Thanks for the feedback Aaron!
With regards to EA orgs e.g. 80,000 hours. I wasn’t trying to suggest that EA orgs have their own paid newsletters. Rather, I was suggesting that a separate not-for-profit organisation could be set up specifically for creating paid newsletters (on any topic) while stating that said organisation is trying to raise money for effective charities. The organisation would be made of individuals and teams who each run different paid newsletters under one umbrella. (These potentially could be subsidiary companies; I haven’t really thought through all the business legal stuff).
Sorry, I should have been clearer on this.
The everything newsletter is a combination of newsletters which illustrates how an umbrella organisation with multiple newsletters could work.
With regards to finding examples, I haven’t deep dived into this, but I do know that Product Hunt (bought by AngelList) started out basically as an e-mail list with a) a small audience and b) crowdsourcing their content. Its now morphed into something a bit different than a paid newsletter. Though it does have its Founders Club offering which isn’t that different. (I think newsletters tie in very well with community platforms like those which can be built with tools like circle).
Building an audience does seem like it would be the big hurdle. But I think this would give the EA community an advantage in this arena. If the EA community knows that there is an organisation trying to raise money for effective charities, then they could direct people in their social media networks towards the newsletters. This should provide a big enough ‘snowball’ to start with. Presumably, the combined network of everyone in the EA community is fairly large (though I don’t have figures on this—there is probably a lot of EAs in the followings of EA members and obviously it would be non-EAs that would be the target audience).
Hi EdoArad, thanks for the question. Apologies for the lengthy response.
I guess there are 2 separate issues that I’m trying to address:
The significance of personality psychology and psychometrics in EA. In particular, the utility in developing and applying a model of temperament (let’s call it model X) which has substantial predictive power, whilst also being practical and adoptable. (Your question highlights that I haven’t properly addressed this – I will try and write something to rectify that and link it here)
Is the OPS model X? And if so, what bottlenecks exist in its development and application that might be worth EAs addressing?
For the OPS the big bottleneck is the fact that its predictive validity has not been formally evaluated. I am, at this stage, suggesting that it may be worth the time of a few EAs to get this bottleneck removed sooner than it otherwise would be. To be clear, I am not suggesting that were the OPS to be proven valid, it would only be useful to the EA community to the extent that EAs and EA organisations would use it. If the model were proven valid it would presumably receive a lot of investment from other individuals and organisations (businesses, research organisations etc.). The potential returns (e.g. research findings) from this investment could provide a big boost for certain EA cause areas.
Regarding a specific cause area. Let’s take mental health. I do not pretend to be an expert, of any sort, in this area. But here is my basic thinking.
For mental health, many of the serious mental disorders that have been identified, such as those in the DSM-5 and ICD-10, are labelled personality disorders. I believe this is because individual differences in predisposition to these conditions is related to individual differences in temperament. Many of those who end up with a personality disorder seem have lifestyles (or trauma) that accentuate a biological predisposition. A model like the OPS could help individuals identify which personality disorders they are prone to. Also, by applying the ideas of the model, more effective interventions could be designed to help treat these conditions and to avoid people getting them in the first place.
This idea extends to other mental disorders as well. It is suggested that the OPS can predict what sort of things an individual is likely to be afraid of and distressed by. In certain cases, it may be able to predict what is causing a person’s depression and/or anxiety. But it is not yet clear the extent to which it might be able to do this. More importantly, it may help identify the right treatment for an individual. Treatment for depression and anxiety is rarely tailored to the individual. But if there are significant differences in how our minds work, then it makes sense that treatments should be ‘psychometrically tailored’. Dave & Shannon suggest they themselves have been using their model to help clients overcome their mental health struggles.
I hope this makes things slightly clearer.