Great article! Here another list from the study-buddy channel in the Virtual Programs Slack workspace. The channel is made to promote self-study of this kind of EA material. https://bit.ly/3rblLj1
JaimeRV
Karma: 323
Data Science for Effective Good + Call for Projects + Call for Volunteers
Looking forward! I really think this can be as good or better than in person EAG(x)s
From the reasons to avoid engaging in interpersonal conflict ” i) isn’t going to change anyone’s actions much; ii) isn’t going to make the world a much better place, even if it does change their actions; or iii) is very hard to persuade others about”.
I think even if all of these apply it might be worth it to engage in interpersonal conflict if you can learn from it. Discussing with someone and then reflecting on the discussion and how you discussed can help you improve how you handle these conflicts. If the cost of interpersonal tension is not too high it is a price worth paying for your improvement.
Thanks for the info!
Great post! The “list of EA-aligned organizations” seems very useful. Do you know if it is linked to some more official EA source like the CEA website or 80k website? and do you know how up to date it is?
Initially it seems like core EA information that is hanging in a random Notion page but I am probably wrong
Sure, I sent you an email
Thanks for the detailed answers. I would be interested in hearing more about “how to get good mentorship given a specific job” in case you can redirect me to a particular article or similar.
Nice post! about the mentorship I wonder how much differs the theory from the practice. In my experience even if the employer mentions mentorship on the interview it might well be that there is close to nothing in the real job.
I would be interested in hearing how it was for other developers. If they got much mentorship and how they went about finding companies which offer it.
an article from vox with their suggestions on effective ways to help:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22955885/donate-ukraine
I do not know of other examples but I would be interested in knowing the data use/needs of EA organizations
Thanks for the comment Alex. As far as I see the MoocLab Group would be not topic specific unless the topic is general EA. So there would be a mix of people who might be interested for example in Animal Welfare but not AI or the other way around, so it would not be easy to find a buddy. I do not have much experience with these MoocLab Groups though so if it is possible to set different topic-pages inside a group let me know because then I think it would be interesting.
Regarding the MVP probably it will be Facebook Pages/Groups (one for each EA Topic) but I will update when it is done or maybe announce it in a different post. In the future there is still the possibility to move everything a new independent platform if needed
Even if they use slack/discord very little: They use a new [a new platform that doesn’t exist yet and nobody ever used and everyone knows that nobody used] even less. No?
The platform, as MOOCLAB, is thought to be for the first contact to find the buddy, after that you share your email/fb/… with your buddy and coordinate however you want. In the new platform you would automatically get email notifications when someone replies to your message or sends you a message so the interaction with the platform itself is minimal. I know in slack you can also specify different settings in different groups, …. but less intuitively and there are so many EA (and non-EA) slack groups that many people feel overwhelmed and stop reading messages at all.
I agree, and again, this is an advantage that a new platform will never have. (right?)
If there would be an efficient way/channel to promote (new) EA Platforms to all EAs I would say “never say never”, but at the moment there is not
Do you mean “Facebook Group” (where you wrote “page”)? If not—then I didn’t understand, could you explain in other words?
I am not into Facebook and do not know the difference between “Facebook Group” and “Facebook Page” but whatever works better for this ends.
P.S: I sent you an email cause I rarely read this
Facebook: not optimal but as MVP might do
Slack/Discord: it has nothing to do with the features but with how little people use (or are comfortable using) slack/discord outside their already existing EA Groups/Projects. In Facebook people are more active in general but if you have data to prove my wrong happy to be wrong :)
what I imagine as MVP as mentioned in the post is a simpler MOOCLAB: https://www.mooclab.club/members/?key=study_buddy_members
I think also the critical mass of people is important. The post has not reached many people so probably Facebook is the best alternative to make it easier for the people to find and start gaining members fast in the corresponding pages, even if the pages idea seems far from optimal.
An alternative, to some of the mentioned points, could be this https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SsBgdFJz8w7QMyL38/ea-online-learning-buddy-platform although it is originally thought for In-Depth Virtual Program
Invitation sent in Linkedin ;)
It could be an option. However, here some points to the existing platforms:
Facebook: as far as I know you cannot have in a group different pages for different topics. Scalability would also be a problem in the future for example to add new features
Slack: in the 10+ EA slack groups I am in, most of them people go to introduce themselves and never come back
Discord: similar to slack
a small MVP would be I think fairly easy to implement. But if the platform development seems to be a constraint sure an existing platform shall be considered
EA Online Learning Buddy Platform
Cool idea! I think my original question was more oriented to “saving EA money”, either because the employees decide to do it voluntarily, or because the EA organisation decides to “open a branch” in a low cost country where the employees are paid less but can maintain a similar standard of living (with more sunshine) while keeping the quality and quantity of their work.
At the moment the main difference is that we are focused on EA projects exclusively, either coming from EA Orgs or related to infrastructure.
A couple more differences:
- The model of this organizations is rather fixed with a very strong focus on being the middle man between projects and volunteers. We would like to experiment with new approaches as mentioned under “Possible directions for the future”
- Some of these organizations tend to have also a big focus on learning, meaning including participants in their teams that are not very experienced and also taking projects that are not very impactful but fit very well the skills of some of their volunteers. Atm we aim to have a much stronger focus on impact and less on teaching people how to do data science.