Computer science student at UCL. Previously finance lead at CEA, Nov 2019 - Aug 2021.
Ben
Karma: 1,067
Timothy Snyder is an academic looking at this question who has written several books on the topic, e.g. this and this.
Someone shared this link with me which supports your view that lump-sum is generally better, especially if you don’t have diminishing utility.
Hey—I’m the finance lead at CEA, of which EA funds is one part. Anyone can donate to EA Funds, and you should be able to do this from Germany. Are you concerned that doing so means you’re not donating tax-efficiently since the funds aren’t registered charities in Germany?
If so, my colleague Sam wrote this post arguing that donating effectively might mean ignoring tax efficiency, and I agree, depending on your alternative.
For example, if you were planning to donate only to AMF, and if there was a German AMF you were planning to donate to (I don’t know if there is) which would you give tax deductibility, then I think it’s better to donate to the German AMF and get the tax deductibility.
But if you were comparing a general charity that would give you tax deductibility in Germany, and if you thought the EA Funds option (e.g. the Founders Pledge climate fund, the Long-Term Future Fund) was >50% better value for money than your alternative in Germany, then my view is that it’d be better to just lose the tax efficiency and donate directly.
No idea—I think it most depends on the specifics of your situation. On average I think people who start organisations later in their life using their experience and contacts are likely to be more successful.
I think staying where you are seems like a good option. There seems to be an assumption that just because you stay in the same job for the next few years you’ll automatically be there for the next 15 - is that really true? Also maybe you could make a public commitment to leave after X years, or donate your income above a certain level to avoid getting lured in by the money side of it.
Interesting, thanks for posting about it!
It sounds like if you’ve been rejected from studying masters courses then that’s useful feedback. Even for people who have done well on those courses, I think there are many more applicants than places to work in philosophy.
And if you’re already trying to overcome really steep odds, by working in academia with eight years working independently, then this might not be the area you’re best suited to.
I don’t know about it but there could be work in neuroscience or psychology that you might find interesting.
Also have you seen this?
Some jobs here
I don’t think anyone can give you a direct answer—it’ll depend on your own personal circumstances, but if you’ve got savings then I can vouch that option 2 could be good. Have you tried applying for any jobs in that space?
Hi Daniel,
Great to hear from you. Here are some of my own thoughts (not official in any way at all, and people in the community have all sorts of different views). I share your interest in AI safety and climate change. Is there an AI safety community in Germany? If not people thinking about AGI, there’s probably some big universities working on near-term control problems that could be interesting. It might be good to meet some other people working in the area.
Also if you’re interested in climate and AI, this a huge field of people working on everything from forecasting to flood prediction to increasing crop yields—have you tried applying for any jobs in that space?
Hi Jack! I worked in consulting at EY for four years before joining CEA in operations, and you might find a role in management/leadership/operations interesting. You might find a direct role that’s more fun than ETG (I think I did!)
I don’t really know anything about the best ETG routes, but one that strikes me that could be big business at the moment is insolvency and restructuring—lots of organisations will be unfortunately going through that so there could be quite a few roles.
Also a few friends of mine who were at PwC worked in deals/valuations and then left to get high-paying jobs doing (I think) the same thing at smaller places where the partners took less of the margin. Maybe that could be an option.
That’s a tricky one, sorry to hear it. It could just be random chance—plenty of jobs have churn, and I think a surprising amount of doing well in jobs is getting along with other people. I wonder if you had any managers, colleagues, or friends who you think might have any specific feedback? On the other hand, this could just be chance.
I think this is an interesting area of research—I’m not aware of much writing by EAs, but bear in mind the EA community is pretty small compared to the total number of people researching this and related fields across the world—you might find some other organisations or researchers who’ve looked into this more.
That sounds like a huge range of options. With an MPP-MBA you might do well in policy. Are there any government or related roles you think you’d be interested in? And is there a particular area you’d like to work in? E.g. if you were more passionate about animal welfare than nuclear security, that would suggest some pretty different career routes.
Different people in the community will have different views, but my own take is that the capitalism and markets can be great for growth and improving productive capacity but you want to make sure that the benefits are spread throughout society (see the book Why Nations Fail).
I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling overwhelmed by things. I’ve felt the same way at time. It’s important to look after yourself, take time off, and connect with other people. For me, I love watching the Simpsons, going for runs with my friends, and drinking coffee!
My own take on this is that the world is big and messy, and there are lot of bad things we each as individuals have to accept we can’t control. But if you can find a niche doing something which hits the sweet spot of being both enjoyable and improving the world, then you can have a pretty good time!
I suspect you might be able to find lots of ways to use AI to make things better—I’ve seen some great work in improving agricultural production using machine learning which seems pretty good. And I’m sure there are lots of businesses and charities that would be interested in someone with your skillset.
Have you tried applying for any roles in clean energy? It’s an absolutely booming sector, especially if Biden gets the US to rejoin and more things start happening in the US.
Sounds interesting! I’d say it’s worth doing the easy and reversible things first (e.g. trying out stuff within your company), and maybe put in a few applications to jobs like these. You could study international development, but you might get some job offers without needing the masters course. You can always apply to some masters’ courses anyway and see what happens.
They seem like fairly different job offers—are there any other things you might prefer to do? This should depend on how much runway you have and how much income you think you need, but of those two roles it sounds like you’re more interested in the health care one (“I’m just not passionate about being in a consumerism industry”) and you might learn a lot there. Also if after two years you get bored, then you could always move on, and your role might be quite different if they go through an IPO.
There’s also a chapter in Global Catastrophic Risks on the topic, though I forget who wrote it