I didn't make any prediction beforehand so take this with a grain of salt, but it didn't sound too surprising to me? I feel like when pitching EA during uni freshers fair roughly 1 in 4 people I talk to are sympathetic enough to want to sign up to mailing list and similar. So 17.6% doesn't sound too far off from that vague estimate
Yeah I agree a lot with this point about titles. I'm pretty hesitant to go into community building because it seems like it would be seen as a neutral or negative thing on the cv for most other roles. Maybe if you want to work in event organizing or something it would be seen as a plus but I feel like most other sectors and jobs would view it as worse than most other roles I could get. If we could figure out how to make the role more legible (with better job titles and so on) that could go a long way to make it a better career prospect. Even if we make the role more prestigious within EA that still means that community builders cut themselves off from most of the job market, which seems like something that will scare off a lot of potential community builders.
I'm not sure I've ever heard churn in a positive context, but I agree that economists believe that it's good that people change job roles a decent amount. Though I think they see a big difference between role changes and leaving an industry entirely. If people quit their jobs because they get advance and get a better job in the sector that's great. If they leave the sector because they don't see a future in it that's a very bad sign for the sector.
Yeah I might be missing some important considerations here but if community organizers leave the role because being a contractor is unstable and hard to get a mortgage with then it seems like a good idea to give them the option to instead be hired as employees of a new or existing organization.
Teaching kids how to solve the Tower of Hanoi? The game that is said to end the world when one such puzzle is finished?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi#Origins
Even if we only put a tiny probability of those stories being true the outcome is bad enough that we should avoid it at all costs! We should instead be teaching people to always solve Tower of Hanoi's incorrectly. The cost of failing some technical interview is worth it to not risk ending the world!
I personally have had the strongest and most useful connections to EA people in my city, mainly via social events and book clubs. And I feel like the connections last best when there's a mix between somewhat high effort events (such as a discussion group) and social interaction (ideally in person but also over chats and so on). So maybe you could get the best of both worlds by setting up some way for people to be social with each other after events. Maybe encourage people attending an event to join a slack or discord channel(or thread/chat) where they can talk to each other after the event and join other threads or channels if/when the one for the event dies off.
Good to hear what you're up to, seems like a very promising project to me! A few questions about WELLBY though
1) How do you envision WELLBY interacting with the SWB community? Is the long term plan that this will remain a metric developed by you or is the long term plan for this to be a more independent measurement that for SWB researchers use and improve upon without any involvement from you
2) Do you see it being a long term "competitor" to other metrics such as QALYs and DALYs as they are used in global health today, or do you imagine it being something that only organizations in EA or perhaps mental health use in the foreseeable future?
3) how does "Well-being-adjusted life years" get shortened into "WELLBY" rather than "WALY", "WBALY" or at least "WELLBALY"??? :( Did you consider the negative effects on the reader's WELLBY caused by the confusion about how that abbreviation works? :'(
I think this is a pretty common challenge in charity in general. In 2019 I had a panel discussion with some very senior people within global health, and one of the topics was making long term and potentially speculative investments in health, such as pandemic preparedness. One of them responded that investments were really important but that we have to "Invest in the things that are killing them today, not just what might kill them some day". I interpret that as saying it was very important to make these longer term investments, but that it also is very hard to justify both to yourself and to the affected people that you have to ignore their suffering in order to alleviate some potential suffering in the future.
So I think this challenge is something that most people in charity struggle with to varying degrees. Going for the direct help is often the more appealing solution, and it is the correct move in many situations. But as covid-19 unfortunately showed us, it's often better to take the less motivating long term perspective.
I didn't make any prediction beforehand so take this with a grain of salt, but it didn't sound too surprising to me? I feel like when pitching EA during uni freshers fair roughly 1 in 4 people I talk to are sympathetic enough to want to sign up to mailing list and similar. So 17.6% doesn't sound too far off from that vague estimate
Yeah I agree a lot with this point about titles. I'm pretty hesitant to go into community building because it seems like it would be seen as a neutral or negative thing on the cv for most other roles. Maybe if you want to work in event organizing or something it would be seen as a plus but I feel like most other sectors and jobs would view it as worse than most other roles I could get. If we could figure out how to make the role more legible (with better job titles and so on) that could go a long way to make it a better career prospect. Even if we make the role more prestigious within EA that still means that community builders cut themselves off from most of the job market, which seems like something that will scare off a lot of potential community builders.
I'm not sure I've ever heard churn in a positive context, but I agree that economists believe that it's good that people change job roles a decent amount. Though I think they see a big difference between role changes and leaving an industry entirely. If people quit their jobs because they get advance and get a better job in the sector that's great. If they leave the sector because they don't see a future in it that's a very bad sign for the sector.
Yeah I might be missing some important considerations here but if community organizers leave the role because being a contractor is unstable and hard to get a mortgage with then it seems like a good idea to give them the option to instead be hired as employees of a new or existing organization.
I can't believe how irresponsible this post is!!
Teaching kids how to solve the Tower of Hanoi? The game that is said to end the world when one such puzzle is finished?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Hanoi#Origins
Even if we only put a tiny probability of those stories being true the outcome is bad enough that we should avoid it at all costs! We should instead be teaching people to always solve Tower of Hanoi's incorrectly. The cost of failing some technical interview is worth it to not risk ending the world!
I personally have had the strongest and most useful connections to EA people in my city, mainly via social events and book clubs. And I feel like the connections last best when there's a mix between somewhat high effort events (such as a discussion group) and social interaction (ideally in person but also over chats and so on). So maybe you could get the best of both worlds by setting up some way for people to be social with each other after events. Maybe encourage people attending an event to join a slack or discord channel(or thread/chat) where they can talk to each other after the event and join other threads or channels if/when the one for the event dies off.
Good to hear what you're up to, seems like a very promising project to me! A few questions about WELLBY though
1) How do you envision WELLBY interacting with the SWB community? Is the long term plan that this will remain a metric developed by you or is the long term plan for this to be a more independent measurement that for SWB researchers use and improve upon without any involvement from you
2) Do you see it being a long term "competitor" to other metrics such as QALYs and DALYs as they are used in global health today, or do you imagine it being something that only organizations in EA or perhaps mental health use in the foreseeable future?
3) how does "Well-being-adjusted life years" get shortened into "WELLBY" rather than "WALY", "WBALY" or at least "WELLBALY"??? :( Did you consider the negative effects on the reader's WELLBY caused by the confusion about how that abbreviation works? :'(
I think this is a pretty common challenge in charity in general. In 2019 I had a panel discussion with some very senior people within global health, and one of the topics was making long term and potentially speculative investments in health, such as pandemic preparedness. One of them responded that investments were really important but that we have to "Invest in the things that are killing them today, not just what might kill them some day". I interpret that as saying it was very important to make these longer term investments, but that it also is very hard to justify both to yourself and to the affected people that you have to ignore their suffering in order to alleviate some potential suffering in the future.
So I think this challenge is something that most people in charity struggle with to varying degrees. Going for the direct help is often the more appealing solution, and it is the correct move in many situations. But as covid-19 unfortunately showed us, it's often better to take the less motivating long term perspective.