Thanks for the question—I have wondered the same, as I also studied History at undergraduate level.
A slight detour from your question, but maybe of interest. There is currently is no community / FB group for people with backgrounds or research interests in History within EA that I know of. There have been quite a few times when discussions around the usefulness of historical studies has come up and it might be good to share ideas and collaborate.
I don’t have time to try and coordinate this at the moment, but it seems like trying to establish some sort of discussion forum (or organisation?) for using the study of history to advance our understanding of (and strategy towards) cause areas which are often prioritised within EA.
If this is something you (or anyone else seeing this) has an interest in me developing, it’s something to bear in mind? People should feel free to contact me at james_a_harris [at] hotmail.co.uk if you want to talk about it further.
Examples: I’m thinking primarily within Effective Animal Advocacy (Sentience Institute’s study of the British antislavery movement; ACE discontinuing their social studies project; technology adoption being considered as a precedent for clean meat e.g. by Sentience Institute and Paul Shapiro) but this would also apply to other fields. The systematic approach described in the post linked at [1] seems to correlate more closely with the approach Holden and others took at OPP than it does the studies done in the Effective Animal Advocacy sphere.
Michael, apologies for this. I just came back to check this post.
I didn’t ever receive the email because the formatting of the EA forum removed the underscore from my email, and I didn’t notice at the time. If you can find the email that you sent from your sent box in April, and could forward it to me at jamie@sentienceinstitute.org that would be great!
Thanks for the question—I have wondered the same, as I also studied History at undergraduate level.
A slight detour from your question, but maybe of interest. There is currently is no community / FB group for people with backgrounds or research interests in History within EA that I know of. There have been quite a few times when discussions around the usefulness of historical studies has come up and it might be good to share ideas and collaborate.
I don’t have time to try and coordinate this at the moment, but it seems like trying to establish some sort of discussion forum (or organisation?) for using the study of history to advance our understanding of (and strategy towards) cause areas which are often prioritised within EA.
If this is something you (or anyone else seeing this) has an interest in me developing, it’s something to bear in mind? People should feel free to contact me at james_a_harris [at] hotmail.co.uk if you want to talk about it further.
Examples: I’m thinking primarily within Effective Animal Advocacy (Sentience Institute’s study of the British antislavery movement; ACE discontinuing their social studies project; technology adoption being considered as a precedent for clean meat e.g. by Sentience Institute and Paul Shapiro) but this would also apply to other fields. The systematic approach described in the post linked at [1] seems to correlate more closely with the approach Holden and others took at OPP than it does the studies done in the Effective Animal Advocacy sphere.
[1] http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1lz/why_we_should_be_doing_more_systematic_research/
just emailed you.
Michael, apologies for this. I just came back to check this post. I didn’t ever receive the email because the formatting of the EA forum removed the underscore from my email, and I didn’t notice at the time. If you can find the email that you sent from your sent box in April, and could forward it to me at jamie@sentienceinstitute.org that would be great!