Perhaps making a stronger effort to acknowledge and appreciate people who acted altruistically based on our guesses at the time, before explaining why our guesses are different now, would help? (And for this particular case, even apologizing to EtG people who may have felt scorned?)
I think there’s a natural tendency to compete to be “fashion-forward”, but that seems harmful for EA. Competing to be fashion-forward means targeting what others will approve of (or what others think others will approve of), as opposed to the object-level question of what actually works.
Maybe the sign of true altruism in an EA is willingness to argue for boring conventional wisdom, or willingness to defy a shift in conventional wisdom if you don’t think the shift makes sense for your particular career situation. 😛 (In particular, we shouldn’t discount switching costs and comparative advantage. I can make a radical change to the advice I give an aimless 20-year-old, while still believing that a mid-career professional should stay on their current path, e.g. due to hedging/diminishing marginal returns to the new hot thing.)
Burnout is extremely expensive, because it does not just cost time in and of itself but can move your entire future trajectory. If I were writing practical career tips for young EAs, my first headline would be “Whatever you do, don’t burn out.”
Plenty of people in the EA community have burned out. A small number of us talk about it. Most people, understandably, prefer to forget and move on. Beware this and other selection effects in (a) who is successful enough that you are listening to them in the first place and (b) what those people choose to talk about.
IMO, acknowledging and appreciating the effort people put in is the best way to prevent burnout. Implying that “your career path is boring now” is the opposite. Almost everyone in EA is making some level of sacrifice to do good for others; let’s thank them for that!
Perhaps making a stronger effort to acknowledge and appreciate people who acted altruistically based on our guesses at the time, before explaining why our guesses are different now, would help? (And for this particular case, even apologizing to EtG people who may have felt scorned?)
I think there’s a natural tendency to compete to be “fashion-forward”, but that seems harmful for EA. Competing to be fashion-forward means targeting what others will approve of (or what others think others will approve of), as opposed to the object-level question of what actually works.
Maybe the sign of true altruism in an EA is willingness to argue for boring conventional wisdom, or willingness to defy a shift in conventional wisdom if you don’t think the shift makes sense for your particular career situation. 😛 (In particular, we shouldn’t discount switching costs and comparative advantage. I can make a radical change to the advice I give an aimless 20-year-old, while still believing that a mid-career professional should stay on their current path, e.g. due to hedging/diminishing marginal returns to the new hot thing.)
BTW this recent post made a point that seems important:
IMO, acknowledging and appreciating the effort people put in is the best way to prevent burnout. Implying that “your career path is boring now” is the opposite. Almost everyone in EA is making some level of sacrifice to do good for others; let’s thank them for that!
Thank you, whoever’s reading this!