Thanks for writing this up! I found the overall perspective very helpful, as well as lots of the specifics, particularly (1) what it means to be on track and (2) the emphasis on the importance of ‘personal fit’ for an aptitude (vs the view there being a single best thing).
Two comments. First, I’m a bit surprised that you characterised this as being about career choice for longtermists. It seems that the first five aptitudes are just as relevant for non-longtermist do-gooding, although the last two—software engineering and information security—are more specific to longtermism. Hence, this could have been framed as your impressions on career choice for effective altruists, in which you would set out the first five aptitudes and say they applied broadly, then noted the two more which are particular to longtermism.
In the spirit of being a vocal customer, I would have preferred this framing. I am enthusiastic about effective altruism, but ambivalent about longtermism—I’m glad some people focus on it, but it’s not what I prioritise—and found the narrower framing somewhat unwelcoming, as if non-longtermists aren’t worth considering. (Cf if you had said this was career advice for women even though gender was only pertinent to a few parts.)
Second, one aptitude that did seem conspicuous by its absence was for-profit entrepreneurship—the section on the “entrepreneur” aptitude only referred to setting up longtermist organisations. After all, the Open Philanthropy Project, along with much of the rest of the effective altruist world, only exists because people became very wealthy and then gave their money away. I’m wondering if you think it is sufficiently easy to persuade (prospectively) wealthy people of effective altruism(/longtermism) that becoming wealthy isn’t something community members should focus on; I have some sympathy with this view, but note you didn’t state it here.
On your first point: the reason I chose to emphasize longtermism is because:
It’s what I’ve been thinking about the most (note that I am now professionally focused on longtermism, which doesn’t mean I don’t value other areas, but does mean that that’s where my mental energy goes).
I think longtermism is probably the thorniest, most frustrating area for career choice, so I wanted to focus my efforts on helping people in that category think through their options.
I thought a lot of what I was saying might generalize further, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to claim that it would. And I would have found it harder to make a list of aptitudes for all of EA without having noticeable omissions.
With all of that said, I hear you on why this felt unwelcoming, and regret that. I’ll add a link to this comment to the main post to help clarify.
On your second point, I did try to acknowledge the possibility of for-profit startups from a learning/skill-building point of view (paragraph starting with “I do think that if you have any idea for an organization that you think could succeed …”) though I do agree this sort of entrepreneurship can be useful for making money and having impact in other ways (as noted by MichaelA, below), not just for learning, and should have been clearer about that.
At least in some cases, for-profit entrepreneurship may also be directly impactful, or impactful in other ways besides generating wealth that can be put towards altruistic projects
This lends further force to your point, rather than disagreeing with it.
Though I’m not sure I actually think for-profit entrepreneurship is more often useful than you think—I’m just gesturing at some additional possible paths to impact.
Readers may find the following EA Wiki entries (and posts with the corresponding tags) relevant/useful in this context:
Thanks for writing this up! I found the overall perspective very helpful, as well as lots of the specifics, particularly (1) what it means to be on track and (2) the emphasis on the importance of ‘personal fit’ for an aptitude (vs the view there being a single best thing).
Two comments. First, I’m a bit surprised that you characterised this as being about career choice for longtermists. It seems that the first five aptitudes are just as relevant for non-longtermist do-gooding, although the last two—software engineering and information security—are more specific to longtermism. Hence, this could have been framed as your impressions on career choice for effective altruists, in which you would set out the first five aptitudes and say they applied broadly, then noted the two more which are particular to longtermism.
In the spirit of being a vocal customer, I would have preferred this framing. I am enthusiastic about effective altruism, but ambivalent about longtermism—I’m glad some people focus on it, but it’s not what I prioritise—and found the narrower framing somewhat unwelcoming, as if non-longtermists aren’t worth considering. (Cf if you had said this was career advice for women even though gender was only pertinent to a few parts.)
Second, one aptitude that did seem conspicuous by its absence was for-profit entrepreneurship—the section on the “entrepreneur” aptitude only referred to setting up longtermist organisations. After all, the Open Philanthropy Project, along with much of the rest of the effective altruist world, only exists because people became very wealthy and then gave their money away. I’m wondering if you think it is sufficiently easy to persuade (prospectively) wealthy people of effective altruism(/longtermism) that becoming wealthy isn’t something community members should focus on; I have some sympathy with this view, but note you didn’t state it here.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments!
On your first point: the reason I chose to emphasize longtermism is because:
It’s what I’ve been thinking about the most (note that I am now professionally focused on longtermism, which doesn’t mean I don’t value other areas, but does mean that that’s where my mental energy goes).
I think longtermism is probably the thorniest, most frustrating area for career choice, so I wanted to focus my efforts on helping people in that category think through their options.
I thought a lot of what I was saying might generalize further, but I wasn’t sure and didn’t want to claim that it would. And I would have found it harder to make a list of aptitudes for all of EA without having noticeable omissions.
With all of that said, I hear you on why this felt unwelcoming, and regret that. I’ll add a link to this comment to the main post to help clarify.
On your second point, I did try to acknowledge the possibility of for-profit startups from a learning/skill-building point of view (paragraph starting with “I do think that if you have any idea for an organization that you think could succeed …”) though I do agree this sort of entrepreneurship can be useful for making money and having impact in other ways (as noted by MichaelA, below), not just for learning, and should have been clearer about that.
Two small things on your final paragraph:
At least in some cases, for-profit entrepreneurship may also be directly impactful, or impactful in other ways besides generating wealth that can be put towards altruistic projects
This lends further force to your point, rather than disagreeing with it.
Though I’m not sure I actually think for-profit entrepreneurship is more often useful than you think—I’m just gesturing at some additional possible paths to impact.
Readers may find the following EA Wiki entries (and posts with the corresponding tags) relevant/useful in this context:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/funding-high-impact-for-profits
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/influencing-for-profits
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/entrepreneurship
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/tag/public-interest-technology