Thanks for this post—I agree with your main point that there are many ways to contribute without working at organisations that explicitly identify with the effective altruism community, as would the rest of 80,000 Hours (where I work). In fact, I might go further in emphasising this.
The overwhelming majority of high impact roles in the world lie outside those organisations – with governments, foundations, intergovernmental agencies, large companies and, as you point out, academia. The majority of people interested in effective altruism should be taking roles in places like these, not EA orgs. Unfortunately, when we highlight specific roles there’s a bias towards opportunities we know about due to our involvement in the community, but where we’ve managed to correct for that (such as in the AI strategy and governance problem area of our job board) it’s clear that there are lots of valuable roles focusing on our top problems at a wide range of organisations.
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I agree that when considering their future career path, people should think about what skills and expertise they already have(link, link.)That might mean—if you’re enjoying and succeeding in your current path—staying there and using that position to influence your field / company in a positive direction. Though it also might also mean thinking about how your skills might translate to other effective careers. For example, governments tend to be keen to hire people with science PhDs or tech skills, as shown by things like the AAAS fellowship and Tech Congress in the US. These don’t tend to feel like a natural step from a PhD, but being a scientific adviser in government seems plausibly pretty high leverage.
Since you mentioned academia, I thought readers might be interested in a few resources that might be useful for them if they’re looking to influence their academic field. There’s a Facebook group for EA academics to share what they’re working on and help each other. Luke Muehlhauser wrote an excellent report on cases where people successfully and unsuccessfully tried to deliberately build new fields. One case study that’s particularly interestingly is that of neoliberal economics (written up compellingly by Kerry Vaughan), which is often held up as a great example of what can be achieved through careful work both within academia and with the people who disseminate ideas – journalists, authors, think tanks etc. Finally, there’s our career review.
Thanks for this post—I agree with your main point that there are many ways to contribute without working at organisations that explicitly identify with the effective altruism community, as would the rest of 80,000 Hours (where I work). In fact, I might go further in emphasising this.
The overwhelming majority of high impact roles in the world lie outside those organisations – with governments, foundations, intergovernmental agencies, large companies and, as you point out, academia. The majority of people interested in effective altruism should be taking roles in places like these, not EA orgs. Unfortunately, when we highlight specific roles there’s a bias towards opportunities we know about due to our involvement in the community, but where we’ve managed to correct for that (such as in the AI strategy and governance problem area of our job board) it’s clear that there are lots of valuable roles focusing on our top problems at a wide range of organisations.
______
I agree that when considering their future career path, people should think about what skills and expertise they already have(link, link.)That might mean—if you’re enjoying and succeeding in your current path—staying there and using that position to influence your field / company in a positive direction. Though it also might also mean thinking about how your skills might translate to other effective careers. For example, governments tend to be keen to hire people with science PhDs or tech skills, as shown by things like the AAAS fellowship and Tech Congress in the US. These don’t tend to feel like a natural step from a PhD, but being a scientific adviser in government seems plausibly pretty high leverage.
Since you mentioned academia, I thought readers might be interested in a few resources that might be useful for them if they’re looking to influence their academic field. There’s a Facebook group for EA academics to share what they’re working on and help each other. Luke Muehlhauser wrote an excellent report on cases where people successfully and unsuccessfully tried to deliberately build new fields. One case study that’s particularly interestingly is that of neoliberal economics (written up compellingly by Kerry Vaughan), which is often held up as a great example of what can be achieved through careful work both within academia and with the people who disseminate ideas – journalists, authors, think tanks etc. Finally, there’s our career review.