Thanks! The 80,000Hours article kind of makes it sound like it‘s not supposed to be a big consideration and can be addressed by things IIDM has clearly done, right?
Get advice from people you trust to be honest about whether you’re a reasonable fit for the project you’re considering. Ask around to see if anybody else in your field has similar plans; maybe you should merge projects, collaborate, or coordinate on which project should move forward.
My impression is that the IIDM group is happy for any people interested in collaborating and called for collaboration a year ago or so, and the space of improving institutions also seems very big (in comparison to 80k‘s examples of career advice for EAs and local EA chapters).
(Disclaimer: speaking for myself here, not the IIDM group.)
My understanding is that Max is concerned about something fairly specific here, which is a situation in which we are successful in capturing a significant share of the EA community’s interest, talent, and/or funding, yet failing to either imagine or execute on the best ways of leveraging those resources.
While I could imagine something like this happening, it’s only really a big problem if either a) the ways in which we’re falling short remain invisible to the relevant stakeholders, or b) our group proves to be difficult to influence. I’m not especially worried about a) given that critical feedback is pretty much the core competency of the EA community and most of our work will have some sort of public-facing component. b) is something we can control and, while it’s not always easy to judge how to balance external feedback against our inside-view perspectives, as you’ve pointed out we’ve been pretty intentional about trying to work well with other people in the space and cede responsibility/consider changing direction where it seems appropriate to do so.
Thanks! The 80,000Hours article kind of makes it sound like it‘s not supposed to be a big consideration and can be addressed by things IIDM has clearly done, right?
My impression is that the IIDM group is happy for any people interested in collaborating and called for collaboration a year ago or so, and the space of improving institutions also seems very big (in comparison to 80k‘s examples of career advice for EAs and local EA chapters).
(Disclaimer: speaking for myself here, not the IIDM group.)
My understanding is that Max is concerned about something fairly specific here, which is a situation in which we are successful in capturing a significant share of the EA community’s interest, talent, and/or funding, yet failing to either imagine or execute on the best ways of leveraging those resources.
While I could imagine something like this happening, it’s only really a big problem if either a) the ways in which we’re falling short remain invisible to the relevant stakeholders, or b) our group proves to be difficult to influence. I’m not especially worried about a) given that critical feedback is pretty much the core competency of the EA community and most of our work will have some sort of public-facing component. b) is something we can control and, while it’s not always easy to judge how to balance external feedback against our inside-view perspectives, as you’ve pointed out we’ve been pretty intentional about trying to work well with other people in the space and cede responsibility/consider changing direction where it seems appropriate to do so.