I’ve linked a template at the end with questions I’d find helpful for channeling my short-term motivation into action - maybe you’d find them helpful too!
I agree with most of what you wrote here, but think that the pledge, as a specific high resolution effort, is not helpful.
This is quite possible, but that's why we will have M&E and are committing bounded amounts of time to this project. - Although neither of these are much help if there's a distinct externality/direct harm to the wider community
Would you be able to explain why you think so? I can see you've linked to a post but it would take me >15 minutes to read and I think that would be a bad use of my time
I also think that looking at the outcomes for those who made pledges and stuck around is selecting on the outcome variable; the damage that high expectations have may be on-net worthwhile, but it would be unreasonable to come to that conclusion on the basis of talking to who stuck around.
I think my suggestion for randomised outreach and follow-up here would largely control for this
starting from community dynamics that seem to dismiss anyone not doing direct work as insufficiently EA
This seems like very unfortunate zero-sum framing to me. Speaking personally, I've taken the 10% pledge, been heavily involved in Giveffektivt.dk, pushed for GWWC to have (the first) pledge table at EAGxNordics '24, and excited to support 10% pledge communities.
When I work on expanding the 10% pledge community, that does not mean I am disparaging using one's career to do good, and vice versa.
commitment by young adults into pledges to continue that level of dedication for their entire careers
I am curious if you are see the adverse effect playing out on harm to the individual or opportunity cost as a result of harm to the individual?
Fx, I took the pledge in 2020 (iirc), and have (deliberately) earned very little working as a community builder - to such an extent that I haven't saved a sufficient runaway. This has lead to decent amounts of stress over several years.
It's pretty clear to me that the stress caused was "worth it", in terms of the amount of good that money could do if given to mosquito nets.
However, I think the larger consideration is opportunity cost, as a result of me being less productive.
But does that mean I think the pledge, or the drowning child thought experiment ect. have been net negative (assuming their affects were isolated to only me)?. No, I think that's too little resolution. I think they've been net-positive, it's just that we haven't fine-tuned our community yet.
What would this finetuning look like? I am unsure, but I think it would look like a lot of support to plan your career and look for opportunities, but also strong cultural norms for living active fulfilling lives.
I think a lot of the purported solutions to reducing burnout (and associated adverse affects) are low-resolution and facile, fx earning huge salaries.
I'd think a better way to get feedback is to ask "What do you think of this pledge wording?" rather than encourage people to take a lifelong pledge before it's gotten much external feedback.
The idea of an Minimal Viable Product is you're unsure what part of your product provides value and what parts are sticking points. After you release the MVP the sticking points are much clearer, and you have a much better idea on where to focus your limited time and money.
Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate it and agree that maximize it a pretty strong world. Just to clarify the crux here, would you say that this project doesn't make sense over-all or would you say that the text of the pledge be changed to something more manageable?
This is such a great question. We considered a very limited pool of ideas, for a very limited amount of time. I think the closest competitor was Career for Good.
The thinking being, that we can always get something up, test if there's actually interest in this, before actually spending significant resources into the branding side of things.
One con of the current name is that it could elicit some reactions
I agree that seems to being played out here! This could pose a good reason to change the name
It might be largely down to whether someone interprets better as "better than I might otherwise do" or "better than others' careers"
In case there was any doubt, we didn't intend to say "Better than others". The fact that Bettercareers.com was taken was seen by myself as a positive update
Thanks for the feedback Neel! Obviously as noted above, we released this quickly (after <12 hours of work) to get feedback exactly like this. We will focus on rewording the pledge statement to try to reduce or, if we're especially lucky, nullify the concerns you've raised here.
This is awesome, great job!
This is quite possible, but that's why we will have M&E and are committing bounded amounts of time to this project. - Although neither of these are much help if there's a distinct externality/direct harm to the wider community
Would you be able to explain why you think so? I can see you've linked to a post but it would take me >15 minutes to read and I think that would be a bad use of my time
I think my suggestion for randomised outreach and follow-up here would largely control for this
This seems like very unfortunate zero-sum framing to me. Speaking personally, I've taken the 10% pledge, been heavily involved in Giveffektivt.dk, pushed for GWWC to have (the first) pledge table at EAGxNordics '24, and excited to support 10% pledge communities.
When I work on expanding the 10% pledge community, that does not mean I am disparaging using one's career to do good, and vice versa.
I am curious if you are see the adverse effect playing out on harm to the individual or opportunity cost as a result of harm to the individual?
Fx, I took the pledge in 2020 (iirc), and have (deliberately) earned very little working as a community builder - to such an extent that I haven't saved a sufficient runaway. This has lead to decent amounts of stress over several years.
It's pretty clear to me that the stress caused was "worth it", in terms of the amount of good that money could do if given to mosquito nets.
However, I think the larger consideration is opportunity cost, as a result of me being less productive.
But does that mean I think the pledge, or the drowning child thought experiment ect. have been net negative (assuming their affects were isolated to only me)?. No, I think that's too little resolution. I think they've been net-positive, it's just that we haven't fine-tuned our community yet.
What would this finetuning look like? I am unsure, but I think it would look like a lot of support to plan your career and look for opportunities, but also strong cultural norms for living active fulfilling lives.
I think a lot of the purported solutions to reducing burnout (and associated adverse affects) are low-resolution and facile, fx earning huge salaries.
The idea of an Minimal Viable Product is you're unsure what part of your product provides value and what parts are sticking points. After you release the MVP the sticking points are much clearer, and you have a much better idea on where to focus your limited time and money.
Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate it and agree that maximize it a pretty strong world. Just to clarify the crux here, would you say that this project doesn't make sense over-all or would you say that the text of the pledge be changed to something more manageable?
Thanks for flagging this Arepo, I will reach out to them!
Thanks for flagging this! I didn't know this was the was the case - I will reach out to them
This is such a great question. We considered a very limited pool of ideas, for a very limited amount of time. I think the closest competitor was Career for Good.
The thinking being, that we can always get something up, test if there's actually interest in this, before actually spending significant resources into the branding side of things.
I agree that seems to being played out here! This could pose a good reason to change the name
In case there was any doubt, we didn't intend to say "Better than others". The fact that Bettercareers.com was taken was seen by myself as a positive update
Thanks for flagging this Pablo! I added it to the post after I read your comment
Thanks for the feedback Neel! Obviously as noted above, we released this quickly (after <12 hours of work) to get feedback exactly like this. We will focus on rewording the pledge statement to try to reduce or, if we're especially lucky, nullify the concerns you've raised here.