A few quick comments, have skimmed through rather than a read in depth (have read a number of the articles in the past):
There’s a format error on p.167- Under 1. Learn more, there is a spacing error in the paragraph, which bizarrely cuts the paragraph in two for no reason. [Edit: this is not a lone error, I’ve found another on p.142, there may well be others, I haven’t gone through exhaustively]
I’d be interested how the relevant cause areas were agreed upon? There’s a heavy emphasis on Artificial Intelligence and the Long-Run Future (three articles on AI); and some areas of interest to EAers get very little or no mention at all (e.g. Mental Health and Happiness, re Michael Plant [EDIT: there is some mention of this, but there’s still at least a good question here about how cause areas are decided]). Perhaps there’s also a lack of concentration on cause areas versus career paths (and the Gov. article is great but extremely America heavy, which is not helpful for non-Americans). I suspect there is more to be said as to how this is decided, but it would be useful to understand this.
The recommendation of different books at the end is interesting- given the heavy emphasis on the long term-future throughout, it seems to me that the recommended books diverge from that (Doing Good Better and the Most Good You Can Do aren’t hugely about that from my memory?) Would it have been better to recommend SuperIntelligence; or the Global Catastrophic Risks volume which came out a while back; or something else, if the Long-Term Future dominates the attention elsewhere?
One worry I have is that it does a lot to suggest possibel directions for EAers, and little to deal with objections EAers might face. The original handbook seems to have slightly more on that (e.g. the Estimation article from Katja; Holden’s article on White’s in shining armour); and there are other ones which regularly arise e.g. the collectivist/coordination ideas that Hilary Greaves has been talking about (no individual can ever make a difference); or objections which focus on the overriding significance of virtue/the total cluelessness of us all. It might be that these are dealt with in some other way (I’m not clear how) or that this is simply not that important (which I question, but am uncertain), and so would be appreciative for your thoughts.
Mainly, though I liked it, so my critical points aren’t to be understood as a total rejection of the piece! It was great in so many ways, and I’m sure required a fair amount of work!
Interesting stuff, thanks guys. I wanted to discuss one point:
From conversations with James, I believe Cambridge has a pretty different model of how they run it- in particular, a much more hands on approach, which calls for formal commitment from more people e.g. giving everyone specific roles, which is the “excessive formalist” approach. Are there reasons you guys have access to which favour your model of outreach over theirs? Or alternate frame; what’s the best argument in favour of the Cambridge model of giving everyone an explicit role, and why does that not succeed (if it doesn’t)?
For example, is it possible that Cambridge get a significantly higher number of people involved, which then cancels out the effects of immediately high-fidelity models in due course (e.g. suppose lots of people are low fidelity while at Cam, but then a section become more high-fidelity later, and it ends up not making that much difference in the long run)? Or does the Cambridge model use roles as an effective commitment device? Or does one model ensure less movement drift, or less lost value from movement drift? (see here http://effective-altruism.com/ea/1ne/empirical_data_on_value_drift/?refresh=true) There’s a comment from David Moss here suggesting there’s an “open question” about the value of focussing on more engaged individuals, given the risks of attrition in large movements (assuming the value of the piece, which is subject to lots of methodological caveats).
The qs above might be contradictory- I’m not advocating any of the above, but instead clarifying whether there’s anything missed by your suggestions.