I imagine that there a large fraction of EAs who expect to be more productive in direct work than in an ETG role. But I’m not too clear why we should believe that. The skills and manpower needed by EA organizations appear to be a small subset of the total careers that the world needs, and it would seem an odd coincidence if the comparative advantage of people who believe in EA happens to overlap heavily with the needs of EA organizations. Remember that EA principles suggest that you should donate to approximately onecharity (i.e. the current best one). The same general idea applies to need for talent: there are a relatively small number of tasks that stand out as unusually in need of more talent.
The “one charity” argument is only true on the margin. It would be incorrect to conclude from this that nobody should start additional charities—for instance, even though GiveWell’s current highest-priority gap is AMF, I’m still glad that Malaria Consortium exists so that it could absorb $25m from them earlier this year. Similarly, it’s incorrect to conclude from this style of argument that the social returns to talent should be concentrated in specific fields. While there may be a small number of “most important tasks” on the margin, the EA community is now big enough that we might expect to see margins changing over time.
Also, the majority of people who are earning to give would probably be able to fund less than one person doing direct work. If your direct work would be mostly non-replaceable, then this compares unfavorably to direct work. (Seems like e.g. 80k thinks that on the current margin, people going into direct work are not too replaceable.)
>Seems like e.g. 80k thinks that on the current margin, people going into direct work are not too replaceable.
That seems like almost the opposite of what the 80k post says. It says the people who get hired are not very replaceable. But it also appears to say that people who get evaluated as average by EA orgs are 2 or more standard deviations less productive, which seems to imply that they’re pretty replaceable.
To add to Ben’s argument, uncertainty about which cause is the best will rationalize diversifying across multiple causes. If we use confidence intervals instead of point estimates, it’s plausible that the top causes will have overlapping confidence intervals.
The “one charity” argument is only true on the margin. It would be incorrect to conclude from this that nobody should start additional charities—for instance, even though GiveWell’s current highest-priority gap is AMF, I’m still glad that Malaria Consortium exists so that it could absorb $25m from them earlier this year. Similarly, it’s incorrect to conclude from this style of argument that the social returns to talent should be concentrated in specific fields. While there may be a small number of “most important tasks” on the margin, the EA community is now big enough that we might expect to see margins changing over time.
Also, the majority of people who are earning to give would probably be able to fund less than one person doing direct work. If your direct work would be mostly non-replaceable, then this compares unfavorably to direct work. (Seems like e.g. 80k thinks that on the current margin, people going into direct work are not too replaceable.)
I agree with most of your comment.
>Seems like e.g. 80k thinks that on the current margin, people going into direct work are not too replaceable.
That seems like almost the opposite of what the 80k post says. It says the people who get hired are not very replaceable. But it also appears to say that people who get evaluated as average by EA orgs are 2 or more standard deviations less productive, which seems to imply that they’re pretty replaceable.
(edit: whoops, responded to wrong comment)
To add to Ben’s argument, uncertainty about which cause is the best will rationalize diversifying across multiple causes. If we use confidence intervals instead of point estimates, it’s plausible that the top causes will have overlapping confidence intervals.