Agree with alexrjl
emily.fan
Karma: 84
What are the community’s thoughts on making the application super long so that only the most interested people apply (and basically accept everyone who applies)? Would this be considered selective in the same way as rejecting people?
Thank you so much for the insights! We’ve tried longer applications to ensure that the fellows are more engaged due to bad experiences of fellows dropping out / derailing the conversation in the past. However, the point about high-potential people being busy has convinced me to shorten our application!
Thank you so much for the insights! We’ve tried longer applications to ensure that the fellows are more engaged due to bad experiences of fellows dropping out / derailing the conversation in the past. However, the point about counterfactual impact has nudged me to shorten our application!
I didn’t realize that this existed until now, is there a way for this to be more visible? For instance, incorporated in the notifications settings (where I spent way too much time trying to find this a couple of months ago)? Is there a way to auto-add people who join the EA forum to this mailing list and unsubscribe as necessary?
Just to clarify, we RSVP on Facebook? Thanks! :)
Just wanted to +1 blue blocking glasses.
Agree that the quality of magnesium matters!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfeiBd8h6Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTiXVGwZLO4
Same here. I feel like I don’t have the executive function to do so since I tend to be interested in a bunch of things at once and generally have generalist tendencies. I’d also be curious to hear more about the niche of being a generalist in the EA community, since they do provide value in our society.
I’m surprised that this is the case because from what I’ve seen at EA meetups in both the Bay Area and Boston is that the majority of people seem to be software engineers. Is it because the software engineers who go to the Bay Area / Boston meetups may not have as much ML background? Is it because the software engineers in EA meetups don’t realize that this is a problem?
I run the EA coworking discord server and was curious if you would be open to collaboration opportunities. At the moment, there seems to be at least one person on the coworking server every other day if not every day. Here’s the link to the EA coworking server: https://discord.gg/5FGY4PyEcT
Possibilities:
having regular coworking sessions on the EA coworking server
matching people on the EA coworking server to be accountability buddies
having daily check-ins on the server
hosting events about executive dysfunction / productivity
Let me know what you think!
There is also an EA coworking discord server: https://discord.gg/5FGY4PyEcT
You can share screen + there are pomodoro bots that people can sync up working/taking breaks together if they want to.
One great thing about the EA coworking discord is that you can get to know people can connect with them because you have their discord handle :)
You can share screen on gathertown (I think I managed to do it before.) However, it seems like in the current gathertown setup (the way the desks are arranged and where videos can be streamed), I haven’t really found a way to see other people’s videos while working in the desk working area, though you can work in other areas and maybe see nearby people’s videos.
I do have a shameless plug to the EA coworking discord server though: https://discord.gg/5FGY4PyEcT where you can share screen! :)
This comment is late, but anyway...
Though I think there is value to having a more comprehensive survey like the one you have, I do want to pitch having a shorter survey for general comments with maybe 1 textbox.
The survey could be useful to collect new ideas, or just quick thoughts people wanted to share to Effective Self-Help. That way whenever someone has a new idea, they don’t have to click through a bunch of buttons on whether or not they’ve read the Effective Self-Help articles. I know that there is an option to email, but I find myself much more averse to emailing vs. filling out a form.
Although I do want to say that I make this comment as someone who sometimes has random ideas and wants to fill out a short form if I wanted to share something quick.
Articles like this are hard to write because the cause of stress and the solution for stress varies for different individuals, and you did seem to try to put the “taking stress personally” as a section which is good, but perhaps I think there could be more. Or perhaps I felt like this article didn’t seem to speak to me personally as much. However, it is evidence that you put in a lot of work to write up this article.
Thoughts on why this article didn’t really speak to me as much.
I do think that underlying causes matter a lot, and would appreciate if there were more elaborations on it. I agree that CBT in general is a good intervention to address a lot of these underlying causes, but therapist searching is extremely difficult, and therapy can be costly in terms of time and money.
Regarding elaborating on underlying causes: For instance, some people find it impossible to get enough sleep due to demands or perceived demands of their work or school. Some people might believe that they need to feel stressed or else they just wouldn’t get anything done. Some might be deficient in B vitamins, magnesium, etc. Some may have social anxiety. Some may be many of the ones I listed above.
Again, this article might not speak to everyone, which is ok. But just wanted to put in some thoughts in case you find it helpful. I think it’s great and inspiring that you took the initiative to start Effective Self-Help and it’s clear that you want to make it good! :)
I very much like that this post encourages inclusion of how much people are able (or willing to) contribute to EA.
It was very easy for me to talk to people telling me how important it was to have balance in my life and do some fun non-EA things, but then I would see examples of EAs who work long hours and love their work and feel like I’m not making as much of an impact as the people who make EA their life.
I think this post clarifies part of the confusion because it makes it explicit that it is healthy for the EA community to have both, and just because I am not ready (or will ever be ready) to be a dedicate doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing just because I’m doing less EA stuff than an EA dedicate.
To me, I feel like this distinction feels less polarizing than “hardcore” vs. “softcore” EAs since I feel like dedicates are seen as good, and “softcore” doesn’t sound as nice of a phrase to describe people.
++ having a sociology background is great Not sure, but I think Vaidehi may have also studied Sociology at a non-Ivy+ school as well, and she seems to have done some cool stuff in the EA community too.
Not sure how relevant this comment is, but as someone who studies more technical stuff, I am honestly impressed with people who study things like sociology. The sheer number of papers and essays you guys pump out and how you have to think about large social systems honestly scares me! English / history classes were some of the hardest for me in high school!
I also think you might find some of Cal Newport’s books helpful (So Good They Can’t Ignore You, maybe even How To Be A High School Superstar). He shares a lot of encouraging stories about people who become good at what they do without being super impressive beforehand!
I feel like certain populations (particularly women) tend to underestimate their abilities, so I find this comment pretty discouraging. My current take is that a lot of people think they aren’t good enough for XYZ, but if they take a good stab at XYZ in an environment that is encouraging they may realize that they might be able to do XYZ after all.
I think that a lot of people naturally think that they are “not math people” when they could actually be much better at math.
And I don’t think that you don’t have to be the best at math or XYZ to contribute. I think that as long as you’re willing to put some effort and are open-minded and willing to grow, you’ll probably surprise yourself at how much you’re able to do.
@Olivia I’m honestly very impressed with you because you’ve shown a lot of good traits by making this post. It’s clear that you deeply care about making a difference. You were bold and took the initiative to open up about your insecurities. You were agentic in posting this on the forum. You’re willing to take feedback from the audience Keep it up!
My knee jerk reaction was also that 30-40% was an unreasonably high number, however, I kind of disagree with “Unreasonably large estimates shouldn’t be allowed to frame the discussion just because we can’t reject them with model evidence yet” since it’s hard to know what numbers are reasonable in the first place. It also provides a good starting point to the discussion and to challenge my assumptions on why I automatically want to reject the 30-40%.
A possible counter-argument to this strategy is that neoliberalism appeals to people with power (businesses with $$ that don’t want to get regulated). Very interesting read though!