I am a little concerned about the tone of this comment (and a little less so about the post overall). If what this contest represents is a (free and fair) election, I don’t think we should tell people “you SHOULD vote for A” or “you SHOULDN’T vote for B”. I would feel equally uncomfortable if we did this for any other type of election, especially without giving any rationale for our recommendations. Rather, people should vote based on their preferences (and ideally, these would be informed by more than just in-group recommendations) - if this is Will, great, if it’s someone else you feel deserves this more than him, more power to you.
MvK
Karma: 541
Re Cleopatra:
The argument is not that Cleopatra’s action is the beginning of a causal chain. In fact, the present and the future need not be linked causally at all for Parfit’s argument to make sense.
Instead, what he employs is a “reductio ad absurdum”—he takes the non-longtermist position to an extreme where it has counterintuitive implications.
If discounting WAS true, then any of Cleopatra’s actions (even something insignificant as eating dessert) would’ve mattered so much more than anything that happens today (including curing cancer). This seems counterintuitive to most of us. Therefore, something is wrong with this kind of discounting.
Out of curiosity: The phrase “Past performance is not indicative of future results” is often brought up when doing the kind of historic analysis you are presenting.
How much do you think this applies here? Would things look different if we had an Effective Altruism Movement centuries ago?
Hi! Thanks for this. The links to the jobs @ Forethought don’t seem to work (for me on my phone, at least.)
They now do! :)
Back by popular demand: The Impactful Policy Careers Workshop Series (Applications now open)!
After receiving more applications than expected, we have decided to open our application form for 6 more days—the new deadline is November 7th. (Applications that have been submitted by the original deadline will be notified of the outcome of their application within the next few days.)
SBF is watching this thread closely
I think this is highly dependent on the tasks that are required of applicants! I know e.g. Charity Entrepreneurship has thought a lot about how to make the application process, work tests etc. more valuable for applicants. And iirc, I found the CERI Process quite helpful in sharpening my research focus and organizing my thoughts around x-risk.
(An entirely different question is whether long decision timelines negatively affect applicants’ options or result in applicants withdrawing/going with their second best option, but I’m not sure this happened a lot. There was also a post recently about the benefits of opening applications sooner to be able to compete with non-EA summer internships/Fellowships.)
In this case, if I had to choose between
A) attending an event with nicer background music + cocktails and
B) one that doesn’t seem “rehearsed”
I’d probably end up choosing the latter...
Agreed on the feedback part, but pretty unsure how to solve this without bringing on one person for a few hundred hours to give individual feedback.
Regarding the hours of productivity lost: I’m not sure about the counterfactual, since CERI applicants are mostly students.
I think my main point however is this: being forced to actually write a proposal for that vague research idea that has been floating around in your head seems pretty valuable to me whether you get feedback or not. I, for example, spent quite a few hours just digging through research agendas in different x-risk fields to make sure I’m not just riding my hobby horse, but that my research actually fills some gap. So, even if I hadn’t been accepted, I would probably have considered this “time well spent” rather than “lost productivity”.
(Disclaimer that I might be biased here though—motivated reasoning/avoiding cognitive dissonance etc.)
Is using this type of technology already commonplace in EA Org’s offices and Co-working spaces? If not, this might be a great (and even more cost-effective) place to pilot this idea!
Hi Tim! Former teacher here. I have taught some—but very little - EA stuff at high school, and would be happy to share my limited experience.
More importantly, if you ever feel like you’d benefit from talking to a fellow European ex-teacher about a career pivot, definitely reach out! I’m currently doing some EA research, a bunch of independent projects and will go through the CE Incubation Program in a few weeks (as a surprising amount of ex-educators have).
(You might think this is not important right now since you’ve committed to another year of teaching, but if you knew that your long-term career plan was to become an entrepreneur, an academic, a project manager, community-builder, I would probably prioritize getting some experience doing these things inside or outside the classroom, rather than “teaching EA”.)
My understanding is that it’s not that she never wants to do damage control and crisis management—but that she is tired of constantly having to do it and the fact that it crowds out the other aspects of EA and Community-Building
What We’ve Learned from running an Impactful Policy Careers Workshop Series
Adding some data to this:
When I sent an email to the email address mentioned above, I received a well-meaning automated reply.However, it contained the following part, which I don’t think we should lead with:
In the meantime, why not check out some fun facts about Effective Altruism? Did you know that by donating to charity, you can save a life for as little as $3.33? Or that some of the most effective ways to make a positive impact are also some of the most unexpected?
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-effective-altruismThis is inaccurate at best and deceiving and harmful at worst—and it’s even debunked by the very link you follow this up with![1]
- ^
The CEA website mentions the more commonly used number of 5,500$.
- ^
Exciting, thanks for sharing!
(Minor nitpick: the CEA travel grant policy Doc you link to is the old one, which has since been updated, so you might wanna change that!)
You can find CE’s Research Report here: https://3394c0c6-1f1a-4f86-a2db-df07ca1e24b2.filesusr.com/ugd/26c75f_2081c09f8f20405e89105ac88c01ec6d.pdf
Hi Lizka! I’m a current Incubatee, but applied back in Spring 2022, so I do fall into this group Ula is describing. Feel free to DM me with any questions you have!
Hi Olivia! As a former teacher with a degree in Education from a very low-ranking German university, I understand how you feel. I’ve been there! I am 100% confident there is an impactful way you can contribute to the EA community. Please reach out to me if you’d like to chat about those options, talk through potential career moves or volunteering opportunities!
P. S. : Your post has inspired me to finally create an account here and start commenting and posting—who knows what impact you have created down the line… ;-)