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Notes from an angel of feedback who generally liked the post, but as usual, will comment mostly when he sees a chance to be constructive or invite a response:

• Thanks for using headers, summarizing the post up front (including the reasoning for the unusual style), and asking for feedback at the end (in a creative, good-humored way).

• The style started out funny/​light, but started to weigh down the prose by the “epiphany” section. Even in jest, I’m wary of using the name “St. X” to describe anyone in EA; that can be easy to misinterpret for outside readers, and I’d guess that it would also make some of the people so described pretty uncomfortable.

• The fundamental point I took away from this is one I’ve also argued for in recent weeks: If you want to live by something like EA principles, you should try to do the best you can with the resources you have to offer (“have to offer” =/​= “have”, you don’t need to give everything you can spare or even close to that amount).

  • On the career front, this means you should do some kind of work that is some combination of intrinsically and consequentially fulfilling. It’s good to aim for what you believe to be the highest-impact work you can do, but you aren’t “obligated” to optimize your career (just like you aren’t “obligated” to do anything else).

  • And if you don’t get a job you applied for, that doesn’t imply that you should feel despair, or like the person who did get the job is somehow “better” than you. There’s a very big difference between “people who seem to be doing the most impactful work” and “people who are the most ‘legit’/​‘respectable’ in the community”. If you believe in the principles of EA and are trying to live in a way that does as much good as possible for other people given the resources you have to offer, you don’t have anything left to prove.

  • If three people try applying to the same jobs and end up in positions A, B, and C, and it turns out that, a century from now, we know that B was the highest-impact job, this doesn’t mean that the person with that job was “more important” or “better” or anything like that. What matters is that each person tried to find a way to have an impact as best they could. We’re all part of the story of effective altruism.

    • Claudette Colvin’s activism was very similar to that of Rosa Parks. It turned out that Rosa Parks became much more famous, with a story that was more influential in the Civil Rights movement. This doesn’t make Parks a “better Civil Rights participant” than Colvin.

Regarding the artists you mentioned:

• • Yes, people with outstanding talent in an area should be wary of giving that up to focus on something that seems more effective. Being world-class at anything can be really impactful.

  • I’d be remiss not to point out that almost all of history’s would-be Spinozas, Beethovens, Kahlos, and Vonneguts never produced anything that stood the test of time. It’s possible that for every musician who makes a good decision by not becoming an accountant, there are two musicians who make poor decisions by not becoming accountants. (Of course, thinking about ways to make an impact through your art/​talent can be a very promising path, whether that means “convincing fellow poker professionals to give to EA charities” or “putting on concerts at EA Global”.)

  • Every historical issue can be approached in many ways, some of which are more likely to work than others. Even if we assume that MLK et al. found the optimal strategies for their situations, there are important differences between segregation, factory farming, and AI risk. You can find a historical analogue for nearly anything you want to do, but it’s still better to look at the features of your situation, consider your options, and choose something that seems like the best fit for the specific case at hand.

Altruistic are those who hunger and thirst for positive world-change, for the expected result is such transformation.

The “expected result” seems to be “very little or no change”, based on the track record of people who have tried to change the world over the millennia. Many revolutions are bloody failures. Many movements peter out and vanish, or find themselves on the wrong side of history. Hungering and thirsting help, but thinking, planning, and taking action are paramount.

Despite hundreds of thousands of monthly unique website visitors and tens of thousands of listeners for each podcast, 80K’s job board typically has contained only a few dozen jobs. Predictably, many hundreds of people began applying for the same positions at the likes of Open Phil. Incredibly talented people started spending many months applying to a dozen or two EA jobs only to wind up empty-handed.

I don’t know about historical numbers, but the 80K board currently has a number of jobs in the 150-200 range, plus a list of recommended organizations that might be able to create a new job for the right candidate. There are also many other resources for jobs that are EA-adjacent, EA-aligned, or at least “promising ways to get involved in something that could help you make an impact later”. EA jobs are less rare than they seem at first.

Part of this feeling seems to come from something like the Friendship Paradox, though perhaps there’s an even better mathematical analogue I’m missing:

If 900 people apply to Open Phil and 100 people apply across 19 other jobs, the EA applicant community will consist of 95% not-super-competitive jobs and 90% people who experienced a lot of competition. Does that make the EA job market competitive, or does it mean that most applicants have quite narrow preferences about the work they want to do?*

(I applied to ~10 positions across EA last year, and in a few cases, was one of three or fewer applicants.)

*This is a trick question. The answer is “both things are true to some extent”, which is almost always the answer in this situation.

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I work for CEA, but these views are my own.

I really love this! The style makes it clear you are practicing what you preach about letting yourself play and take aesthetic delight :) I really relate to your journey thus far and it means a lot to have other people talk about it.

Your post really struck a chord with me. Your style of writing so perfectly captures the problematic mindset many EA’s (sorta including myself) have adopted. The way of treating EA writing as holy truths made by people so unbelievably smart that they must have taken into consideration every conceivable thing annoys me greatly. These gospel truths are not written by prophets but by people about as smart as yourselves! 80,000 hours is a good guideline for how to think of your career, nothing more. They cannot possibly know what is the best career for you. You are your own person, think for yourself!

Just because (insert EA authority) wrote it, doesn’t make it so. And more importantly, just because (insert EA authority) didn’t write about it, doesn’t make it not so. There’s so many great opportunities around where the only reason nobody is talking about it is because nobody but you has thought about it.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not criticizing 80k, nor any other EA authority. The reason we got here in the first place is exactly because they did such a great job. I’m criticizing us for making it out to be more than it is. For the love of god lets end this herd mentality of flocking around whatever (insert EA authority) last decided most valuable and start making our own choices!

You don’t need anyone’s acknowledgement to start working on what you think is important. MIRI was founded by someone with no high school diploma! Want to help with AI research? Start another MIRI, now there’s room for twice as many MIRI-style researchers.

An organization like red-cross may not be hip with the tribe we hope to impress, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for a large impact. Explore the opportunities unique to you, even if they don’t show up high on the 80k ladder of ‘generally impactful’.

Carpe diem!

I really like this. We can be effective, but we can’t do that if we’re all sad and depressed because we tie our sense of self worth to something unattainable. I also enjoyed the fun stylistic choices!

Thank you for posting this, I really REALLY enjoyed it and it hits the nail on the head in terms of something I’ve been struggling with for a long time. What lies below is what troubles me the most, do you have any recommendations on how to go about finding/​uncovering your voice? I previously optimised for learning/​skills/​money and found myself at a similar crossroads to you, now I’m laden with modern day responsibilities (wife and kid) but feel like I cannot risk their safety etc much to experiment with different jobs that I may find more fulfilling.

find our voice

Thank you for sharing this! As a student about to graduate from college, I’ve been researching ways to maximize my social impact through my career, and I found 80,000 Hours’ career guide a very trustworthy, general-purpose resource for a long time. But I’ve noticed that their more recent material seems aimed at funneling readers into their preferred career paths, especially academic careers and positions at EA organizations. For a short period of time over the summer, I became hyped up about AI safety because it was the #1 issue from 80K’s perspective and my skill set (computer science) seemed like a fit, but that enthusiasm didn’t last long.

I’ve noticed that the set of causes I am passionate about changes very frequently (about once every two weeks), but I continually and repeatedly return to certain causes—typically immigration, criminal justice reform, mental health, and global development. I would like to pursue a career doing direct work, and in order to do so effectively, I need to be able to make a durable commitment to a cause that I will be passionate about over the next several years. I would not be an effective “effective altruist” if I spent my career chasing trends.