Thanks Michelle—great to see 80,000 hours staff respond!
”I’m always sad to hear about taking away the impression that 80,000 Hours doesn’t care about helping present sentient creatures.”—This is a bit of a side issue to the points I raised, but I think any passer by could easily get this impression from your website. I don’t think its mainly about the prioritisation issue, just slightly cold and calculated presentation. A bit more warmth, kindness and acknowledgement of the pains of prioritisation could make the website feel more compassionate.
Even just some of this sentiment from of your fantastic comment here, displayed on the website in some prominent places could go a long way to demonstrating that 80,000 hours cares about current people
“I think the hardest thing about effective altruism to me is having to prioritise some problems over others when there are so many different sources of suffering in the world. Sometimes the thing that feels most painful to me is the readily avoidable suffering that I’m not doing anything about personally, like malaria. Sometimes it’s the suffering humans cause each other that it feels like we should be able to avoid causing each other, like cutting apart families on the US border. Sometimes it’s suffering that particularly resonates with me, like the lack of adequate health care for pregnancy complications and losses. I so much wish we were in a world where we could solve all of these, rather than needing to triage.”
Thanks Michelle—great to see 80,000 hours staff respond!
”I’m always sad to hear about taking away the impression that 80,000 Hours doesn’t care about helping present sentient creatures.”—This is a bit of a side issue to the points I raised, but I think any passer by could easily get this impression from your website. I don’t think its mainly about the prioritisation issue, just slightly cold and calculated presentation. A bit more warmth, kindness and acknowledgement of the pains of prioritisation could make the website feel more compassionate.
Even just some of this sentiment from of your fantastic comment here, displayed on the website in some prominent places could go a long way to demonstrating that 80,000 hours cares about current people
“I think the hardest thing about effective altruism to me is having to prioritise some problems over others when there are so many different sources of suffering in the world. Sometimes the thing that feels most painful to me is the readily avoidable suffering that I’m not doing anything about personally, like malaria. Sometimes it’s the suffering humans cause each other that it feels like we should be able to avoid causing each other, like cutting apart families on the US border. Sometimes it’s suffering that particularly resonates with me, like the lack of adequate health care for pregnancy complications and losses. I so much wish we were in a world where we could solve all of these, rather than needing to triage.”