I like this as one example of a more general idea: There are a lot of people and resources in the “outside world” that can be very helpful to the EA community, and we should be aware of them.
Given all the neat productivity tools, databases, and other resources created by people in EA, it can be easy to forget how big and versatile the world is. But sometimes, said world can give us an immediate, clear answer to questions like: “Where will we ever find hundreds of job-seekers who have talent X and passion Y?”
Another example that comes to mind: Researchers have done a ton of work trying to figure out which types of charitable marketing are most successful, but I rarely see this cited within EA (I wrote a thesis summarizing some of the more high-quality work in this area, though it’s a little out-of-date by now).
Excellent post! Thanks for writing it.
I like this as one example of a more general idea: There are a lot of people and resources in the “outside world” that can be very helpful to the EA community, and we should be aware of them.
Given all the neat productivity tools, databases, and other resources created by people in EA, it can be easy to forget how big and versatile the world is. But sometimes, said world can give us an immediate, clear answer to questions like: “Where will we ever find hundreds of job-seekers who have talent X and passion Y?”
Another example that comes to mind: Researchers have done a ton of work trying to figure out which types of charitable marketing are most successful, but I rarely see this cited within EA (I wrote a thesis summarizing some of the more high-quality work in this area, though it’s a little out-of-date by now).