I’d also extend this to people who have strong skills and expertise that’s not obviously convertable into ‘working in the main EA cause areas’.
I think this is a key part. “Main EA cause areas” does centre a lot on a small minority of people with very specific technical skills and the academic track record to participate in (especially if you’re taking 80k Hours for guidance on that front)
But people can have a lot of impact in areas like fundraising with a completely different skillset (one that is less likely to benefit from a quantitative degree from an elite university) or earn well enough to give a lot without having any skills in research report writing, epidemiology or computer science.
And if your background isn’t one that the “do cutting edge research or make lots of money to give away” advice is tailored to at all, there are a lot of organizations doing a lot of effective good that really really, really need people with the right motivations allied to less niche skillsets. So I don’t think people should feel they’re not a ‘success’ if they end up doing GHD work rather than paying for it, and if their organization isn’t particularly adjacent to EA they might have more scope to positively influence its impactfulness.
Also, people shouldn’t label themselves mediocre :)
I think this is a key part. “Main EA cause areas” does centre a lot on a small minority of people with very specific technical skills and the academic track record to participate in (especially if you’re taking 80k Hours for guidance on that front)
But people can have a lot of impact in areas like fundraising with a completely different skillset (one that is less likely to benefit from a quantitative degree from an elite university) or earn well enough to give a lot without having any skills in research report writing, epidemiology or computer science.
And if your background isn’t one that the “do cutting edge research or make lots of money to give away” advice is tailored to at all, there are a lot of organizations doing a lot of effective good that really really, really need people with the right motivations allied to less niche skillsets. So I don’t think people should feel they’re not a ‘success’ if they end up doing GHD work rather than paying for it, and if their organization isn’t particularly adjacent to EA they might have more scope to positively influence its impactfulness.
Also, people shouldn’t label themselves mediocre :)