The criticisms of volunteering in this article seem directed at traditional volunteering: structured opportunities that produce direct impact. Under this definition of volunteering, the criticisms seem reasonable.
But a person might be interested in a broader sense of volunteering: unpaid, non-job related ways of using their free time to have an impact. Under this definition, there are many worthwhile volunteering opportunities. For example, a person could do one on one video calls with college EAs interested in their field, provide feedback on draft EA content, or run an EA discussion group.
The article does note non-traditional ways of volunteering at the end but I think it’d be more likely to leave the reader with an accurate impression of the author’s position if it substituted “traditional volunteering” for “volunteering” in the first several paragraphs.
The criticisms of volunteering in this article seem directed at traditional volunteering: structured opportunities that produce direct impact. Under this definition of volunteering, the criticisms seem reasonable.
But a person might be interested in a broader sense of volunteering: unpaid, non-job related ways of using their free time to have an impact. Under this definition, there are many worthwhile volunteering opportunities. For example, a person could do one on one video calls with college EAs interested in their field, provide feedback on draft EA content, or run an EA discussion group.
The article does note non-traditional ways of volunteering at the end but I think it’d be more likely to leave the reader with an accurate impression of the author’s position if it substituted “traditional volunteering” for “volunteering” in the first several paragraphs.