I wonder if the suggestion here to replace some student reading groups with working groups might go some way to demonstrating that EA is a question.
I don’t even think the main aim should be to produce novel work (as suggested in that post); I’m just thinking about having students practice using the relevant tools/resources to form their own conclusions. You could mentor individuals through their own minimal-trust investigations. Or run fact-checking groups that check both EA and non-EA content (which hopefully shows that EA content compares pretty well but isn’t perfect...and if it doesn’t compare pretty well, that’s very useful to know!)
This feels much closer to how I experienced EA student groups 5-7yrs ago—e.g. Tom and Jacob did exactly this with the Oxford Prioritisation Project, and wrote up a very detailed evaluation of it.
My first thought on reading this suggestion for working groups was “That’s a great idea, I’d really support someone trying to set that up!”
My second thought was “I would absolutely not have wanted to do that as a student. Where would I even begin?”
My third thought was that even if you did organise a group of people to try implementing the frameworks of EA to build some recommendations from scratch, this will never compare to the research done by long-standing organisations that dedicate many experienced people’s working lives to finding the answers. The conclusion of the project would surely be a sort of verbal participation medal, but you’re best off looking at GiveWell’s charities anyway.
Maybe I’m being overly cynical here. It seems a good way to engage people who could later develop into strong priorities/charity evaluation researchers. I suspect it’s best that any such initiative be administered by people already working to a high standard in those fields for that benefit to be properly reaped, however.
Agreed, hence “I don’t even think the main aim should be to produce novel work”. Imagine something between a Giving Game and producing GiveWell-standard work (much closer to the Giving Game end). Like the Model United Nations idea—it’s just practice.
I’ve been very keen to run “deep dives” where we do independent research on some topic, with the aim that the group as a whole ends up with significantly more expertise than at the start.
I’ve proposed doing this with my group, but people are disappointingly unreceptive to it, mainly because of the time commitment and “boringness”.
Maybe you want to select for the kind of people who don’t find it too boring! My guess, though, is that the project idea as currently stated is actually a bit too boring for even most of the people that you’d be trying to reach. And I guess groups aren’t keen to throw money at trying to make it more fun/prestigious in the current climate… I’ve updated away from thinking this is a good idea a little bit, but would still be keen to see several groups try it.
No no, I still believe it’s a great idea. It just needs people to want to do it, and I was just sharing my observation that there doesn’t seem to be that many people who want it enough to offset other things in their life (everyone is always busy).
Your comment about “selecting for people who don’t find it boring” is a good re-framing, I like it.
I wonder if the suggestion here to replace some student reading groups with working groups might go some way to demonstrating that EA is a question.
I don’t even think the main aim should be to produce novel work (as suggested in that post); I’m just thinking about having students practice using the relevant tools/resources to form their own conclusions. You could mentor individuals through their own minimal-trust investigations. Or run fact-checking groups that check both EA and non-EA content (which hopefully shows that EA content compares pretty well but isn’t perfect...and if it doesn’t compare pretty well, that’s very useful to know!)
This feels much closer to how I experienced EA student groups 5-7yrs ago—e.g. Tom and Jacob did exactly this with the Oxford Prioritisation Project, and wrote up a very detailed evaluation of it.
Aye and EA London did a smaller version of something in this space focused on equality and justice.
My first thought on reading this suggestion for working groups was “That’s a great idea, I’d really support someone trying to set that up!”
My second thought was “I would absolutely not have wanted to do that as a student. Where would I even begin?”
My third thought was that even if you did organise a group of people to try implementing the frameworks of EA to build some recommendations from scratch, this will never compare to the research done by long-standing organisations that dedicate many experienced people’s working lives to finding the answers. The conclusion of the project would surely be a sort of verbal participation medal, but you’re best off looking at GiveWell’s charities anyway.
Maybe I’m being overly cynical here. It seems a good way to engage people who could later develop into strong priorities/charity evaluation researchers. I suspect it’s best that any such initiative be administered by people already working to a high standard in those fields for that benefit to be properly reaped, however.
Agreed, hence “I don’t even think the main aim should be to produce novel work”. Imagine something between a Giving Game and producing GiveWell-standard work (much closer to the Giving Game end). Like the Model United Nations idea—it’s just practice.
I’ve been very keen to run “deep dives” where we do independent research on some topic, with the aim that the group as a whole ends up with significantly more expertise than at the start.
I’ve proposed doing this with my group, but people are disappointingly unreceptive to it, mainly because of the time commitment and “boringness”.
Maybe you want to select for the kind of people who don’t find it too boring! My guess, though, is that the project idea as currently stated is actually a bit too boring for even most of the people that you’d be trying to reach. And I guess groups aren’t keen to throw money at trying to make it more fun/prestigious in the current climate… I’ve updated away from thinking this is a good idea a little bit, but would still be keen to see several groups try it.
No no, I still believe it’s a great idea. It just needs people to want to do it, and I was just sharing my observation that there doesn’t seem to be that many people who want it enough to offset other things in their life (everyone is always busy).
Your comment about “selecting for people who don’t find it boring” is a good re-framing, I like it.
Oh yes I know—with my reply I was (confusingly) addressing the unreceptive people more than I was addressing you. I’m glad that you’re keen :-)
Strong +1. This feels much more like the correct use of student groups to me.