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
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.
Has anyone considered this in general for remote EA work? (not only Earning to give)
There are several EA Jobs (researching at Rethink Priorities, tech stuff....) that could be done remotely. So one option might be paying a salary and living expenses to these employees in a low cost country and have their own community. If they want they could even live together with like minded EAs
Thanks for the reply. Yeah reading the book I got the impression that the example the author uses could be an isolated one and it was not everywhere like that. However, I also did not find easy to find statistics on the problem in internet. But your response seems more accurate than what it is presented in the book
Hi alene,
thanks for your reply. My question was not really (a) nor (b) but I think they are related.
Here again my questions:
In “humane” farms the animals have, in their whole lives, negative net well being? are their QALYs in life negative so that it is for them better not to be born?
My question here is if anybody has reliable numbers for the greenhouse gases from “humane” farms. It would be interesting to know how much worse they are and how hard it would be to offset these emissions
I would like to know if it is a general thing in “humane” farms that animals are more often sick and have many other problems (that they did not have in standard animal farms)? or the example in the book was an isolated case? Any source would be welcome
because of your answer “(b) it would be better for animals if there were no more factory farms at all.” I guess you would answer to (1) saying that it is better if they are not born at all right?
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.