Founder of the Policy Entrepreneurship Network (policyentrepreneurs.org). Formerly the manager of eahub.org and The Local Effective Altruism Network.
Michal_Trzesimiech
At the local presence I run, there happen to appear projects I anticipate strongly to fail when posted, but encourage to try nevertheless for a couple of reasons not mentioned in your post, Richenda:
• The chances for flow-through effects, that “a substantial part of the good that one does may be indirect” and “helping to address any problem is a possible path to addressing many other problems” (https://blog.givewell.org/2013/05/15/flow-through-effects/).
• There’s value in building the culture of doing. I believe the old motto of ours is “figure out how to do the most good, and then do it”. It’s not uncommon for me to hear that we’re failing at the latter. To what extent that’s true or not, is a valid concern.
• As is analysis paralysis, mentioned in this old post: https://80000hours.org/articles/stop-worrying-so-much-about-the-long-term/.
• There’s value in being seen as both thinkers and doers. I find it attracts the kinds of people ready to take the risks of getting through trial and error to gather new insight otherwise more expensive to acquire. It also attracts sympathy from bystanders and potential donors. Especially those who aren’t deeply analytical by default.
• Growth of this sort, as well as the thrill of getting feedback from acting as group is good for building morale.
• Mentioning this, I keep my arbitrary belief that failure is more informative than success.
• There’s vast uncertainty to any of our actions. We should be disciplined about how we build and use our models, but I wouldn’t dismiss the importance of spontaneous activity. I dislike the idea of holding it back, even when it’s obviously a missed hit.
Disclaimer: my comment is a bit spontaneous itself because of time constraint I’m facing. I’ll revise it later as the discussion unfolds. Thanks!
The Effective Altruism Newsletter & Open Thread – May 2016
There’s been another edition of the Effective Altruism Boot Camp held in Cracow, Poland. We have doubled in size and set off for regular project work. It’s thanks to many months of hard work of these folks: Aga Pisz, Aneta Błachewicz, Marcin Kowrygo, Marcin Woźniak. Thank you!
The Effective Altruism Newsletter & Open Thread – April 2016
The Effective Altruism Newsletter & Open Thread – March 2016 Edition
The Effective Altruism Newsletter & Open Thread – February 2016
The Effective Altruism Newsletter & Open Thread − 15 December 2015
The Effective Altruism Newsletter & Open Thread − 9 November 2015 Edition
I do believe this is valid for the reasons you have brought up and also true on the market level. I would argue that a generic idea a firm can adopt as its own (own it) is more commercially attractive than a product explicitly corellated with an unmanageable social movement. The decision to move this product outside of our brand is small but important, and I opt for it.
The remaining question to everyone then is how to build and market that product? Wouldn’t the criteria of importance, tractability and uncrowdedness be a good start (as mentioned by William Saunders in this thread*) How to control the risks suggested by Tyler?
*https://www.facebook.com/groups/599554863520886/permalink/604519439691095/?qa_ref=qd?
Hey Jeffrey, check out “EA Resources” by LEAN and fill in this form by CEA. You can also reach out to the local presence in Manila by writing manila@eahub.org. Good luck with growing your group!