This is a great post and I think this type of thinking is useful for someone who’s specifically debating between working at / founding a small EA organization (that doesn’t have high status outside EA) vs a non-EA organization (or like, Open Phil) early in their career. Ultimately I don’t think it’s that relevant (though still valuable for other reasons) when making career decisions outside this scope, because I don’t think that conflating the EA mission and community is valid. The EA mission is just to do the most good possible; whether or not the community that has sprung up around this mission is a useful vehicle for you as an individual to do the most good you can is a different and difficult question. If you believe that EA as a movement will grow significantly in wealth and ability to affect the world, you could rationally choose to align yourself with EA groups and organizations for career capital / status reasons (not considering first-order impact). However, it seems like the EA community greatly values externally successful people, for instance when hiring; there’s very little insider bias, or at least it’s easy to overcome. When considering next steps I think the mindset of “which option maximizes my lifetime impact” is more correct and useful, though harder to answer individually, than an indirect question like “which option is more aligned with the current EA community” or “which option is ranked higher by 80000 Hours” in almost all cases. I’m sorry if I misunderstood your post, I’m trying to sort out my own thoughts as well. Again, conflating the community and mission is still a useful approximation if you’re considering working for one of the smaller EA organizations, or in a ‘smaller’ role.
Excellent comment. I’m mainly considering the first set of options that you’re pointing to which means that the mission and community is pretty closely connected.
I’m curious, where did you get the “lifetime impact mindset from”? It seemed original to a small group of people so I’m happy that it’s used more widely. With that said, very early on I think it’s more useful to think in terms of experiments, heuristics, and (maybe) a decade hence because early on most have lot of experience to gather about themselves and the world (although this can still be done within the larger frame of lifetime impac). But I’m starting to move away from early career and have more data and conviction in personal fit so I can make stronger decisions. I can also recommend the podcast with Holden Karnofsky and the book Range by David Epstein.
That’s a good point, at my level thinking about the details of lifetime impact between two good paths might be almost completely intractable. I don’t remember where I first saw that specific idea, it seems like a pretty natural endpoint to the whole EA mindset. And I’ll check out that book, it’s been recommended to me before.
This is a great post and I think this type of thinking is useful for someone who’s specifically debating between working at / founding a small EA organization (that doesn’t have high status outside EA) vs a non-EA organization (or like, Open Phil) early in their career. Ultimately I don’t think it’s that relevant (though still valuable for other reasons) when making career decisions outside this scope, because I don’t think that conflating the EA mission and community is valid. The EA mission is just to do the most good possible; whether or not the community that has sprung up around this mission is a useful vehicle for you as an individual to do the most good you can is a different and difficult question. If you believe that EA as a movement will grow significantly in wealth and ability to affect the world, you could rationally choose to align yourself with EA groups and organizations for career capital / status reasons (not considering first-order impact). However, it seems like the EA community greatly values externally successful people, for instance when hiring; there’s very little insider bias, or at least it’s easy to overcome. When considering next steps I think the mindset of “which option maximizes my lifetime impact” is more correct and useful, though harder to answer individually, than an indirect question like “which option is more aligned with the current EA community” or “which option is ranked higher by 80000 Hours” in almost all cases. I’m sorry if I misunderstood your post, I’m trying to sort out my own thoughts as well. Again, conflating the community and mission is still a useful approximation if you’re considering working for one of the smaller EA organizations, or in a ‘smaller’ role.
Excellent comment. I’m mainly considering the first set of options that you’re pointing to which means that the mission and community is pretty closely connected. I’m curious, where did you get the “lifetime impact mindset from”? It seemed original to a small group of people so I’m happy that it’s used more widely. With that said, very early on I think it’s more useful to think in terms of experiments, heuristics, and (maybe) a decade hence because early on most have lot of experience to gather about themselves and the world (although this can still be done within the larger frame of lifetime impac). But I’m starting to move away from early career and have more data and conviction in personal fit so I can make stronger decisions. I can also recommend the podcast with Holden Karnofsky and the book Range by David Epstein.
That’s a good point, at my level thinking about the details of lifetime impact between two good paths might be almost completely intractable. I don’t remember where I first saw that specific idea, it seems like a pretty natural endpoint to the whole EA mindset. And I’ll check out that book, it’s been recommended to me before.