If people generally work on what their best at, even if that’s not their favorite cause, as a community we might be able to do the most good. A sample project-
Find people whose skills are best suited for one cause area but they care most about another. Match them to see if they can agree to each work on the other’s favorite cause.
E.g, a CS PhD who cares mostly about farmed animal welfare and a Biology PhD who cares mostly about AI Safety can trade and each work in their own profession in the other’s field.
This might shift the balance of how much EAs are in different fields. Perhaps it makes more sense to have more people in a more widely acknowledged-as-effective field.
This reduces the incentive of people to think about cause prioritization.
This is probably a piece of wrong advice for people in their early or middle career, and may cause long-term problems if understood poorly
“Moral Career Trade”
If people generally work on what their best at, even if that’s not their favorite cause, as a community we might be able to do the most good. A sample project-
Find people whose skills are best suited for one cause area but they care most about another. Match them to see if they can agree to each work on the other’s favorite cause.
E.g, a CS PhD who cares mostly about farmed animal welfare and a Biology PhD who cares mostly about AI Safety can trade and each work in their own profession in the other’s field.
I wrote a post on the subject here!
I think that I should just go and read everything you wrote :)
Obvious problems:
This will reduce motivation.
This might shift the balance of how much EAs are in different fields. Perhaps it makes more sense to have more people in a more widely acknowledged-as-effective field.
This reduces the incentive of people to think about cause prioritization.
This is probably a piece of wrong advice for people in their early or middle career, and may cause long-term problems if understood poorly