A quick note to say that CSER has benefited tremendously from help from members of the effective altruism community over the past year, on areas that include outreach/web, lecture/seminar organisation and promotion, background research on foundations and research projects, grant preparation, feedback on specific research areas, community-building in Cambridge, not to mention philanthropic support. We have particularly benefited from local assistance/involvement. EAs I’d especially like to thank include Nick Robinson, Kristian Ronn, Ryan Carey, Will MacAskill, Amanda MacAskill, Alasdair Phillips-Robins, Paul Crowley. There are some pretty substantial achievements that we owe to the assistance of the EA community.
At this moment in time I don’t think there are areas in which we can effectively make use of more volunteer assistance, for a couple of reasons. However, I have a few projects on the backburner that I think might be both interesting and suitable for volunteer involvement; I aim to write them up a little better when I have a little time over the summer. In the meantime, I would encourage interested EAs in the Cambridge/London area to attend our talks, and discuss existential risk matters with new people they meet there. One of our aims over the next year is to continue building up the community of young academics and students in various disciplines who are interested in existential risk, particularly in Cambridge and London, and so far our local events seem to be acting as a v good catalyst for this. And this complements the very satisfying progress we’ve been making in drawing in more senior academics at Cambridge to our various planned research projects and concerns.
(EDIT: I bet I’ve forgotten at least one super-important person. Please don’t take offence; under time pressure and a little low on sleep!]
Thanks Sean. If someone was interested in volunteering and didn’t want to bug you, what should they do? Subscribe to your newsletter? E-mail to get on a list for future volunteers? I’ll update the blog post accordingly.
(1) Emailing admin@cser.org would be good; I don’t have time to answer all emails at present (sorry!), but I do read everything and keep track of volunteer offers. (2) Keep an eye out on the EA facebook/Lesswrong discussion forum as I may from time to time make requests for help/project involvement offers. A question (to moderators): is it ok to make such posts on this forum?
For (1), a paragraph about your background/strengths and a CV (not essential but helpful) would be v helpful. The kind of info FLI ask for on their volunteer form is very useful (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17Hez-zEzrOq7Pk4agM8r7VDrBvCB6-hO_m0XJxAuVuI/viewform)
I.e. background/experience, areas of expertise, skills/interests, what you’d most be interested in doing, whether you’re local to Cambridge. I would add to this expected availability—knowing if either (a) someone can provide a lot of hours in the near-term (for a near-term project) or (b) can offer a consistent X hrs/month over a longer period (for regular tasks) is tremendously helpful.
A quick note to say that CSER has benefited tremendously from help from members of the effective altruism community over the past year, on areas that include outreach/web, lecture/seminar organisation and promotion, background research on foundations and research projects, grant preparation, feedback on specific research areas, community-building in Cambridge, not to mention philanthropic support. We have particularly benefited from local assistance/involvement. EAs I’d especially like to thank include Nick Robinson, Kristian Ronn, Ryan Carey, Will MacAskill, Amanda MacAskill, Alasdair Phillips-Robins, Paul Crowley. There are some pretty substantial achievements that we owe to the assistance of the EA community.
At this moment in time I don’t think there are areas in which we can effectively make use of more volunteer assistance, for a couple of reasons. However, I have a few projects on the backburner that I think might be both interesting and suitable for volunteer involvement; I aim to write them up a little better when I have a little time over the summer. In the meantime, I would encourage interested EAs in the Cambridge/London area to attend our talks, and discuss existential risk matters with new people they meet there. One of our aims over the next year is to continue building up the community of young academics and students in various disciplines who are interested in existential risk, particularly in Cambridge and London, and so far our local events seem to be acting as a v good catalyst for this. And this complements the very satisfying progress we’ve been making in drawing in more senior academics at Cambridge to our various planned research projects and concerns.
(EDIT: I bet I’ve forgotten at least one super-important person. Please don’t take offence; under time pressure and a little low on sleep!]
Thanks Sean. If someone was interested in volunteering and didn’t want to bug you, what should they do? Subscribe to your newsletter? E-mail to get on a list for future volunteers? I’ll update the blog post accordingly.
Listing newsletters for all orgs would be helpful.
(1) Emailing admin@cser.org would be good; I don’t have time to answer all emails at present (sorry!), but I do read everything and keep track of volunteer offers. (2) Keep an eye out on the EA facebook/Lesswrong discussion forum as I may from time to time make requests for help/project involvement offers. A question (to moderators): is it ok to make such posts on this forum?
For (1), a paragraph about your background/strengths and a CV (not essential but helpful) would be v helpful. The kind of info FLI ask for on their volunteer form is very useful (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/17Hez-zEzrOq7Pk4agM8r7VDrBvCB6-hO_m0XJxAuVuI/viewform) I.e. background/experience, areas of expertise, skills/interests, what you’d most be interested in doing, whether you’re local to Cambridge. I would add to this expected availability—knowing if either (a) someone can provide a lot of hours in the near-term (for a near-term project) or (b) can offer a consistent X hrs/month over a longer period (for regular tasks) is tremendously helpful.
Yes, you can pop occasional volunteer requests in a monthly open thread, Sean.