in donations and direct work from the EA community, like how GiveWell directed hundreds of millions of dollars to their top charities, or how a good number of EAs went to work at nonprofits working on animal welfare. (For a potentially negative take on being Cause X, see this biorisk person’s take.)
+1.
I’d also be very interested in a book review post of The Body Keeps the Score. (I may do this myself at some point, but not sure when I’ll have the capacity.)
Update: Slate Star Codex reviewed The Body Keeps the Score
I think it’s generally best to assume the level of common knowledge you’d expect from a graduate student in an unrelated field.
Right now I think the main effect would be more intellectual talent directed towards researching the various strategies that might further the cause. In particular: figuring out the bottlenecks to improving that area, attempting to measure how much those improvements cost (especially if the key bottleneck is “lack of funding”, but even otherwise), and attempting to measure the scope of how much we expect they improve quality of life.
If the outcomes of those analyses suggest that it’s promising, then some potential results would include: funding directed towards those strategies, advising of more people to acquire skills and take careers that directly contribute to those strategies, and more intellectual talent devoted to improving those strategies on a meta level.
(PS: if you’re interested in posting but unsure about content, I’d be excited to help answer any q’s or read a draft! My email is in my profile.)