This is more of a note for myself that I felt might resonate/help some other folks here...

For Better Thinking, Consider Doing Less

I am, like I believe many EAs are, a kind of obsessive, A-type, "high-achieving" person with 27 projects and 18 lines of thought on the go. My default position is usually "work very very hard to solve the problem."

And yet, some of my best, clearest thinking consistently comes when I back off and allow my brain far more space and downtime than feels comfortable, and I am yet again being reminded of that over the past couple of (deliberately quieter) weeks.

So, yeah, just a thought, but if you're feeling like you're banging your head up against a problem, maybe (counter-intuitively) consider doing way less to solve it for a while

I think that because so many of us here are so immersed/involved in AI safety discussions, it's easy to forget that most people really aren't (at least not to anything close to the same depth)

And I definitely agree with your overall emphasis towards political action.

For me though, I might put the title as "we're not getting through (quickly enough)" because I do think there are some notable examples of politicians getting far more switched on to this stuff.

I really like this as a format; accessible, action/output oriented. I hope you get a good uptake and some strong ideas

I think, realistically, EA hasn't bottlenecked by talent for a long time - at least not in a raw numbers sense

My thoughts, linked to what Conor said, are that many orgs (even with funds) don't hire more because they aren't confident in their ability to manage them or scale internal functions quickly, which is a downstream issue of some epistemic issues in EA hiring.

In essence, the types of people EA orgs say they need (experienced managers, senior leaders etc) struggle to get into EA roles because many EA orgs place disproportionate weight upon EA (or cause specific) credentials over non EA experience - to the extent that candidates with a couple years in EA type roles can end up outcompeting people with a good deal more experience in higher responsibility non-EA positions.

Projects like HIP are doing their very best to address this, but the issue at its core (at least to me) seems to stem from the thinking around hiring.

*Seems I'm being down voted on this one, my thoughts are drawn from a lot of convos with mid career folks from HIP, but I'm open to counterarguments and alternative explanations