80,000 Hours articles aimed at the EA community
We’ve recently produced a few significant pieces that we expect to be of interest to people who are quite involved in the effective altruism community:
Career review of Working at effective altruist organisations
Guide to working in AI policy and strategy
The 80,000 Hours podcast. First episode: ‘The world desperately needs AI strategists. Here’s how to become one.’
Other content that should interest folks here includes:
Explanation of why being involved in the EA community is valuable
Most people report believing it’s incredibly cheap to save lives in the developing world
An exciting opportunity to learn more about China and get a Masters in Global Affairs
And for those who want to earn to give:
I would love to see some ’40,000 hours’ materials for mid-career people pivoting into EA work.
Our skills, needs, constraints, and opportunities are quite different from 20-somethings. For example, if one has financial commitments (child support, mortgage, debts, alimony), it’s not realistic to go back to grad school or an unpaid internship to re-train. We also have geographical constraints—partners, kids in school, dependent parents, established friendships, community commitments. And in mid-life, our ‘crystallized intelligence’ (stock of knowledge) is much higher than a 20-something’s, but our ‘fluid intelligence’ (ability to solve abstract new problems quickly) is somewhat lower—so it’s easier to learn things that relate to our existing expertise, but harder to learn coding, data science, or finance from scratch.
On the upside, a ’40k project’ would allow EA to bring in a huge amount of talent—people with credentials, domain knowledge, social experience, leadership skills, professional networks, prestige, and name recognition. Plus, incomes that would allow substantially larger donations than 20-something can manage.
Hi Geoffrey, we agree this would be very valuable. Our materials are already heading in that direction, but I think it will be at least a year or two before we do a major research push to produce that guide due to other competing priorities.
To keep it short: your articles on community-building (especially the social dynamics that come into play) have been highly valuable for me.
Are there any upcoming career profiles to be excited about?