I found this extremely interesting and useful, thanks.
I am likely to be biased in favour of working in mental health, as I work on this cause now and began working in the area before I discovered EA. But nevertheless I find your arguments fairly compelling.
Three points:
On the issue of where on a life satisfaction scale might be the neutral point / equivalent to not being alive, have you looked into whether there is any data on where on this scale people typically are when they are suicidal? This is not necessarily an appropriate answer to the question, because suicide can be influenced by short-term distress, psychosis, lack of mental capacity etc. (i.e. not just life satisfaction). But if any such data exists it might provide an interesting additional reference point.
Similarly, are you aware of any cost-effectiveness estimates for mental health charities/programmes in terms of suicides averted? This would be more closely comparable to lives saved through other types of intervention.
I think there is a whole other interesting area of work wrapped up in your comments about basing policy decisions on subjective wellbeing measures. As I’m sure you (and many on this forum) are aware, there is lots of work happening on this around the world. But the field still feels in its infancy, and there are potentially quite radical implications for how we would organise our societies, economies etc. if we were to place these measures as the end-goals of policymaking. I recognise that wellbeing and mental health are not exactly the same thing, but it is interesting to consider the question of what a society would look like that structurally encouraged good mental health.
Thanks again.
It is really helpful to have all these ideas listed in one place, thank you.
I am involved in running a scheme similar to Year Here (Think Ahead) and have occasionally wondered if a similar scheme for EA would be worthwhile. Programmes like ours and Teach for America, Teach First, Frontline, Police Now etc. have proven extremely effective at attracting talented people into particular career paths. I haven’t devoted much time/thought into how one might design something like this for the very diffuse career path of “being an EA”, but I would be up for exploring it if anyone is interested.
I also think intervening further “upstream” in the graduate career trajectory, while students are still at university, could also pay off. I am dimly aware that there are already efforts underway here such as EA societies at universities. I have put some thought into how one might restructure the university experience more fundamentally so that courses themselves, and the general university ethos/community, gave people the understanding, motivation, and skills to pursue EA careers. But I’m unsure whether this would be the most cost-effective way to achieve the desired outcomes.
Thanks again.