Relatedly: it seems like EA has a burnout problem. It also happens to be, as far as I can tell, the first large-scale movement with such a high concentration of utilitarians and people explicitly trying to optimise things. I do not think this is a coincidence, although I’m not sure what the causal chain is. I hope to write on this more in future.
I’m very sceptical about this point. It’s probably true that EA has a ‘burnout problem’, but is burnout in EA professionals really higher than for other ambitious professionals that are excited about their job? My guess would be ‘no’, but would be good to see data on this.
My guess would be yes. I too would really like to see data on this, although I don’t know how I’d even start on getting it.
I imagine it would also be fairly worthwhile just to quantify how much is being lost by people burning out and how hard it is to intervene—maybe we could do better, and maybe it would be worth it.
I’m very sceptical about this point. It’s probably true that EA has a ‘burnout problem’, but is burnout in EA professionals really higher than for other ambitious professionals that are excited about their job? My guess would be ‘no’, but would be good to see data on this.
My guess would be yes. I too would really like to see data on this, although I don’t know how I’d even start on getting it.
I imagine it would also be fairly worthwhile just to quantify how much is being lost by people burning out and how hard it is to intervene—maybe we could do better, and maybe it would be worth it.