I think an important caveat/‘qualifier’ for EA is that it’s really for people who are either a) highly educated/ talented b) wealthy or c) both.. ? Is that fair to say?
I think some of the principles are more broadly applicable—it makes sense for someone who is giving any amount of money to think in this way & the suggested orgs are helpful.
But certainly in terms of choosing a career.. - for someone without high intelligence/education/resources, they probably won’t be in a position to survey the landscape and pick up jobs in any field they feel they are needed.
So what should an averagely educated, averagely intelligent person do? I don’t know that EA thinking is that helpful here, besides as a guide to giving… - how to choose between teacher or social worker? Or what about jobs like bin lorry driver/electrician/other essential workers.. - individually it’s probably hard to measure their impact in terms of QALYs.. it might even be negligible? But without these workers society wouldn’t function, so the cumulative impact is massive..
This must have occurred to EA thinkers and some of what I’ve read has touched on some of these points, so I’m probably stating the obvious here. I don’t see this point as particularly undermining any of the EA stuff, which I think is broadly useful and relevant, but I do think it’s an important caveat that could be more explicit/visible.
I’d be curious to hear what others think about this—has this occurred to people? Am I missing something, or have I misunderstood? Are there more ways that EA thinking is relevant to the average person? How would someone assess the impact of teacher vs. social worker? Is that even possible?
I think an important caveat/‘qualifier’ for EA is that it’s really for people who are either a) highly educated/ talented b) wealthy or c) both.. ? Is that fair to say?
I think some of the principles are more broadly applicable—it makes sense for someone who is giving any amount of money to think in this way & the suggested orgs are helpful.
But certainly in terms of choosing a career.. - for someone without high intelligence/education/resources, they probably won’t be in a position to survey the landscape and pick up jobs in any field they feel they are needed.
So what should an averagely educated, averagely intelligent person do? I don’t know that EA thinking is that helpful here, besides as a guide to giving… - how to choose between teacher or social worker? Or what about jobs like bin lorry driver/electrician/other essential workers.. - individually it’s probably hard to measure their impact in terms of QALYs.. it might even be negligible? But without these workers society wouldn’t function, so the cumulative impact is massive..
This must have occurred to EA thinkers and some of what I’ve read has touched on some of these points, so I’m probably stating the obvious here. I don’t see this point as particularly undermining any of the EA stuff, which I think is broadly useful and relevant, but I do think it’s an important caveat that could be more explicit/visible.
I’d be curious to hear what others think about this—has this occurred to people? Am I missing something, or have I misunderstood? Are there more ways that EA thinking is relevant to the average person? How would someone assess the impact of teacher vs. social worker? Is that even possible?
Thanks
Iain