Not the author but still tempted to reply as I was somewhat involved in the discussion leading to this post :)
Regarding your first point:
I somewhat disagree to your assessment of the situation. Most PhDs seem to don’t even try to steer any stream but simply try to get through their studies. Imho there is no harm in trying to inject new thoughts and ideas through a paper here and there and hope for other researchers to pick up on it.
For example, I am by no means in a special position in my field but wrote a small workshop paper about what my field could learn from EA and have send that around quite heavily and now I am in a collaboration working to make it into a conference and then a journal paper. Time investment so far was maybe a week of fun work. Still I am by no means a sure hire at any of the top EA orgs and have trouble getting funding from anything EA related.
All in all, I think that trying to leverage what you already have and can influence is undervalued compared to trying to “hitchhike” impact (that’s obviously “tongue-in-cheek”). A word one could use for this may be: micro-entrepreneurship.
Regarding your second point:
I guess you have a good point here, the post doesn’t really add much in the role of concrete advice to local groups but I also think that it doesn’t have to. Just highlighting that there is a connection between the role of local groups and what kind of careers we value is something which I haven’t seen much discussion about.
As you highlight student groups are a specific form of a local group which is quite common but doesn’t really respond to the needs outlined in the post. Thus, it would be interesting to start thinking about the systematic coordination of local groups in specific regions. Right now, it seems like groups are popping up and dwindeling along somewhat spontaneously. Some EA hotspots like Oxford, London, Boston, BayArea, etc. might be in a phase with more systematic networking and coordination going on but the vast majority of local groups is just starting to think about connecting and coordinating more systematically.
What I take away from this post is that this kind of regional coordination is important if we want to ensure motivation of EAs in the medium- and long-term. This perspective seems (at least based on personal experience) underdeveloped at the moment. Thus, I am quite happy about this post and your thoughtful engagement with it :)
Not the author but still tempted to reply as I was somewhat involved in the discussion leading to this post :)
Regarding your first point:
I somewhat disagree to your assessment of the situation. Most PhDs seem to don’t even try to steer any stream but simply try to get through their studies. Imho there is no harm in trying to inject new thoughts and ideas through a paper here and there and hope for other researchers to pick up on it.
For example, I am by no means in a special position in my field but wrote a small workshop paper about what my field could learn from EA and have send that around quite heavily and now I am in a collaboration working to make it into a conference and then a journal paper. Time investment so far was maybe a week of fun work. Still I am by no means a sure hire at any of the top EA orgs and have trouble getting funding from anything EA related.
All in all, I think that trying to leverage what you already have and can influence is undervalued compared to trying to “hitchhike” impact (that’s obviously “tongue-in-cheek”). A word one could use for this may be: micro-entrepreneurship.
Regarding your second point:
I guess you have a good point here, the post doesn’t really add much in the role of concrete advice to local groups but I also think that it doesn’t have to. Just highlighting that there is a connection between the role of local groups and what kind of careers we value is something which I haven’t seen much discussion about.
As you highlight student groups are a specific form of a local group which is quite common but doesn’t really respond to the needs outlined in the post. Thus, it would be interesting to start thinking about the systematic coordination of local groups in specific regions. Right now, it seems like groups are popping up and dwindeling along somewhat spontaneously. Some EA hotspots like Oxford, London, Boston, BayArea, etc. might be in a phase with more systematic networking and coordination going on but the vast majority of local groups is just starting to think about connecting and coordinating more systematically.
What I take away from this post is that this kind of regional coordination is important if we want to ensure motivation of EAs in the medium- and long-term. This perspective seems (at least based on personal experience) underdeveloped at the moment. Thus, I am quite happy about this post and your thoughtful engagement with it :)