Thanks for sharing that. It’s good to know that that’s how the message comes across. I agree we should avoid that kind of bait-and-switch which engages people under false pretences. Sam discusses this in a different context as the top comment on this post, so it’s an ongoing concern.
I’ll just speak on my own experience. I was focused on climate change throughout my undergrad and early career because I wanted to work on a really important problem and it seemed obvious that thismeant I should work on climate change. Learning about EA was eye-opening because I realized (1) there are other important problems on the same scale as climate change, (2) there are frameworks to help me think about how to prioritize work among them, and (3) it might be even more useful for me to work on some of these other problems.
I personally don’t see climate change as some separate thing that people engage with before they switch to “EA stuff.” Climate change is EA stuff. It’s a major global problem that concerns future generations and threatens civilization. However, it is unique among plausible x-risks in that it’s also a widely-known problem that gets lots of attention from funders, voters, politicians, activists, and smart people who want to do altruistic work. Climate change might be the only thing that’s both an x-risk and a Popular Social Cause.
It would be nice for our climate change message to do at least two thing. First, help people like me, who are searching for the best thing to do with their life and have landed on climate because it’s a Popular Social Cause, discover the range of other important things to work on. Second, help people like you, who, I assume, care about future generations and want to help solve climate change, work in the most effective way possible. I think we can do both in the future, even if we haven’t in the past.
Thanks for sharing that. It’s good to know that that’s how the message comes across. I agree we should avoid that kind of bait-and-switch which engages people under false pretences. Sam discusses this in a different context as the top comment on this post, so it’s an ongoing concern.
I’ll just speak on my own experience. I was focused on climate change throughout my undergrad and early career because I wanted to work on a really important problem and it seemed obvious that this meant I should work on climate change. Learning about EA was eye-opening because I realized (1) there are other important problems on the same scale as climate change, (2) there are frameworks to help me think about how to prioritize work among them, and (3) it might be even more useful for me to work on some of these other problems.
I personally don’t see climate change as some separate thing that people engage with before they switch to “EA stuff.” Climate change is EA stuff. It’s a major global problem that concerns future generations and threatens civilization. However, it is unique among plausible x-risks in that it’s also a widely-known problem that gets lots of attention from funders, voters, politicians, activists, and smart people who want to do altruistic work. Climate change might be the only thing that’s both an x-risk and a Popular Social Cause.
It would be nice for our climate change message to do at least two thing. First, help people like me, who are searching for the best thing to do with their life and have landed on climate because it’s a Popular Social Cause, discover the range of other important things to work on. Second, help people like you, who, I assume, care about future generations and want to help solve climate change, work in the most effective way possible. I think we can do both in the future, even if we haven’t in the past.