All of agent18's Comments + Replies

One of the most amazing posts I have ever read. It took me from a life of eternal guilt to one that is tolerable I think.

Hi Luke, is there a meetup link? or an easy to add link to the calendar?

One thing I miss is if the event is this sunday?

Luke,

Perhaps add the date to this post and advertise the link you have given as a registration to the event. Thanks. :)

P.S. Once registered the calendar link is generated.

Link does not work: www.teachingyouhowtolearn.com

Thanks a lot for your response. I think 80000hours has actually "sort of withdrawn their conclusions" from that post about extra donations and recent hires.

It wouldn’t be surprising if the respondents were simply wrong. Our impression is that most of the answers were given with just a couple of minutes of reflection, and so mainly reflect a gut intuition. There’s not much reason to expect these intuitions to be accurate on average in this kind of domain.---80000hours

Thus I am not sure we should pursue these numbers anymore, from the survey. Your though... (read more)

I recently wrote about post on procrastination related to my EA work here. Feel free to just check out the references at the end.

Hi Aaron,

Sorry about being nit-picky. I had to read the following statement 4-5 times, until I realized that there is a "pause" before the word "drive", and then I understood what you were saying. Maybe you can add a "comma" for other readers like me. Feel free to ignore.

"I'm not sure I've ever seen any piece of content not named "Doing Good Better" drive as much positive engagement as Sam Harris's two podcast episodes with Will MacAskill — especially the second one."

Just also want to point out that I have not subscribed to their mailing lists but was aggressively pursued by ads from CE (or other) and other posts on EA forum which made me aware that I should participate in this.

Please leave a comment after downvoting. :)

The title sounds like a "good idea" for an EA org. Something that is missing. An organization that ranks the cost-effectiveness of different jobs (aka ranking).

Mortals working in California in Data Science or Computer Science can earn 300k in a matter of <4-6 years of experience. Donating 30% of it is 100k$/year "counterfactually" (There are people who donate 50%). (Although I don't agree with the way they derived at this number, and just looking at it as a start point) Starting your charity with Charity entrepreneurship however is estimated to "counterfactually" account for a 100k$ donation/year. GW researcher in the first year is estimated to contribute "counterfactually" 97k$.

A better way would be to per... (read more)

Link to Long term fund: https://app.effectivealtruism.org/far-future doesn't exist. 404 error.

I think that EAs, especially on the EA Forum, are too welcoming to low quality criticism.

can you show one actual example of what exactly you mean?

IRS says here it is 50-60% for public charities: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/tax-exempt-organization-search-deductibility-status-codes

I used 13.3% as state income tax for california.

If you have any suggestions for AGI calculators please let me know.

Thanks for the comment, in an otherwise deserted post. :(

Most EA organizations seem to have a decent amount of runway

How long can RC survive without additional funds? What is your typical runway (in months)?

If there's a big loss of jobs in EA orgs, I'd suspect it to hit around January or February, after organizations take stock after giving season.

Yes, seems highly likely. I will check back around that time.

Thank You very very much.

Hi dpiegrass,

Sorry about your job. I wish you the best of luck in your job search.

this chart shows that unemployment in the U.S. jumped from 3.5% in February to 14.7% in April, and fell steadily to 10.2% in July.

Sounds like a proxy I could use. Thanks for the idea.

What sort of training material did you use to predict and get feedback on (#deliberate practice)

All numbers seem to not be in the same format across the entire post. Here is one example.

Altogether, ES raised 358,869.75 Euro for regranting to effective charities in 2019. The following >table lists the distribution of donations per charity and cause area.

Charity Payout in Euro Payout in % Against Malaria Foundation 27.395,69 € 7,63%

Thanks Khorton. I agree that we should not just look at orgs identifying as EA.

Thanks for the suggestions.

most of the most valuable roles (certainly in my 'field' but I suspect in many others, especially the more applied/concrete) will not be at 'avowedly EA organisations'

do you have an example?

it seems wise to have a career plan which does not rely on securing such a role (or at least have a backup).

Agreed that I should have a backup. But why does it seem unwise? Based on what? Have you looked at the possible impact based on replaceability and displacement chains?

What else is there to do I don't know, other than working in s

I would appreciate an explanation, when you downvote something. Thanks. :)

Thanks for the detailed response and taking the time once again.

You keep suggesting that "you had a feeling" about the impact. What does this mean? I guess it's more than just a feeling like seeing how much money or lives or DALY's what your doing counterfactualy adds.

Thank You for the detailed answer.

In general, I think that everyone’s situation is different and you shouldn’t base
actions on stuff like this too much.

Then, I do not know what else to base my actions on. I also don't understand what you mean by "too much". Do you have an example in mind?

I am trying to look for "similar" (big quotes) people and see how they did it. And copying actions and testing it out seems to be the "better" options I have. It might work, it might not work out in the end to a variety of reasons. But atleast there is one example inst

Well said Peter. I needed this. thanks!

Thanks a ton Sauliu. May I ask you a few more questions:

1. Are there other internships/jobs you got rejected to? (and where in your timeline were those rejects)

2. Can you please tell me more about what all you did in that gap year other than write those two articles to "boost your chances"? Did you take a break from normal FT work during that gap year?

3. So the articles drew the attention to a hirer at RP? Not your connections.

4. How did you get the EA community building internship? Why was it "unrelated"

Thank You StJules. Appreciate it. This is actually great. Thanks for the details. Ultimately it is about getting a job in EA. But Interships also sounds good.

And congratulations on the Internship.

@Peter_Hurford

To look at this in depth, we turn to data from the 2017 and 2018 EA Surveys.

Link doesn't work.

of policy and research ideas to reduce existential risk

This is the link: https://80000hours.org/articles/longtermist-policy-ideas/ that is broken. It doens't look updated. I do not know what is the correct link. It takes me to a Page not found when I click. I am not sure it is fixed.

Hi thank you for this. Very much appreciate the effort. Is it possible to answer these questions?

1. Of the 82, how many people were of the "level" where you would want to hire them? But couldn't due to "lack of funding", "wanting to grow slowly", "don't want to overwhelm the management" (how good was the talent pool)

2. Why are you not able to hire more than 2 people? (Are you low on funding or wanting to grow slowly, don't want to overwhelm the management etc...)

3. Did you get the type of candidates you set out to hire? Or did you have to settle for someone with "lesser experience" than you wanted?

This month, 80,000 Hours put out their list of policy and research ideas to reduce existential risk > from Dr. Toby

Link broken: https://80000hours.org/articles/longtermist-policy-ideas/

Would it be possible to make 2-grams and 3-grams as well. Maybe that provides more insight.

P.S It takes more time to generate it and more ram. It does not scale linearly with the n-grams.

Thanks a lot. :)

Clarification

2. Are the tests and weekly assignments peer "graded"?

3. Ah so I will also be able to start courses in September. This way I could do 2 courses over a semester (6 months). One from June and one from Sept. I think this is what you mean. Correct?

Replies

1. Unable to access the archived course. Takes me to enroll into the latest.

2. So 12-14h/week per course (over 3 months) would be needed. Got it!

3. Ok. I will also try doing 2 for now at the same time.

Hi, I just read their entire FAQ. Can you confirm the following:

1. The course can only be take at specific times: (e.g., Jun or September) and you must follow it for 3 months (like in a regular school but online). And you have no choice but to follow the schedule? I mean you can't finish the course in your own time (say in 6 months time).

2. While auditing you are able to take tests, submit weekly assignments (except the proctored exam), correct?

3. The FAQ says I would need 12-14 hours for the program (does this mean for each course or the whole program (i.

I don't understand the difference between the following in "Notes on leveraging and funging". Is that a typo? They look the same to me.

Comparison 1: Counterfactual world (A): A doesn’t act, B and C act as they would have done if A had not acted.

"B and C act as they would have done if A had not acted."

Comparison 2: Counterfactual world (A): A doesn’t act, B and C act as they did in the actual world.

"B and C act as they did in the actual world"

Found it.

https://ea.greaterwrong.com/posts/fnBnEiwged7y5vQFf/triple-counting-impact-in-ea?hide-nav-bars=true

I don't see Joey's article cited anywhere. Can someone help pointing to that article?

There are many organizations doing research work on different projects, such as GiveWell, OPP, CE, ACE, 80k etc... Why not stand on their shoulders? Instead of doing more research? Or fund researchers specially to work in these organizations (as they already have the way of work sorted)?

I would think this somehow led to or was a "prime factor" in getting an EA job.

Thanks for the wonderful article. I assume many of the claims in the article (e.g., 'actions suggested in getting a degree in EA, helping to get into CE') are based on some hiring round that you did some data analysis on and concluded. Do you have a link to such an analysis? Or is it just based on the 15 people who joined the incubation program the last time? (in which case I would think you wrote from your experience what these 15 people had done to get into CE)

You suggest in "possible actions section" that doing courses like the ones by J-PAL could be

For instance, both an advising programme aimed at undergraduates

Small Clarification: It doesn't seem to look like it is aimed at undergraduates (alone) (as shown below). I acknowledge you didn't say "alone", but it feels like it when I read it.

We now offer career mentoring to recent graduates and students at a variety of university groups... --- EASCM 'About'

Can you please let us now when the latest survey coming out?

P.S

Very much appreciate the effort to give examples for many of your claims. Thanks. For example (in the spirit of the game of conc

May I ask why you think these are good? Do you know anyone who did it and got "ahead" in their career or?

Thanks.

Now I get what you were trying to say, I think. So you are saying you look at the ratio of "percentage of fundraising in latest job ads" vs "percentage of fundraising in current jobs". That sounds like a smart proxy. Really interesting.

Thanks.

TL;DR

I think we might be on the same page.

I think it is worthwhile to note that in your latest article in the abstract you make a few claims such as: "EAs are struggling to fill fundraising and operations roles". But you also think it is important and have dedicated a whole article to a bunch of similar claims on bottleneck, showing why you think there is "weak evidence" and explain what the "weak evidence" is.

If you are saying you will make representative statements but provide the evidence you have for it, then this discussion is moot (rendered unimpor

• In our "spot-check" [note, this is forthcoming research, which will likely be released within a week] of current roles and advertised roles at 27 animal advocacy nonprofits, fundraising was the skillset that was most notably overrepresented in animal advocacy job adverts (appearing to be important in 17% of identified job ads) relative to the number of current roles in the movement (appearing to be important in 10% of current roles);

I find this very hard to understand. My understanding is that 17% of "identified job ads" was related to fundraising. I

Hi Jamie,

Thank You for your comment.

Isn't TC in the movement just the aggregation of TC in relevant orgs and actors?

Yes it seems to be. All I wanted was to avoid a level of abstraction. "AI strategy is TC in DR" vs "FHI is TC in DR". I really feel confused thinking about the former. The later is so concrete. I can test it. I can go in depth in that ONE EXAMPLE. The former is too broad. I find it easier to think in concrete examples.

There's a tradeoff between specificity/concreteness and representatives/unreliability, and for most purposes, the latter

Thank You for acknowledging this post. I very much appreciate your reply.

We've been trying to do a better job communicating our uncertainty in the new key ideas series, for instance by releasing: advice on how to read our advice

I really wish you can put more of your evidence out there instead of sentences that are a summary of the evidence you have. "Another bottleneck to progress on GPR might be operations staff" (GPR Key-ideas). Is it a bottleneck or is it not? I don't know what to make of "might be". In this case if you presented your evid

[TLDR: I don't think that anyone can give you the examples relevant for you.

I don't need examples "relevant to me". I just wanted to know what sort of impact people are making say in Open Phil CE or other EAs considering relevant factors such as replaceability in fields like GR, AI SSP, and management positions. Sorry that was not clear.

I think 80K is actually saying it is better for most people to do direct work (including but not limited to neglected roles at EA orgs) than ETG.

This is a claim what 80khours makes. Do you have ONE example for this c

Very interesting! Can you please cross-post?

I corrected it. Thanks.

Claims that you find to be false? please post evidence as well.

If you find formatting issues please state here: