Upvoted Not to displace Elizabeth, but I hope you don’t mind me taking a crack at this. Note: I’m not trying to make one knockdown argument, but taking a cluster of shots in the dark that might add up to validating Elizabeth’s premise.
At EA Global, relative to people who wil join effective altruism in the future, the collection of attendes, other passionate/dedicated EAs, etc., were referred to as “early adopters”. “EA Global attendees” or “EA Forum participants” are close to the current “core”. This signifies they’re dedicated, and may be more willing to pursue direct work than other effective altruists. Direct work in EA is leads to a less conventional career than earning to give does, so EA organizations should capitalize on the willingness of EAs who would pursue direct work.
The haste consideration might dictate, since is better to do all the best direct work sooner rather than later, it’s better to onboard more EAs into direct work as soon as possible, to realize a more leveraged impact.
I read on one of 80,000 Hours’ recent blog posts that they find it difficult to hire new talent because most potential hires don’t have the mix of “skills, rational insight, and deep knowledge of effective altruism” they’re looking for. This might be the case for many EA organizations. This might be more so if we consider the domain-specific knowledge orgs working on specific causes might require of their employees. Dedicated “early adopters” of effective altruism are disproportionately likely to be great fits for these specifications of EA orgs.
Connections and professional networks constitute an important part of finding talent, learning lessons, and sharing resources in a sector. EA has very different needs than much of the non-profit world, so they’d be better served by building a professional network composed of existing EAs in an easy way, rather than spending more resources and time trying to find the same in the rest of the non-profit sector.
As effective altruism grows, more nuanced and contextualized insight of the movement’s particularities and history will be necessary to maintain its success. For example, take EA Global 2015. Had the organizers known more about last year’s EA Summit, they would’ve been better able to avoid repeat mistakes such as not optimizing for considerations of the meals served, scheduling the conference on the same weekend as the national A.R. conference, and not checking with various cause representaitves about what they thought was an appropriate amount of attention their cause received on the schedule. As time goes on and effective altruism grows, it will be even more crucial for EA to have early adopters at its orgs to pre-empt future problems of this kind.
EA organizations have long-term relationships, such as the relationships between a charity evaluator and its recommended charities. These unique relationships are facilitated by having an especially knowledgeable EA who knows the history of these relationships, rather than hiring a (new) outsider every couple years or so.
As EA orgs specialize in what they do, it’s easier for a more dedicated EA to transition from a very specialized role in direct work to earning to give as needed, rather than a fresher EA transitioning from earning to give to a very specialized role. For example, Givewell finds training employees for their work or into management positions must be careful and slow-going work to ensure it goes well. This whole process is made easier if more dedicated EAs go into direct work sooner rather than later.
More EAs going into direct work in cause prioritization, movement development, or other metacharity may greatly expand the quantity and spread of effective organization who could receive fuding in the future. If many EAs will go on to earn to give anyway, it’s important for us involved now to expand the number of organizations who are prepared to do effective work with these future funds, and ensure they’ll indeed be effective.
“EA has very different needs than much of the non-profit world.” In what way?
I also have to say that there is something very insider-y about this analysis. Much of the advice seems like it boils down to “don’t waste your time with non-EA people.”
“EA has very different needs than much of the non-profit world.” In what way?
Effective altruist organizations do work which is uncommon among other non-profit organizations, such as cause prioritization, charity evaluation, and the explicit growth and coordination of a budding social movement. Much of this might require unique skills, or at least ones that are less common to find among people working at conventional NGOs. So, long-time volunteers for EA oganizations who also have a tacit knowledge of dynamics in effective altruism as a community may be quicker and simpler to train than someone who knows nothing of effective altruism. However, if an organization broadened the scope of its search to talent beyond conventional non-profits and the existing EA community, to anyone and everyone from the public and for-profit sectors as well, they’d likely find unique candidates who fit the bill better than anyone else, effective altruist or not. In the past, it seems finding new hires has been difficult enough for small effective altruist organizations in what they consider an acceptable timeframe they feel forced to hire from within the community. However, now that the scope of effective altruism is expanding, past experience alone shouldn’t stop EA organizations to look beyond their own existing circles of influence to find new hires.
I also have to say that there is something very insider-y about this analysis. Much of the advice seems like it boils down to “don’t waste your time with non-EA people.”
So, I don’t agree with Elizabeth’s original comment. AGB has a well upvoted comment above this thread, and I agree with the ratio of earning to give to other effective altruist work he puts forth would be ideal, based on the current state of things. I think he is more or less correct for however wide a net one casts to define the population of effective altruism, even if it’s one so small it only includes people who post to forums like this one and attend conferences every year. I don’t think the proportion of “early adopters”, or whatever they’re called, of effective altruism who go into direct work should be much higher than the total of whatever couple thousand effective altruists there are.
I was just generating a bunch of possible arguments on the fly for Elizabeth’s hypothesis, so I might have motivated myself to produce ones which on their face seem appealing but contain little substance. Like, I was putting myself in the shoes of an EA organization which was desperate to hire the most fitting employees for their team as soon as possible. Most organizations don’t act that dire. On second thought, I think only three of my above points stand up to scrutiny. There was another thread where Tom Ash answered one of my questions that’s made me more skeptical of the capacity of effective altruism to generate new superior giving opportunities in the form of new projects or charities than I once thought. So, there’s likely less capacity for direct work.
If the rest of the effective altruism community does and continues to hold the opinion they can produce many new projects which beat, e.g., Givewell’s top charity recommendations in terms of effectiveness, more of them should be allowed to fail, as we would rightly expect would happen, and we should not keep funding them as that would be a bunch of bloat and cuts into funding we could provide to more effective organizations.
I think you could be right, but could you elaborate as to why you believe this?
Upvoted Not to displace Elizabeth, but I hope you don’t mind me taking a crack at this. Note: I’m not trying to make one knockdown argument, but taking a cluster of shots in the dark that might add up to validating Elizabeth’s premise.
At EA Global, relative to people who wil join effective altruism in the future, the collection of attendes, other passionate/dedicated EAs, etc., were referred to as “early adopters”. “EA Global attendees” or “EA Forum participants” are close to the current “core”. This signifies they’re dedicated, and may be more willing to pursue direct work than other effective altruists. Direct work in EA is leads to a less conventional career than earning to give does, so EA organizations should capitalize on the willingness of EAs who would pursue direct work.
The haste consideration might dictate, since is better to do all the best direct work sooner rather than later, it’s better to onboard more EAs into direct work as soon as possible, to realize a more leveraged impact.
I read on one of 80,000 Hours’ recent blog posts that they find it difficult to hire new talent because most potential hires don’t have the mix of “skills, rational insight, and deep knowledge of effective altruism” they’re looking for. This might be the case for many EA organizations. This might be more so if we consider the domain-specific knowledge orgs working on specific causes might require of their employees. Dedicated “early adopters” of effective altruism are disproportionately likely to be great fits for these specifications of EA orgs.
Connections and professional networks constitute an important part of finding talent, learning lessons, and sharing resources in a sector. EA has very different needs than much of the non-profit world, so they’d be better served by building a professional network composed of existing EAs in an easy way, rather than spending more resources and time trying to find the same in the rest of the non-profit sector.
As effective altruism grows, more nuanced and contextualized insight of the movement’s particularities and history will be necessary to maintain its success. For example, take EA Global 2015. Had the organizers known more about last year’s EA Summit, they would’ve been better able to avoid repeat mistakes such as not optimizing for considerations of the meals served, scheduling the conference on the same weekend as the national A.R. conference, and not checking with various cause representaitves about what they thought was an appropriate amount of attention their cause received on the schedule. As time goes on and effective altruism grows, it will be even more crucial for EA to have early adopters at its orgs to pre-empt future problems of this kind.
EA organizations have long-term relationships, such as the relationships between a charity evaluator and its recommended charities. These unique relationships are facilitated by having an especially knowledgeable EA who knows the history of these relationships, rather than hiring a (new) outsider every couple years or so.
As EA orgs specialize in what they do, it’s easier for a more dedicated EA to transition from a very specialized role in direct work to earning to give as needed, rather than a fresher EA transitioning from earning to give to a very specialized role. For example, Givewell finds training employees for their work or into management positions must be careful and slow-going work to ensure it goes well. This whole process is made easier if more dedicated EAs go into direct work sooner rather than later.
More EAs going into direct work in cause prioritization, movement development, or other metacharity may greatly expand the quantity and spread of effective organization who could receive fuding in the future. If many EAs will go on to earn to give anyway, it’s important for us involved now to expand the number of organizations who are prepared to do effective work with these future funds, and ensure they’ll indeed be effective.
“EA has very different needs than much of the non-profit world.” In what way?
I also have to say that there is something very insider-y about this analysis. Much of the advice seems like it boils down to “don’t waste your time with non-EA people.”
Effective altruist organizations do work which is uncommon among other non-profit organizations, such as cause prioritization, charity evaluation, and the explicit growth and coordination of a budding social movement. Much of this might require unique skills, or at least ones that are less common to find among people working at conventional NGOs. So, long-time volunteers for EA oganizations who also have a tacit knowledge of dynamics in effective altruism as a community may be quicker and simpler to train than someone who knows nothing of effective altruism. However, if an organization broadened the scope of its search to talent beyond conventional non-profits and the existing EA community, to anyone and everyone from the public and for-profit sectors as well, they’d likely find unique candidates who fit the bill better than anyone else, effective altruist or not. In the past, it seems finding new hires has been difficult enough for small effective altruist organizations in what they consider an acceptable timeframe they feel forced to hire from within the community. However, now that the scope of effective altruism is expanding, past experience alone shouldn’t stop EA organizations to look beyond their own existing circles of influence to find new hires.
So, I don’t agree with Elizabeth’s original comment. AGB has a well upvoted comment above this thread, and I agree with the ratio of earning to give to other effective altruist work he puts forth would be ideal, based on the current state of things. I think he is more or less correct for however wide a net one casts to define the population of effective altruism, even if it’s one so small it only includes people who post to forums like this one and attend conferences every year. I don’t think the proportion of “early adopters”, or whatever they’re called, of effective altruism who go into direct work should be much higher than the total of whatever couple thousand effective altruists there are.
I was just generating a bunch of possible arguments on the fly for Elizabeth’s hypothesis, so I might have motivated myself to produce ones which on their face seem appealing but contain little substance. Like, I was putting myself in the shoes of an EA organization which was desperate to hire the most fitting employees for their team as soon as possible. Most organizations don’t act that dire. On second thought, I think only three of my above points stand up to scrutiny. There was another thread where Tom Ash answered one of my questions that’s made me more skeptical of the capacity of effective altruism to generate new superior giving opportunities in the form of new projects or charities than I once thought. So, there’s likely less capacity for direct work.
If the rest of the effective altruism community does and continues to hold the opinion they can produce many new projects which beat, e.g., Givewell’s top charity recommendations in terms of effectiveness, more of them should be allowed to fail, as we would rightly expect would happen, and we should not keep funding them as that would be a bunch of bloat and cuts into funding we could provide to more effective organizations.
I’m finding this to be a really big question: do you think you could define what you mean by Effective Altruist?