Hmm, I think that Iām less conceiving of this as a problem-to-be-fixed than you are.
I think my second question was broad and vague.
I could operationalise part of it as: āDo you expect thereās still high expected value in more people starting now at trying to get good at āresearch mentorship/āmanagementā? Do you expect the same would be true if they started on that in, e.g., 2 years? Or do you think that, by the time people got good at this if they start now, the āgapā will have been largely filled?ā
It sounds like you think the answer is essentially āYes, thereās still high expected value in thisā?
Iād agree that there are other strong arguments for many people working outside of explicitly EA orgs. And I think many EAsāmyself includedāare biased towards and often overemphasise working at explicitly EA orgs.
But ājobs/āprojects that are unusually good for getting better at āresearch mentorship/āmanagementāā includes various jobs both within and outside of EA, as well as excluding various jobs both within and outside of EA. So I think the questions in this comment are distinct fromāthough somewhat related toāthe question āShould more people work outside of EA orgs?ā
Ahh, I think I was interpreting your general line of questioning as being:
A) Absent ability to get sufficient mentorship within EA circles, should people go outside to get mentorship?
ā¦ whereas this comment makes me think you were more asking:
B) Since research mentorship/āmanagement is such a bottleneck, should we get people trying to skill up a lot in that?
I think that some of the most important skills for research mentorship from an EA perspective include transferring intuitions about what is important to work on, and that this will be hard to learn properly outside an EA context (although there are probably some complementary skills one can effectively learn).
I do think that if the questions were in the vein of B) Iām more wary in my agreement: I kind of think that research mentorship is a valuable skill to look for opportunities to practice, but a little hard to be >50% of what someone focuses on? So Iām closer to encouraging people doing research that seems valuable to look for opportunities to do this as well. I guess I am positive on people practicising mentorship generally, or e.g. reading a lot of different pieces of research and forming inside views on what makes some pieces seem more valuable. I think the demand for these skills will become slightly less acute but remain fairly high for at least a decade.
I think my second question was broad and vague.
I could operationalise part of it as: āDo you expect thereās still high expected value in more people starting now at trying to get good at āresearch mentorship/āmanagementā? Do you expect the same would be true if they started on that in, e.g., 2 years? Or do you think that, by the time people got good at this if they start now, the āgapā will have been largely filled?ā
It sounds like you think the answer is essentially āYes, thereās still high expected value in thisā?
Iād agree that there are other strong arguments for many people working outside of explicitly EA orgs. And I think many EAsāmyself includedāare biased towards and often overemphasise working at explicitly EA orgs.
But ājobs/āprojects that are unusually good for getting better at āresearch mentorship/āmanagementāā includes various jobs both within and outside of EA, as well as excluding various jobs both within and outside of EA. So I think the questions in this comment are distinct fromāthough somewhat related toāthe question āShould more people work outside of EA orgs?ā
Ahh, I think I was interpreting your general line of questioning as being:
A) Absent ability to get sufficient mentorship within EA circles, should people go outside to get mentorship?
ā¦ whereas this comment makes me think you were more asking:
B) Since research mentorship/āmanagement is such a bottleneck, should we get people trying to skill up a lot in that?
I think that some of the most important skills for research mentorship from an EA perspective include transferring intuitions about what is important to work on, and that this will be hard to learn properly outside an EA context (although there are probably some complementary skills one can effectively learn).
I do think that if the questions were in the vein of B) Iām more wary in my agreement: I kind of think that research mentorship is a valuable skill to look for opportunities to practice, but a little hard to be >50% of what someone focuses on? So Iām closer to encouraging people doing research that seems valuable to look for opportunities to do this as well. I guess I am positive on people practicising mentorship generally, or e.g. reading a lot of different pieces of research and forming inside views on what makes some pieces seem more valuable. I think the demand for these skills will become slightly less acute but remain fairly high for at least a decade.
I think I had both of those lines of questioning in mind, but didnāt make this explicit. Thanks for your responses :)