Woman // Christian // Canadian // Londoner // Married // Donates to Global Development // Works on Energy Policy
Khorton
Karma: 4,299
I wrote a post on this a couple years ago. One difference is that, where this post is focused exclusively on impact, I also talked about some people wanting to gain career capital from volunteering or wanting a volunteer opportunity that helps you feel good and recharge. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ScLHyCY6JCr5FtuiY/effective-volunteering
Strong upvoted this as I feel almost exactly the same way! I’ve tried the new 80k Google doc but looked the old career guide and career decision making tool a lot better.
Yes, I don’t understand where the monetary value comes from?
To be clear, I wasn’t aiming to criticize “don’t become a doctor”, but rather “don’t continue to be a doctor.”
Thanks this is very clear! Yes, I was thinking of outcome C—I’ve seen people decide not to get involved with the EA community because strangers repeatedly gave them advice they found offensive.
I think the world would be better if we didn’t regularly offend respected professionals, even if it’s been very helpful for 5 or 10 people—and I imagine those 5 or 10 people may have transitioned from medicine anyways when presented with the arguments without it being presented as quite such a definitive answer.
I’m particularly annoyed by this because I’ve seen this play out in person—I’ve invited respected professionals to EA events who were seriously disrespected by people with dubious and overconfident ideas.
I don’t think donating to a theatre is done in order to “make the world a better place”, I think it’s done to be able to continue to have access to a community research you enjoy and build your reputation in your community. It’s actually a really bad idea for EAs to become known as a community of free riders.
And ultimately, it should be that person’s choice—if you don’t know much about their life, why would you tell them what part of their budget they should replace in order to increase donations to top causes? It’s better to donate 10% to effective charities and continue donating to local community organisations than to donate 10% to effective charities and spend the rest on fast food, in my view, but ultimately it’s none of my business!
I think there are a lot of people who are already doctors who can use that to do a lot of good, and there are some naive EAs who suggest they should drop their 25 years of medical experience to become a technical AI safety researcher. No! Maybe they should become a public health policy expert; maybe they should keep being a great doctor.
I also think a lot of people value their local community theatre and want it to continue—they enjoy it, it’s a hobby. If they and others donate, the theatre continues to exist, otherwise it doesn’t. I wouldn’t suggest they should become freeriders.
Yes, I think this point is both important and underrated—we need to stop saying “don’t donate to your local theatre” or “don’t be a doctor” because actually those are very alienating statements that turn out to be bad advice a lot of the time
“The effective altruism movement emerged around the start of this decade in Oxford. The big idea is to encourage a broadly utilitarian/rationalist approach to doing good, and it is particularly aimed at graduate higher earners who have more money to give and who thus, on a utilitarian calculus, can achieve more. This approach has proved particularly attractive to those with backgrounds in maths and computer science, and chapters of effective altruists have sprung up in Silicon Valley, New York and London, with many pledging at least 10% of their income to charity.”
If you haven’t been successful after a year of applying it’s definitely time to change tactics. Some of the following might be things to try, but you’ll know your situation best:
-get your CV reviewed by friends
-get your CV professionally reviewed
-have friends review your cover letter
-practice interviews with a work coach or friend
-apply to less competitive jobs
-try to get jobs through networking (eg that you’ve been recommended to)
-try to get jobs through unpaid work (eg volunteer to do an impact assessment for a charity for free, if it goes well ask them if they’d like to hire you for future projects)
This is very accurate but a little sad to me.
I’m also a Canadian with a policy background, although I’ve never worked on policy IN Canada. If you end up seriously looking into that path please send me a message or post in the Canadian EA Facebook group—I’d be really interested to hear what you find out!
The Pentagon’s Brain (history of DARPA) talks about the development, testing and deployment of various military technologies
I don’t totally understand what’s going on here. If I used your link to donate to AMF, where would the match be coming from? a) other, unrestricted GiveWell donations b) a donor who specifically wanted to match first time donors c) someone else...?
I donated to the Against Malaria Foundation in 2020
I’m curious if there are any updates on the situation in Burkina Faso or your other work?
Framing feedback as “asking for advice” can often make people more comfortable with giving feedback as well
no suggestions, just a few thoughts:
you do NOT need to feel guilty for being skilled at working one on one with people from traumatized backgrounds! it’s a good thing!
there’s nothing stopping you from developing other skills as well—you’re young and have so many options
I can tell you’re both very passionate about helping people one to one and making a big difference in the world and you’re feeling like there’s no way to do both. That sounds really stressful.
it’s okay to make career decisions partially or fully based on factors other than EA. you have more than one goal and that’s fine: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zu28unKfTHoxRWpGn/you-have-more-than-one-goal-and-that-s-fine
After getting more info, I decided it wasn’t so important and neglected as to be competitive with the Against Malaria Foundation. Thanks for following up!