Compilation of 32 new(ish) 80,000 Hours research pieces for the effective altruist community

[80000_Hours]

Here is a list of new 80,000 Hours content since we wrote our previous update for this forum last September, in chronological order.

Note that a lot of our new ideas now come out through our podcast—you can subscribe by searching for 80,000 Hours in any podcasting app.

Another way to stay up to date is to join our newsletter (just double check it’s reaching your inbox and not getting stuck in your ‘promotions’ folder).

1. Should you work at an effective non-profit? A research backed analysis. (Career review)

2. Is it time for a new scientific revolution? Julia Galef on how to make humans smarter, why Twitter isn’t all bad, and where effective altruism is going wrong (Podcast)

3. The psychologists in the race against collective stupidity and how you can join them (Problem profile)

4. Why we must end factory farming as soon as possible—and how to do it (Podcast)

5. Podcast with FLI: Choosing a Career to Tackle the World’s Biggest Problems with Rob Wiblin and Brenton Mayer (External)

6. Our computers are fundamentally insecure. Here’s why that could lead to global catastrophe (Podcast)

7. Working in the government you can have a big impact on pressing global problems. Here’s how to get started. (Career review)

8. Podcast: You want to do as much good as possible and have billions of dollars. What do you do? (Podcast)

9. Speeding up social science 10-fold, how to do research that’s actually useful, & why plenty of startups cause harm (Podcast)

10. If you want to do good, here’s why future generations should be your focus (Article)

11. Dr Cameron fought Ebola for the White House. Here’s what keeps her up at night. (Podcast)

12. We can use science to end poverty faster. But how much do governments listen to it anyway? (Podcast)

13. Leaders survey: What are the most important talent gaps in effective altruism—and which problems are most impactful to work on? (Blog post)

14. Going undercover to expose animal cruelty, get rabbit cages banned and reduce meat consumption (Podcast)

15. Why you should consider applying for grad school right now (Blog post)

16. Prof Tetlock on predicting catastrophes, why keep your politics secret, and when experts know more than you (Podcast)

17. Why despite global progress, humanity is probably facing its most dangerous time ever (Article)

18. Guide to effective holiday giving in 2017 (Blog post)

19. Michelle hopes to shape the world by shaping the ideas of intellectuals. Will global priorities research succeed? (Podcast)

20. Our descendants will probably see us as moral monsters. What should we do about that? (Podcast)

21. Ofir Reich on using data science to end poverty and the spurious action/​inaction distinction (Podcast)

22. “It’s my job to worry about any way nukes could get used” (Podcast)

23. Bruce Friedrich makes the case that inventing outstanding meat replacements is the most effective way to help animals (Podcast)

24. The world’s most intellectual foundation is hiring. Holden Karnofsky, founder of GiveWell, on how philanthropy can have maximum impact by taking big risks. (Podcast)

25. A new recommended career path for effective altruists: China specialist (Article)

26. Yes, a career in commercial law has earning potential. We still don’t recommend it. (Career review)

27. The non-profit that figured out how to massively cut suicide rates in Sri Lanka, and their plan to do the same around the world (Podcast)

28. A machine learning alignment researcher on how to become a machine learing alignment researcher (Podcast)

29. Why it’s a bad idea to break the rules, even if it’s for a good cause (Podcast)

30. Our top 3 lessons on how not to waste your career on things that don’t change the world (Video)

31. Why we have to lie to ourselves about why we do what we do, according to Prof Robin Hanson (Podcast)

32. Why operations management is one of the biggest bottlenecks in effective altruism (Article)

We used to break out articles that were aimed at the EA community from those which weren’t, but at this point there isn’t enough of the latter to bother dividing them.

Enjoy!

- The 80,000 Hours team

P.S. Here’s the first in the series from last June.

[Jan_Kulveit]

I like the content.

But a small terminology note: I’m not sure it is a good practice to call it research pieces (and 80k hours is one of the norm-setting organization in EA)

A big portion of the pieces is podcasts, “recorded conversations between smart people”. This is useful in many ways, but is it research?

In general, it seems to me … “research” is high prestige in EA movement. Which creates an incentive to label things as research. So many important things are labelled research.

So it shouldn’t surprise anyone there is e.g. shortage of operations people

[80000_Hours]

Fair point. I thought about calling them articles… but they’re definitely not all articles. Thought about calling them ‘content releases’ but that felt like corporate vagueness.

I should have gone with something nobody could dispute: 32 new(ish) universal resource locators. ;) - RW

[Alex_Barry]

The links to 2, 4, 6 and 15 seem broken on the 80K end, I just get ‘page not found’ for each.

Link 30 also does not work, but that is just because it starts with an unnecessary “effective-altruism.com/​​″ before the youtube link.

I checked and everything else seems to work.

[80000_Hours]

Hi Alex thanks I fixed 30. 2,4,6 and 15 are working for me—can you email over a screenshot of the error you’re getting?

[Alex_Barry]

Huh, weirdly they seem to all work again now, they used to take me to the same page as any non-valid URl, e.g. https://​​80000hours.org/​​not-a-real-URL/​​