sky

Karma: 403

I write about ideas and resources I like, along with some ideas for making concepts more clear to me and others who come from a humanities background but are digging into the tools EA gives us to build stuff we care about. I have academic and informal training in conflict studies and language studies, so I’ll write about that too.

I got interested in EA via GiveWell when it started and got a bit more involved in EA when 80K started. I ascribe to the “keep your identity small” idea and see EA as a really useful set of tools and important questions, though not the only set of tools and important questions someone might consider when doing good. I’m a member of EA DC.

I’m also a Community Liaison at CEA (www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/team)

Outside of EA, I’m involved in the Deaf community and interpreting field/higher ed. I’m generally interested in how people learn what they learn, how we effectively relate to ourselves and each other, and how to apply those ideas to mentoring and resolving conflict.

Fun things = acro-yoga, cross fit, 1:1 conversations about ideas, reading while laying in hammocks, scuba

sky Mar 29, 2020, 1:18 PM
3 points
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on: What posts do you want someone to write?
Posts on how people came to their values, how much individuals find themselves optimizing for certain values, and how EA analysis is/isn’t relevant. Bonus for points for resources for talking about this with other people.

I’d like to have more “Intro to EA” convos that start with, “When I’m prioritizing values like [X, Y, Z], I’ve found EA really helpful. It’d be less relevant if I valued [ABC ] instead, and it seems less relevant in those times when I prioritize other things. What do you value? How/When do you want to prioritize that? How would you explore that?”

I think personal stories here would be illustrative.

sky Mar 28, 2020, 9:04 PM
2 points
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on: sky’s Shortform
Should reducing partisanship be a higher priority cause area (for me)?
I think political polarization in the US produces a whole heap of really bad societal/policy outcomes and makes otherwise good policy outcomes ~impossible. It has always seemed relatively important to me, because when things go wrong in the US, they often have global consequences. I haven’t put that many of my actual resources here though because it’s a draining cause to work on and didn’t feel that tractable. I also suspected myself of motivated reasoning: I get deep joy from inter-group cooperation and am very distressed by inter-group conflict.
Then I read things like the thread below and feel like not paying more attention to this is foolish, like I’ve gone too far in the other direction and underweighted the importance of this barrier to global coordination. I imagine others have written about similar questions and I would be interested in more thoughts.
https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1243265011788611584

sky’s Quick takes

skyMar 28, 2020, 9:04 PM

3 points

3 comments EA link

sky Mar 24, 2020, 1:01 PM
1 point
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in reply to: aog’s comment on: After one year of applying for EA jobs: It is really, really hard to get hired by an EA organisation
Hi Aidan, I’m really late to this thread, but found it interesting. If you don’t mind coming back in time, could you clarify this:
“I think part of what might be driving the difference of opinion here is that the type of EAs that need a 45 minute chat are not the type of EAs that 80k meets.”
I imagine this is true for a lot of EA org staff. It sounded from Howie’s comment like it’s probably less true for coaches at 80K, though, compared to other EA org staff.
Howie’s comment:
“We try to make sure that we talk to the people we think we’re best placed to help with coaching in other ways too, for example some of our advice and many of the connections we can make are particularly valuable for people who don’t already have lots of current links to other effective altruists.”
I find the network constrained hypothesis interesting and am interested in exploring it, so I think clarifying our models here seems useful

sky Mar 3, 2020, 2:51 PM
3 points
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on: EA Survey 2019 Series: Community Demographics & Characteristics
I find myself navigating to this page a lot recently, thanks for publishing!
Quick UX request: could you update this post with links to subsequent posts in the series? I’m often hunting around trying to find various pieces of data, and would find that super helpful for user navigation, rather than searching on the title.

sky Jan 29, 2020, 8:15 PM
17 points
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in reply to: rosiecampbell’s comment on: The EA Hotel is now the Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (CEEALAR)
I think it’s worth noting that the acronym for the Athena Center for EA Study is ACES! :)

sky Dec 8, 2019, 10:40 PM
4 points
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on: What to know before talking with journalists about EA
FYI: I’ve updated this post to show that we now have an email address for requests for media help: media@centreea.org

sky Dec 4, 2019, 8:40 PM
15 points
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in reply to: Jonas V’s comment on: What to know before talking with journalists about EA
Thanks for adding this, Jonas. I just added a brief blurb that I think is related to this. (See the section about required skills, where I’ve added a note about being personable but willing to be “awkward”). These are the kinds of tips I’d usually discuss and rehearse with someone in an interview practice session. I notice this post is more about how to evaluate a media opportunity and self-assess readiness, rather than what to do during an actual interview. The latter is something I talk more about with people when we’re rehearsing for a specific interview.
When rehearsing mock interviews with people, I’ve noticed that the point you raise is one of the things that most trips people up though, which I think is understandable.
If someone asks you, “Some people have said butter is blue. Do you think that’s true?”, it’s almost a knee-jerk response to answer “Really? No, I don’t think butter is blue. I believe butter is white or yellow, because....”. The problem is that our natural instinct here works against us. “EAs ‘don’t think butter is blue’” is a much weirder and more intriguing quote than, “EAs ‘think butter is white or yellow.’”
It’s takes practice to get out of this habit and ensure that the words you say consist only of words you want to appear in the article, without giving fodder to competing/distracting/inaccurate messages. (You might still be misrepresented or misunderstood even then, but this is one strategy to lower that risk). The advice of interview coaches is just what you said, Jonas: that you should start right in describing your actual beliefs, and not repeat the question.
It can look something like this:
Q: Some people have said butter is blue. Do you think that’s true?
[Take a breath, smile, omit the first part of the response that comes into your head. Say,..]
A: Actually, I think butter is white or yellow. [or]
A: Actually, I don’t think that’s within my area of expertise.
[Pause. Let it be awkward if needed, wait for a new question]. [or]
A: Hm, no; what I do think is true is...[(possibly unrelated) point that you want to give a good quote about in order to communicate with your readers/viewers].
The last approach can feel especially awkward, but can be very effective in avoiding clickbait quotes and providing content you actually want to be quoted.

sky Nov 12, 2019, 4:05 AM
2 points
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in reply to: Jess Kinchen Smith’s comment on: What posts you are planning on writing?
I would personally find this very useful!

sky Sep 5, 2019, 4:28 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Larks’s comment on: What to know before talking with journalists about EA
Links are fixed, thanks for flagging! We have different versions of our domain name we can use for our email addresses but I agree that can look confusing, so they’re updated too.

What to know before talking with journalists about EA

skySep 4, 2019, 7:59 PM

142 points

15 comments8 min readEA link

sky Aug 5, 2019, 4:59 PM
2 points
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in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Four practices where EAs ought to course-correct
Thanks, Gordon; I’ve fixed the sharing permissions so that this document is public.

sky Jul 31, 2019, 9:07 PM
28 points
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in reply to: Gordon Seidoh Worley’s comment on: Four practices where EAs ought to course-correct
[Note: I’m a staff member at CEA]
I have been thinking a lot about this exact issue lately and agree. I think that as EA is becoming more well-known in some circles, it’s a good time to consider if — at a community level — EA might benefit from courting positive press coverage. I appreciate the concern about this. I also think that for those of us without media training (myself included), erring on the side of caution is wise, so being media-shy by default makes sense.
I think that whether or not the community as a whole or EA orgs should be more proactive about media coverage is a good question that we should spend time thinking about. The balance of risks and rewards there is an open question.
At an individual level though, I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of clarity recently on best practices and can give a solid recommendation that aligns with Gordon’s advice here.
For the past several months, I’ve sought to get a better handle on the media landscape, and I’ve been speaking with journalists, media advisors, and PR-type folks. Most experts I’ve spoken to (including journalists and former journalists) converge on this advice: For any individual community member or professional (in any movement, organization, etc), it is very unwise to accept media engagements unless you’ve had media training and practice.
I’m now of the mind that interview skills are skills like any other, which need to be learned and practiced. Some of us may find them easier to pick up or more enjoyable than others, but very few of us should expect to be good at interviews without preparation. Training, practice, and feedback can help someone figure out their skills and comfort level, and then make informed decisions if and when media inquiries come up.
To add on to Gordon’s good advice for those interested, here is a quick summary of what I’ve learned about the knowledge and skills required for media engagements:
- General understanding of a journalist’s role, an interviewee’s role, and journalistic ethics (what they typically will and will not do; what you can and cannot ask or expect when participating in a story)
- An understanding of the story’s particular angle and where you do or don’t fit
- Researching the piece and the journalist’s credibility in advance, so that you can…
  - evaluate and choose opportunities where your ideas are more likely to be understood or represented accurately versus opportunities where you’re more likely to be misrepresented; and
  - predict the kinds of questions you’re likely to be asked so that you can practice meaningful responses. (Even simple questions like “what is EA?” can be surprisingly hard to answer briefly and well).
- Conveying key ideas in a clear, succinct way so that the most important things you want to say are more likely to be what is reported
  - This includes the tricky business of predicting the ways in which certain ideas might be misunderstood by a variety of audiences and practicing how to convey points in a way that avoids such misunderstandings
- Clearly understanding the scope of your own expertise and only speaking about related issues, while referring questions outside your expertise to others
I think having more community members with media training could be useful, but I also think only some people will find it worth their time to do the significant amount of preparation required.
This feels very timely, because several of us at CEA have recently been working on updating our resources for media engagement. In our Advice for talking with journalists guide, we go into more depth about some of the advice we’ve received. I’d be happy to have people’s feedback on this resource!

sky Jul 18, 2019, 4:13 AM
1 point
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on: There are *a bajillion* jobs working on plant-based foods right now
I really like the broad range of skills presumably required for this list of jobs—seems worth looking into further.

sky

sky’s Quick takes

What to know be­fore talk­ing with jour­nal­ists about EA

What to know before talking with journalists about EA