I think earning to give is the correct primary route to impact for the majority of current EAs and a major current shortcoming of the movement is failing to socially reward earning to give relative to pursuing direct work. I worry that this project, if successful, would push this dynamic further in the wrong direction.
The short version of the argument is that excessive praise for ‘direct work’ has caused a lot of people who fail to secure direct work to feel un-valued and bounce off EA. Others have expanded their definitions of what counts as an impactful org to justify themselves according to the direct work standard when they could have more impact ETGing in a conventional job and donating to the very best existing orgs.
All the EA-committed dollars in the world are a tiny drop in the ocean of the world’s problems and it takes really incredible talent to leverage those dollars in a way that would be more effective than adding to them. Finding talent to do that is critical (I do this), but people need to be well calibrated and thoughtful in deciding whether and for how long to pursue particular direct work opportunities vs ETG. I think hurling (competing!) solemn pledges at them is not the way to make this happen.
All the EA-committed dollars in the world are a tiny drop in the ocean of the world’s problems and it takes really incredible talent to leverage those dollars in a way that would be more effective than adding to them.
This seems false to me. I agree that earning to give should be highly rewarded and so on, but I don’t think that, for example, launching an effective giving organization requires an incredible amount of talent. There have been many launched recently, either by CE or local groups (I was part of the team that launched one in Denmark). Recently, EAIF said that they are not funding-constrained, and there are a lot of projects being funded on Manifund. It looks more like funders are looking for new projects to fund. So either most of the funders are wrong in their assessment and should just grant to existing opportunities, or there is still room for new projects.
If anything my experience was that the bar for direct work is way lower than I expected and part of reason why I thought that way was that there are comments like this.
The short version of the argument is that excessive praise for ‘direct work’ has caused a lot of people who fail to secure direct work to feel un-valued and bounce off EA.
Interesting! Is there any data that supports this?
I think earning to give is the correct primary route to impact for the majority of current EAs and a major current shortcoming of the movement is failing to socially reward earning to give relative to pursuing direct work. I worry that this project, if successful, would push this dynamic further in the wrong direction.
The short version of the argument is that excessive praise for ‘direct work’ has caused a lot of people who fail to secure direct work to feel un-valued and bounce off EA. Others have expanded their definitions of what counts as an impactful org to justify themselves according to the direct work standard when they could have more impact ETGing in a conventional job and donating to the very best existing orgs.
All the EA-committed dollars in the world are a tiny drop in the ocean of the world’s problems and it takes really incredible talent to leverage those dollars in a way that would be more effective than adding to them. Finding talent to do that is critical (I do this), but people need to be well calibrated and thoughtful in deciding whether and for how long to pursue particular direct work opportunities vs ETG. I think hurling (competing!) solemn pledges at them is not the way to make this happen.
This seems false to me. I agree that earning to give should be highly rewarded and so on, but I don’t think that, for example, launching an effective giving organization requires an incredible amount of talent. There have been many launched recently, either by CE or local groups (I was part of the team that launched one in Denmark). Recently, EAIF said that they are not funding-constrained, and there are a lot of projects being funded on Manifund. It looks more like funders are looking for new projects to fund. So either most of the funders are wrong in their assessment and should just grant to existing opportunities, or there is still room for new projects.
If anything my experience was that the bar for direct work is way lower than I expected and part of reason why I thought that way was that there are comments like this.
Interesting! Is there any data that supports this?