I agree that if it’s true that “many EAs feel that either they’re working at a top EA org or they’re not contributing much,” then that is much worse than anything about application time cost and urgently needs to be fixed. I’ve never felt that way about EA org work vs. alternatives, so I may have just missed that this is a message many people are getting.
E.g. Scott’s post also says:
Should also acknowledge the possibility that “talent-constrained” means the world needs more clean meat researchers, malaria vaccine scientists, and AI programmers, and not just generic high-qualification people applying to EA organizations. This wasn’t how I understood the term but it would make sense.
…and my reply is “Yes, talent-constrained also means those other things, and it’s a big problem if that was unclear to a noticeable fraction of the community.”
FWIW I suspect there’s also something a bit more subtle going on than overly narrow misunderstandings of “talent-constrained,” e.g. something like Max Daniel’s hypothesis.
I agree that if it’s true that “many EAs feel that either they’re working at a top EA org or they’re not contributing much,” then that is much worse than anything about application time cost and urgently needs to be fixed. I’ve never felt that way about EA org work vs. alternatives, so I may have just missed that this is a message many people are getting.
E.g. Scott’s post also says:
…and my reply is “Yes, talent-constrained also means those other things, and it’s a big problem if that was unclear to a noticeable fraction of the community.”
FWIW I suspect there’s also something a bit more subtle going on than overly narrow misunderstandings of “talent-constrained,” e.g. something like Max Daniel’s hypothesis.