I don’t consider myself a high achiever, except for the one school the Army sent me to that I did really well at (I had a lot of preparation and mentors before I arrived), but let me tell you how I broke into EA and in turn how I think you could do a lot of good for the community.
I became a writer(later an indie publisher) during the pandemic (also became a dad), mostly because someone nuked my DND campaign, and I now had a son. My son napped a lot and in that time I found that I could write stuff, so I formed/joined two writers groups, and then they beat me up until I read “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality”. I would not be here except for that which led me to join rationalist discords and write a whole fiction book where EA is the underlying theme. I’m not Alexander Wales or the Yudkowski fellow, but I do like writing and reading fiction, and if I can get readers to consider the EA/Rationalist viewpoint, then all the better.
You might not feel like you can make a high impact, but if you can write something, fun and compelling to read, then others might follow suit. (That, or write articles here, which reminds me I need to write another one about operations.)
I feel like the interpersonal dynamic of reaching out from EA groups to outside groups is missed a lot, but also I have never been to an EA global event because of the pandemic.
80K is a useful tool to find out where you can do the most good, but often, and especially here it can be very unclear if something will be a fit.
You might not write the next HPMOR, but you could write something similar. Or as will probably happen in my case, be the editor/publisher for the next HPMOR.
I don’t consider myself a high achiever, except for the one school the Army sent me to that I did really well at (I had a lot of preparation and mentors before I arrived), but let me tell you how I broke into EA and in turn how I think you could do a lot of good for the community.
I became a writer(later an indie publisher) during the pandemic (also became a dad), mostly because someone nuked my DND campaign, and I now had a son. My son napped a lot and in that time I found that I could write stuff, so I formed/joined two writers groups, and then they beat me up until I read “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality”. I would not be here except for that which led me to join rationalist discords and write a whole fiction book where EA is the underlying theme. I’m not Alexander Wales or the Yudkowski fellow, but I do like writing and reading fiction, and if I can get readers to consider the EA/Rationalist viewpoint, then all the better.
You might not feel like you can make a high impact, but if you can write something, fun and compelling to read, then others might follow suit. (That, or write articles here, which reminds me I need to write another one about operations.)
I feel like the interpersonal dynamic of reaching out from EA groups to outside groups is missed a lot, but also I have never been to an EA global event because of the pandemic.
80K is a useful tool to find out where you can do the most good, but often, and especially here it can be very unclear if something will be a fit.
You might not write the next HPMOR, but you could write something similar. Or as will probably happen in my case, be the editor/publisher for the next HPMOR.