I agree that a quick and decisive input from someone very knowledgeable about EA and the topic involved would be very useful and save a lot of time and indecision for people evaluating career options.
I think we can provide a bit of this though through more engaged online communities around given topic areas. Not nearly as good as in person talks but people can at least get some general feedback on career ideas. I’m hoping to host an event later this year that will gather people interested in a cause area and use that as a catalyst to form a more cohesive online community. As far as I can tell (and in my experience) people tend not to engage much in an online community if they don’t really know the people well. Though it’s definitely true that some people are more than happy to engage with people they don’t know.
I don’t know how this could move forward but it seems like someone could potentially make a difference by engineering Facebook or Slack groups focused on certain cause areas to be more active places for general discussion and career advice. This would be so helpful for people who lack close contact with knowledgeable people in EA or within their cause area.
Yes! Totally agree. I think I mentioned very briefly that one should also be wary of social dynamics pushing toward EA beliefs, but I definitely didn’t address it enough. Although I think the end result was positive and that my beliefs are true (with some uncertainty of course), I would guess that my update toward long-termism was due in large part to lot’s of exposure to the EA community and from the social pressure that brings.
I basically bought some virtue signaling in the EA domain at the cost of signaling in broader society. Given I hang out with a lot of EAs and plan to do so more in the future, I’d guess that if I were to rationally evaluate this decision it would look net positive in favor of changing toward long-termism (as you would also gain within the EA community by making a similar switch, though with some short-term itoldyouso negative effects).
So yes, I think it was largely due to closer social ties to the EA community that this switch finally became worthwhile and perhaps this was a calculation going on at the subconscious level. It’s probably no coincidence that I finally made a full switch-over during an EA retreat where the broad society costs of switching beliefs was less salient and the EA benefits much more salient. To have the perfect decision-making situation I guess it would be nice to have equally good opportunities in communities representing every philosophical belief, but for now seems a bit unlikely. I suppose it’s another argument for cultivating diversity within EA.
This brings up a whole other rabbit hole in terms of thinking about how we want to appeal to people with some interest in EA but not yet committed to the ideas. I think the social aspect is probably larger than many might think. Of course if we emphasized this we’re limiting people’s choice to join EA in a rational way. But then what is ‘choice’ really given the social construction of our personalities and desires....