This is the third in a sequence of posts taken from my recent report: Why Did Environmentalism Become Partisan?
Summary
Rising partisanship did not make environmentalism more popular or politically effective. Instead, it saw flat or falling overall public opinion, fewer major legislative achievements, and fluctuating executive actions.
Public Opinion...
I think right now EAs might be making a significant mistake by paying insufficient attention to the political realm. As EAs we tend to figure out what’s most impactful for us to work on and focus hard. That’s great! But there are various actions that are ‘non-delegatable’ - the extent to which an individual can do the action is limited (like voting, going to a protest, making hard money contributions to particular campaigns). It might be useful if we were all more in the habit of doing variou...
Bentham’s Bulldog recently argued that AI won’t definitely make factory farms obsolete. I agree, but I’d go further and argue that by default AI won’t make factory farms obsolete. However, I think it’s possible (though not guaranteed) that AI could make factory farms a lot more humane.
He throws out an 80% chance of cultivated meat being developed, and a 70% chance of it displacing factory far...
I guess the first question is do you like academia? Or do you like research? The two aren't always the same. Personally, you couldn't get me to do a job in academia if you paid me - which is funny because they barely pay anyone! I love research, I love complex cutting-edge stuff, but I hated hated hated academia. I never thrived there. The corporate environment, however, has been my natural space. It may be the same for you - have you tried different types of organisation? I can tell you from experience that research-centric corporate life is much slower paced and more secure than academia, with the downside of less creative freedom during work hours (until you get to mid level).
Honestly more than anything it sounds like you just maybe need a rest. People think a rest is a career-killer but it absolutely isn't. And even if it was, it'd be much less of one than a burnout is. Maybe take a couple months to decompress - though I understand that financing such a rest is rarely easy.
I do a lot of hiring outside of academia and honestly a lot of your major worries are something I don't even look at in a CV anyway. Don't feel like you'd sabotaged or blown anything because you haven't. Even within Academia, we all have our stuff. You'd be surprised how many well-known academics have had 'wobbles' that aren't public knowledge.
Feel free to inbox me if you need more detailed advice. I'm not US based so unlikely to be useful for specifics, but always happy to hear spitballed ideas :)