I think by default good ideas like this never really end up happening, which is sad. Do you or other people have thoughts on how to make your idea actually happen?
As you know, one of my interns is doing something adjacent to this idea (though framed in a different way), and I may convince another intern to do something similar (depending on their interests and specific project ideas in mind).
Yeah, good point—I guess a more directed version of “People giving career advice or mentorship to people interested in EA-aligned research careers mention this as one way of testing fit, having impact, etc.” is just people encouraging people they manage to do this, or maybe even hiring people with this partly in mind.
Though I think that that wouldn’t capture most of the potential value of this idea, since part of what’s good about is that, as you say, this idea:
requires relatively little training/guidance from external mentors, meaning
our movement devotes less scarce mentorship resources into this
people with worse social skills/network/geographical situation don’t feel (as much) at a disadvantage for getting the relevant training
(People who’ve already gone through a hiring process and have an at least somewhat more experienced researcher managing them will have an easier time than other people in testing fit, having impact, building skills, etc. in other ways as well.)
Yeah I agree that a major upside to this idea (and a key differentiator between it and other proposed interventions for fixing early stages of the research pipeline) is that it ought to be doable without as much guidance from external mentors. I guess my own willingness to suggest this as an intern project suggests that I believe it must comparatively be even more exciting for people without external guidance.
As you know, one of my interns is doing something adjacent to this idea (though framed in a different way), and I may convince another intern to do something similar (depending on their interests and specific project ideas in mind).
Yeah, good point—I guess a more directed version of “People giving career advice or mentorship to people interested in EA-aligned research careers mention this as one way of testing fit, having impact, etc.” is just people encouraging people they manage to do this, or maybe even hiring people with this partly in mind.
Though I think that that wouldn’t capture most of the potential value of this idea, since part of what’s good about is that, as you say, this idea:
(People who’ve already gone through a hiring process and have an at least somewhat more experienced researcher managing them will have an easier time than other people in testing fit, having impact, building skills, etc. in other ways as well.)
Yeah I agree that a major upside to this idea (and a key differentiator between it and other proposed interventions for fixing early stages of the research pipeline) is that it ought to be doable without as much guidance from external mentors. I guess my own willingness to suggest this as an intern project suggests that I believe it must comparatively be even more exciting for people without external guidance.