Pivoting from Engineering to the Effective Altruism ecosystem
After 15 years in electrical engineering, planning systems, finding technical solutions, and ensuring professional excellence, I’m taking a decisive bold step. I’m leaving my engineering career to fully dedicate myself to solving the world’s most pressing problems through the Effective Altruism ecosystem. Positively said: I am embarking on a career path that builds and secures a better present and future.
Why?
I have always been a dedicated activist, passionate about community building, social and political engagement and science. From co-founding a relief organisation in Syria to managing international student hubs and various teams in social and political organisations in Germany, I have always been eager to bring people together to achieve positive change, and always reflecting on one question: How can I make the most of my time on Earth?
Lately I realised that it’s not enough to simply ‘do good’ in my spare time. The scale of the world’s most pressing problems demands investing all our professional resources. My focus was sharpened through countless hours of readings and learnings, and I started looking for a framework that better aligns with my mindset. A framework based on the scientific method, grounded in evidence and reason.
I now reckon that this framework is not utopian or a dream. A global network of well-established, mission-driven organisations already exists, including The Centre for Effective Altruism, 80,000 Hours, The School for Moral Ambition, GiveWell, Giving What We Can, and Coefficient Giving, to name but a few. These organisations represent a scientific approach to altruism, and tackle challenges through systematic and organised efforts. Many people are already actively involved in meaningful careers that will truly matter for the future. I am joining their ranks.
Rather than looking for a ‘career path’, I am looking for my next challenge in the high-impact sector, for a mission in which I utilise my operational discipline and my lifelong dedication to effective positive change. My engineering background taught me how to build systems, while my activism taught me how to fight for what matters. Now, I’m combining the two.
By quitting my job before finding a new one, I fully dedicate myself and time to finding high-impact work and gaining the qualifications necessary to fulfil this. I am committed to learning and adapting, to joining and supporting early-career professionals in finding their high-impact paths.
I am grateful for the journey so far, but I’ve never been more energized about the future.
Aktham
EA Berlin Film Screening
I don’t have a concrete critique nor a complete non-critical opinion about all I read. A lot can be differently interpreted by different people with different backgrounds and different experiences. I had few ideas/questions raising to my mind as I was reading and I just would like to say them out loud. The idea of helping more in quantity is a philosophical dilemma, well known in the thought experiment of the train that we can decide which one of two tracks it can go on, where on one track there are 5 people and on the other track is one. (There’s a lot related to this thought experiment, that don’t fit here). And then there’s the idea of deciding on the sort of help one offers and its quality, as well as the quality of the choices one decides for and therefor trades off against other choices. This decision of which is which is also relative and differs from one person to the other. As an example, should resources (money, time, etc.) aimed to help people in refugee camps fleeing conflict zones be directed to feeding them and making their lives in the camps better or on education and empowerment? They need the fish and the fishing equipment and knowledge, but not all can be offered. Another example, is it more important to use limited resources on saving and hosting refugees fleeing dictatorship or supporting the people to overcome their dictators? Should we give it all to pan a right-extrimist party or to convey knowledge to the people to not support such a party and constructively weaken it over time while strengthening democracy and participation of people? I can go on with examples, but I think I made the idea clear. Once more, for me while thinking out loud and sharing my thoughts. Or am I delusional thinking about all this in this way?
I want to stress that I don’t mean that the text here is against what I just mentioned. I’m just saying that while reading I had these ideas/questions and I wouldn’t say that I have clear answers for them, not from my side nor to extract from the text. Nevertheless, it might be too philosophical(?) to comprehend matters this way!
I kind of have a problem with celebrating that the world is better than before! I know (because I role my eyes on me when I say this argument loud or even to myself) that it might be exaggerating and/or being too idealistic thinking this way, but then again, why? So, away from my monologue I go back to my thought, that if we as humans are evolving and learning from our past, and we see it inevitable that we do, why celebrate the inevitable? We know the value of science and education and therefor we are trying to get red of illiteracy (21. Century and still there!). Seriously? Two huge world wars with tens of millions of people, and we’re celebrating that we’re having the less amount of wars in the history of humanity! Seriously? We’re not burning witches anymore, many (not all) countries acknowledge that homosexuality is not a disease and according to their laws it’s not a crime to be punished for (I stress that this is in the laws and not in the societies and minds of all people of these countries). Should I go on? We claim to be the most intelligent species on this planet (which we are destroying, unlike all other less intelligent species) and we have huge advancements of science and technologies and lots (most?) of us reset themselves to their cave-man mentality when it comes to tripe, family, nation, beliefs, superstitious thoughts, ideologies, etc.! Seriously?
Now, I don’t want to say that I only see an awful world and a can-be-better-world, but not an already better world, but as I said in the beginning, I see that a lot of things in this “better world” are in the natural course of human development/evolution and they don’t deserve to be celebrated. Period. Am I being hard on us? I don’t think so! As I mentioned in some examples, we’re still doing lots of crazy dumb stuff like our ancestors. Some crazy mentalities and behaviours even did some back from the dead.
And if I am being to idealistic in this way of thinking, then be it. If I am to aim, I want to aim high.
Or what do you think? :)