edit: I quickly compiled resources for each aptitude here. I’m pretty confident this is, on average, of mediocre quality so please point me to any higher-quality resources!
I’m adapting GCP’s Career Planning Program and adding a track based on Holden’s aptitudes framework. Part of this includes a list of resources (c.f. GCP’s resources on AI risk). I expect that resources for aptitudes looks different to resources for causes, but that there is a wide variety of useful resources. For example, a resource could help with
Testing fit independently / intensively (e.g. Important, actionable research questions for the most important century / EA Summer Communications Fellowship)
Understanding the case for impact (e.g. Communication careers − 80,000 Hours)
Understanding how others developed their aptitudes (e.g. Tara Mac Aulay on the audacity to fix the world without asking permission)
Understanding signs of good fit (e.g. Communication careers − 80,000 Hours)
I would prefer resources that are not focused on specific career paths (a la 80k), but are more focused on the skill itself. This means I expect some of the best resources might not be related to EA at all.
Does anyone have a list of relevant resources for any of these aptitudes? (Aptitudes in bold are higher priority because it’s harder for me to generate a list of resources)
“Organization building, running, and boosting”
Political and bureaucratic
“Conceptual and empirical research on core longtermist topics”
“Communicator”
“Entrepreneur”
“Community building”
Software engineering
Information security
Academia
For the last few months I’ve been considering what it would look like to create an EA-curated learning hub that offered the best resources to level up in various skills related to EA. To clarify—are you looking for resources to build these aptitudes or more a breakdown of subskills within each aptitude?
The project as I’ve envisioned would focus on curating existing tools, resources, practice outlets more than content creation. I wasn’t sure if this had been done in any areas outside of reading lists, the few AI courses I’ve seen, the Animal Welfare careers course, and Effective self help’s synthesized research on behavior change.
I’m looking for both! I think resources to build aptitudes can help people to test their fit, while a breakdown of subskills can deepen people’s understanding of what the aptitude entails.
This project sounds really exciting—I see upskilling as one of the biggest bottlenecks in community-building right now, so having a centralized directory seems useful.