Risk Analyst, interested in the AI policy space, with generalist ops and Program Management experience. Aspiring author.
Ellioto
Karma: 9
Hi everyone!
Extremely new to EA—which I found via the Kurzegesagt YouTube channel. I’m on my first read-through of ’80,000 Hours’, and working my way through the associated podcast.
I’m an Agile project manager in a UK Telecoms company. I’m very interested in exploring better decision-making and effective environmentalism—however, I’m still exploring and looking to get a better sense of the community and the movement.
Looking forward to speaking with you all!
Hi Nate! Right off the bat—still new to EA (in terms of concrete engagement), and I suspect I have a long way to go to develop my thinking.
I’m an aspiring author outside of my day-job, but I’m also convinced that this is a potentially valuable problem area after listening to Elizabeth Cox’s 80,000 Hours podcast episode (208) - as individual embedded in EA perspectives, I think representing EA nuance in critical discussions/narratives around existential risks via arts and popular culture could be valuable in shifting the Overton window (which would in turn, have an impact on policy-makers decisions).
In terms of my personal thoughts on the ideas here (and these are off-the-cuff, so please take with a grain of salt):
1. Earning to Give
Broadly, I’d assume specifically promoting earning-to-give amongst artists COULD have value, but given the median earnings of artists and writers in general, I’m unsure that this would be a particularly efficient demographic to target. That said, I don’t think this would be likely to cause harm either (although given the lack of financial stability amongst artists, I’d want to be very deliberate with the wording and approach).
Plus, I can absolutely foresee positive peripheral impacts insofar as normalising some of EA’s core concepts within art and artist communities. Currently, I firmly believe that we will need MUCH more EA-inspired arts in order to have positive influences on culture—and EA doesn’t appear to have a particularly positive portrayal in popular culture at the moment (e.g. a throwaway mention of the EA movement in The Dropout).
Would running art-focused fundraisers for EA projects make sense...? Researching how artists and charities work together could be a good place to start, see if anything could be applied to fundraise for specific EA projects/buckets?
2. Promoting EA in the art community
Again, I love this idea, not just because it might help nurture internal talent—but also just for the benefits of engaging in artistic pursuits as well as whole. Stress-relief, impacts to emotional health and expressiveness, as well as carry-over improvements to problem-solving and self-reflection? I think it’s value would fall very firmly into the community-building aspects. I’m sure there’s plenty of resources on developing courses/classes- running general polls to see who might be interested could be a good starting point?
3. Charity events & “ambassadorship”
This feels like a more effective evolution of idea 1, given that it’s targeting donor classes—promoting EA here seems like a positive thing, although I have very little visibility of what else the EA community already has in this space. My first thought is that Moral Ambition orgs might be able to provide specific advise on the positioning of this one? I can definitely see an opportunity to reach those with far greater privilege and concentrations of wealth than the average individual.
4. Design support of EA projects.
I can definitely see this being a benefit—ensuring that EA projects have access to the kind of UX, content, and design support that typically exists in corporate could definitely help boost engagement on the actual websites.
However—and this is me thinking out loud with zero info to back this up—I do wonder how much EA websites get generalised traffic, as opposed to EA’ers who actively sought out the sites?
5. Social influence campaigns.
Having dedicated EA artists and writers is definitely an interesting idea, and running campaigns specifically on the part of EA definitely seems like something that could have benefit. I’m unsure if the higher EA parent- orgs have run awareness campaigns about the movement and our results already (as I say—still consider myself relatively new!).
6. EA-themed art.
While this might not be something of immediate (measurable) impact, I actually think that this is an under-represented area that could work very well in parallel to EA. Again, running with the Elizabeth Cox’s EA podcast episode, anything that helps to normalise EA and future-oriented concepts, and help push the Overton Window of the general public (which would in turn impact policy-making).
I’ve toyed with the concept of writing competitions to boost serious creative engagement EA concepts—I wonder if an analogous idea could be developed in visual arts? Having a strong creative culture within EA (and, eventually, workshops), producing interesting work would be an incredible move for the community’s PR.