I agree that local groups can be very motivational. Obviously, the people who organise the local group are giving up a lot of their time. If someone had the choice between organising a local group or working at an EA organisation, how would you advise them?
Hard question, as it depends on a lot of parameters. For example:
What is the marginal value of the person getting into EA org in comparison to the person who would get the job otherwise? I can imagine it is not that big in some cases, as quite a lot of very professional people apply to EA orgs.
What is the marginal value of the person leading the group in the comparison to the person who would do it otherwise. Here I would argue that it might be much bigger, as I have the impression that local groups rise and fall with the person(s) who organize them. Often you have one (or a few) very active person(s), who do most of the work. Without them the group slowly dissolves.
It also depends on how big the possible impact of the group or the EA org is. However, if in doubt I would say that often the local group might a very good option, as it can easily act as a multiplier by enhancing the impact of other people in the local group.
This is slightly relevant, in a recent 80,000 Hours’ blog post they suggest the following for people applying for EA jobs:
We generally encourage people to take an optimistic attitude to their job search and apply for roles they don’t expect to get. Four reasons for this are that, i) the upside of getting hired is typically many times larger than the cost of a job application process itself, ii) many people systematically underestimate themselves, iii) there’s a lot of randomness in these processes, which gives you a chance even if you’re not truly the top candidate, and iv) the best way to get good at job applications is to go through a lot of them.
Is this really a big question in real life? If you can get a prestigious job at an EA org that’s most likely the thing you will do as gives you more value (it pays a lot better and gives you more social status). On the other hand, working in a normal job and volunteering in a local group or full time community building are great options for people who don’t get (yet) to fill the select few positions (for whatever reason).
I think the post is just meant to broaden the horizon a little bit on what we consider as “impactful” or desirable positions in EA. Fact of the matter is that there seem to be more capable people out there than jobs at prestigious EA organizations and I don’t see this changing in the near term. Imho, we should dedicate at least a few minutes thinking about this situation :)
Most of the people I interact with in EA London already do this. They have a career and try to do good within it, they donate a bit, and they’re involved with their local EA group. What you’re saying doesn’t seem new or controversial to me—I have trouble imagining that anyone would disagree with it.
I guess the position that this might be slightly controversial in the EA movement is based on the measures that are generally used to assess the quality of EA community building through EA grants. There is still a heavy emphasis on career plan changes [1] with a strong focus on the highest impact EA organizations.
While maybe nobody would generally disagree with the stated position, the systems in place seems to make it quite difficult to cater to these groups. At least based on personal experience and exchanges, CB grant recipients feel often somewhat constrained in what they think they can do. Moreover, again based on personal experience, it seems quite difficult to get funding for things that aim to tackle the outlined challenge directly.
It actually might be more complicated than what you say here, alexherwix. If a research analyst role at the Open Philanthropy Project receives 800+ job applications, then you might reasonably think that it’s better for you to continue building a local community even if you were a great candidate for that option.
In addition, for the reasons that you mention, every possible local community builder might be constantly looking for new job options in the EA community making someone who doesn’t do that a highly promising candidate. Furthermore, being a community builder is actually a surprisingly difficult job.
Another consideration is that preparation and training for a specific job at an EA organization and gaining skills leading a local group might be quite different. It might suit you more to do tasks related to community building in a local context.
yeah, you could make the argument that your counterfactual impact in local community building might be higher than working at EA org X… I didn’t (mean to) propose anything to contradict that assessment and I agree given the right circumstances. I just meant to mention that people who could reasonably expect to work at EA org X will likely do so as it IS a more prestigious thing to do than community building at the moment and will likely continue to be in the near future. I don’t necessarily like this situation, I am just calling out how I see it.
I very much agree that community building is a worthwhile opportunity (that’s why I am engaging in it myself) and I never said it’s easy… it is just less specialized than some other things one would consider to be high-value. I think that’s what you allude to in your third paragraph.
To argue a little bit more FOR community building, I would propose it’s a very useful general skill set to have for any job. It’s a lot about project and people management which is quite useful regardless the specific field you want to get into. Thus, I would be quite happy to see a more systematic approach to and support of community building than we generally see at the moment (although that might just be biased and based on my personal experiences in Germany so far).
I agree that local groups can be very motivational. Obviously, the people who organise the local group are giving up a lot of their time. If someone had the choice between organising a local group or working at an EA organisation, how would you advise them?
Hard question, as it depends on a lot of parameters. For example:
What is the marginal value of the person getting into EA org in comparison to the person who would get the job otherwise? I can imagine it is not that big in some cases, as quite a lot of very professional people apply to EA orgs.
What is the marginal value of the person leading the group in the comparison to the person who would do it otherwise. Here I would argue that it might be much bigger, as I have the impression that local groups rise and fall with the person(s) who organize them. Often you have one (or a few) very active person(s), who do most of the work. Without them the group slowly dissolves.
It also depends on how big the possible impact of the group or the EA org is. However, if in doubt I would say that often the local group might a very good option, as it can easily act as a multiplier by enhancing the impact of other people in the local group.
This is slightly relevant, in a recent 80,000 Hours’ blog post they suggest the following for people applying for EA jobs:
Is this really a big question in real life? If you can get a prestigious job at an EA org that’s most likely the thing you will do as gives you more value (it pays a lot better and gives you more social status). On the other hand, working in a normal job and volunteering in a local group or full time community building are great options for people who don’t get (yet) to fill the select few positions (for whatever reason).
I think the post is just meant to broaden the horizon a little bit on what we consider as “impactful” or desirable positions in EA. Fact of the matter is that there seem to be more capable people out there than jobs at prestigious EA organizations and I don’t see this changing in the near term. Imho, we should dedicate at least a few minutes thinking about this situation :)
So thank you for the post! :)
Most of the people I interact with in EA London already do this. They have a career and try to do good within it, they donate a bit, and they’re involved with their local EA group. What you’re saying doesn’t seem new or controversial to me—I have trouble imagining that anyone would disagree with it.
I guess the position that this might be slightly controversial in the EA movement is based on the measures that are generally used to assess the quality of EA community building through EA grants. There is still a heavy emphasis on career plan changes [1] with a strong focus on the highest impact EA organizations.
While maybe nobody would generally disagree with the stated position, the systems in place seems to make it quite difficult to cater to these groups. At least based on personal experience and exchanges, CB grant recipients feel often somewhat constrained in what they think they can do. Moreover, again based on personal experience, it seems quite difficult to get funding for things that aim to tackle the outlined challenge directly.
1: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RZrikMAuTwt4e9Fs4/ea-community-building-grants-update
It actually might be more complicated than what you say here, alexherwix. If a research analyst role at the Open Philanthropy Project receives 800+ job applications, then you might reasonably think that it’s better for you to continue building a local community even if you were a great candidate for that option.
In addition, for the reasons that you mention, every possible local community builder might be constantly looking for new job options in the EA community making someone who doesn’t do that a highly promising candidate. Furthermore, being a community builder is actually a surprisingly difficult job.
Another consideration is that preparation and training for a specific job at an EA organization and gaining skills leading a local group might be quite different. It might suit you more to do tasks related to community building in a local context.
yeah, you could make the argument that your counterfactual impact in local community building might be higher than working at EA org X… I didn’t (mean to) propose anything to contradict that assessment and I agree given the right circumstances. I just meant to mention that people who could reasonably expect to work at EA org X will likely do so as it IS a more prestigious thing to do than community building at the moment and will likely continue to be in the near future. I don’t necessarily like this situation, I am just calling out how I see it.
I very much agree that community building is a worthwhile opportunity (that’s why I am engaging in it myself) and I never said it’s easy… it is just less specialized than some other things one would consider to be high-value. I think that’s what you allude to in your third paragraph.
To argue a little bit more FOR community building, I would propose it’s a very useful general skill set to have for any job. It’s a lot about project and people management which is quite useful regardless the specific field you want to get into. Thus, I would be quite happy to see a more systematic approach to and support of community building than we generally see at the moment (although that might just be biased and based on my personal experiences in Germany so far).