First, I am sorry to hear about your experience. I am sympathetic to the idea that a high level of deference and lack of rigorous thinking is likely rampant amongst the university EA crowd, and I hope this is remedied. That said, I strongly disagree with your takeaways about funding and have some other reflections as well:
“Being paid to run a college club is weird. All other college students volunteer to run their clubs.”
This seems incorrect. I used to feel this way, but I changed my mind because I noticed that every “serious” club (i.e., any club wanting to achieve its goals reliably) on my campus pays students or hires paid interns. For instance, my university has a well-established environmental science ecosystem, and at least two of the associated clubs are supported via some university funding mechanism (this is now so advanced that they also do grantmaking for student projects ranging from a couple thousand to a max of $100,000). I can also think of a few larger Christian groups on campus which do the same. Some computer science/data-related clubs also do this, but I might be wrong.
Most college clubs are indeed run on a volunteer basis. But most are run quite casually. There is nothing wrong with this; most of them are hobby-based clubs where students simply want to create a socially welcoming atmosphere for any who might be interested. They don’t have weekly discussions, TA-like facilitation, socials/retreats, or, in some cases, hosting research/internship programs. In this way, EA clubs are different because they aren’t trying to be the “let’s get together and have fun” club. I almost see university EA clubs as a prototype non-profit or a so-so-funded university department trying to run a few courses.
In passing I should also mention that it is far more common for clubs to get funding for hosting events, outreach, buying materials, etc. My guess is that in these cases if more funding were available, then students running those clubs would also get stipends.
“Getting paid to organize did not make me take my role more seriously, and I suspect that other organizers did not take their roles much more seriously because of being paid.”
My experience has been the opposite of yours. Before getting paid, organizing felt like a distraction from more important things; there was always this rush to wrap up tasks; I enjoyed organizing but always felt somewhat guilty for spending time on it. These feelings vanished after getting funded. I (at least) doubled the amount of time I spent on the club, got more exposed to EA, got more organized with the meetings/deadlines, and I feel that I have a sense of responsibility for running this project the best I can.
Turn the University Group Organizer Fellowship into a need-based fellowship.
I am uncertain about this. I think a better and simpler heuristic is that if people are working diligently for x hours a week, then they should be funded for their labor.
“If the University Group Organizer Fellowship exit survey indicates that funding was somewhat helpful in increasing people’s commitment to quality community building, then reduce funding...”
I agree with this. Funding being given out could be somewhat reduced and I feel it would be equally as impactful as it is now, but I am keen to see the results of the survey.
“I am very concerned with just how little cause prioritization seems to be happening at my university group.”
At least for university groups, maybe this is the wrong thing to be concerned about. It would be better if students could do rigorous cause-prioritization, but I think for most, this would be quite challenging, if not virtually impossible.
The way I see it, most university students are still in the formative stages of figuring out what they believe in and their reasons for doing so. Almost all are in the active process of developing their identity and goals. Some have certain behavioral traits that prevent them from exploring all options (think of the shy person who later went on to become a communicator of some sort). All this is sometimes exacerbated by mental health problems or practical concerns (familial duties, the need to be financially stable, etc.).
Expecting folks from this age group to perform cause prioritization is a high bar. I am sure some can do it, but I wouldn’t have been able to. Instead, I think it’d be better if university EA groups helped their members understand how to make the best possible bet at the moment to have a pathway to impact. For instance, I hope that most students who go through the fellowship: — Develop better ways of thinking and forming opinions — Be more open-minded / have a broad sphere of concern — Take ideas seriously and act on them (usually by building career capital) — Play the long game of having a high-impact career
Now, this likely doesn’t happen to the best possible degree. But I think that all this and more, in combination, would help most in refining their cause prioritization over the years and setting themselves up to have a rewarding and impactful career.
Maybe this is what you meant when you were expressing your concerns, in which case, sorry for the TED talk and I wholeheartedly agree.
I don’t think most people should be doing cause prioritisation with 80000 Hours’s level of rigour, but I think everyone is capable of doing some sort of cause prioritisation—at least working out where there values may differ with those of 80000 Hours, or identifying where they disagree with some of 80K’s claims and working out how that would affect how they rank causes.
I agree with all of this up until the cause prioritisation part. I’m confused about why you think it would be a mental health concern?
There’s a very big space of options between feeling like there’s only one socially valid opinion about a cause area and feeling like you have to do a rigorous piece of analysis of all causes in 6 weeks. I gather the OP wants something that’s more just an extension of ‘developing better ways of thinking and forming opinions’ about causes, and not quashing people’s organic critical reflections about the ideas they encounter.
Surely we want more analytical people who can think clearly and are net contributors to important intellectual debates in EA, rather than people who just jump on bandwagons and regurgitate consensus arguments.
I don’t! I meant to say that students who have mental health concerns may find it harder to do cause prioritization while balancing everything else.
I gather the OP wants something that’s more just an extension of ‘developing better ways of thinking and forming opinions’ about causes, and not quashing people’s organic critical reflections about the ideas they encounter.
I was unsure if this is what OP meant; if yes, then I fully agree.
First, I am sorry to hear about your experience. I am sympathetic to the idea that a high level of deference and lack of rigorous thinking is likely rampant amongst the university EA crowd, and I hope this is remedied. That said, I strongly disagree with your takeaways about funding and have some other reflections as well:
“Being paid to run a college club is weird. All other college students volunteer to run their clubs.”
This seems incorrect. I used to feel this way, but I changed my mind because I noticed that every “serious” club (i.e., any club wanting to achieve its goals reliably) on my campus pays students or hires paid interns. For instance, my university has a well-established environmental science ecosystem, and at least two of the associated clubs are supported via some university funding mechanism (this is now so advanced that they also do grantmaking for student projects ranging from a couple thousand to a max of $100,000). I can also think of a few larger Christian groups on campus which do the same. Some computer science/data-related clubs also do this, but I might be wrong.
Most college clubs are indeed run on a volunteer basis. But most are run quite casually. There is nothing wrong with this; most of them are hobby-based clubs where students simply want to create a socially welcoming atmosphere for any who might be interested. They don’t have weekly discussions, TA-like facilitation, socials/retreats, or, in some cases, hosting research/internship programs. In this way, EA clubs are different because they aren’t trying to be the “let’s get together and have fun” club. I almost see university EA clubs as a prototype non-profit or a so-so-funded university department trying to run a few courses.
In passing I should also mention that it is far more common for clubs to get funding for hosting events, outreach, buying materials, etc. My guess is that in these cases if more funding were available, then students running those clubs would also get stipends.
“Getting paid to organize did not make me take my role more seriously, and I suspect that other organizers did not take their roles much more seriously because of being paid.”
My experience has been the opposite of yours. Before getting paid, organizing felt like a distraction from more important things; there was always this rush to wrap up tasks; I enjoyed organizing but always felt somewhat guilty for spending time on it. These feelings vanished after getting funded. I (at least) doubled the amount of time I spent on the club, got more exposed to EA, got more organized with the meetings/deadlines, and I feel that I have a sense of responsibility for running this project the best I can.
Turn the University Group Organizer Fellowship into a need-based fellowship.
I am uncertain about this. I think a better and simpler heuristic is that if people are working diligently for x hours a week, then they should be funded for their labor.
“If the University Group Organizer Fellowship exit survey indicates that funding was somewhat helpful in increasing people’s commitment to quality community building, then reduce funding...”
I agree with this. Funding being given out could be somewhat reduced and I feel it would be equally as impactful as it is now, but I am keen to see the results of the survey.
“I am very concerned with just how little cause prioritization seems to be happening at my university group.”
At least for university groups, maybe this is the wrong thing to be concerned about. It would be better if students could do rigorous cause-prioritization, but I think for most, this would be quite challenging, if not virtually impossible.
The way I see it, most university students are still in the formative stages of figuring out what they believe in and their reasons for doing so. Almost all are in the active process of developing their identity and goals. Some have certain behavioral traits that prevent them from exploring all options (think of the shy person who later went on to become a communicator of some sort). All this is sometimes exacerbated by mental health problems or practical concerns (familial duties, the need to be financially stable, etc.).
Expecting folks from this age group to perform cause prioritization is a high bar. I am sure some can do it, but I wouldn’t have been able to. Instead, I think it’d be better if university EA groups helped their members understand how to make the best possible bet at the moment to have a pathway to impact. For instance, I hope that most students who go through the fellowship:
— Develop better ways of thinking and forming opinions
— Be more open-minded / have a broad sphere of concern
— Take ideas seriously and act on them (usually by building career capital)
— Play the long game of having a high-impact career
Now, this likely doesn’t happen to the best possible degree. But I think that all this and more, in combination, would help most in refining their cause prioritization over the years and setting themselves up to have a rewarding and impactful career.
Maybe this is what you meant when you were expressing your concerns, in which case, sorry for the TED talk and I wholeheartedly agree.
I don’t think most people should be doing cause prioritisation with 80000 Hours’s level of rigour, but I think everyone is capable of doing some sort of cause prioritisation—at least working out where there values may differ with those of 80000 Hours, or identifying where they disagree with some of 80K’s claims and working out how that would affect how they rank causes.
I agree. I was imagining too rigorous (and narrow) of a cause prioritization exercise when commenting.
I agree with all of this up until the cause prioritisation part. I’m confused about why you think it would be a mental health concern?
There’s a very big space of options between feeling like there’s only one socially valid opinion about a cause area and feeling like you have to do a rigorous piece of analysis of all causes in 6 weeks. I gather the OP wants something that’s more just an extension of ‘developing better ways of thinking and forming opinions’ about causes, and not quashing people’s organic critical reflections about the ideas they encounter.
Surely we want more analytical people who can think clearly and are net contributors to important intellectual debates in EA, rather than people who just jump on bandwagons and regurgitate consensus arguments.
I don’t! I meant to say that students who have mental health concerns may find it harder to do cause prioritization while balancing everything else.
I was unsure if this is what OP meant; if yes, then I fully agree.