All of NoteworthyTrain's Comments + Replies

Thank you - yes, it's on my list of things to read soon.

Thank you - I bookmarked this link a while back, and I do have strong reservations about Hickel's approach (at least his epistemics).  That said, I credit the book with making me think more broadly about cause prio / career options.

Thank you for this - very insightful. I posted here not really sure about Hickel's epistemics, so I really appreciate some pushback of his views. (Also: sorry for the late reply. I haven't checked my account here for ages!) Is there any reading you'd suggest?

Sounds great! Thank you very much :)

Thank you for this idea. I should definitely think more about leading a research team.

I really don't mean to say that I'm unenthusiastic about Charity Entrepreneurship; I'm just currently unsure whether it's the very best thing to do. There are a lot of things that would very much appeal to me about CE, so I want to be sure not to jump into it too fast. (I think a lot depends on one's moral position about the importance and tractability of shaping the long-term future, and this is something that I'm planning to spend time reading and thinking about during my time out.) 

Thank you very much for these suggestions.

I'm not convinced charity entrepreneurship is for me, partly because I'm unsure whether it's the most impactful thing I could do, but I think it would be great to get a better understanding of what they are doing.

The idea of volunteering with a newly launched CE charity is a very good one and not something I had thought of. Thank you!

Hello and welcome! What do you think this community would look like? I'm curious :)

It's been great to see and read through this thread. Any thoughts on my own situation would be especially appreciated.

I'm in my final year of PPE at Oxford with a focus on the more technical/quantitative parts of economics. I consider myself quite entrepreneurial and have for some time wanted to do something in that vein - broadly considered, to include e.g. charity entrepreneurship.

After reading a book over the summer that challenged my perspectives, I am considering a broader range of issues and careers than before (brain dump from then here: https://for... (read more)

Thank you! I've been thinking along similar lines, actually, although I'd like to do some more research on the first bullet point. It seems plausible, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's actually true, and it seems very important to have a good idea of whether it's true.

Fascinating. Thanks for this alternative perspective. I certainly need to read more.

I think his point was related to development via protection, etc., that was then loosened somewhat. But not sure.

I agree. I'm concerned about the same, and want to look at both

• some of the evidence for myself; and
• some of what others think, both through my new stack of books on development (from Abhijit & Banerjee to Acemoglu & Robinson to Jeffrey Sachs to Ha-Joon Chang - I'm excited!) and through conversations.

I just haven't been able to do it yet, since I'm in the middle of an internship. That's why I wrote this post with some first thoughts.

This is fair, although I take Richard's point below as well. (I'm not sure about its truth, because I don't know enough about China or Africa.)

I think the point is that there are two points

• Poverty in China has decreased recently
• Poverty in Africa has (arguably) increased recently

(Hickel claims that China's very non-neoliberal policy enriched its people, while African countries' mandated structural adjustments impoverished its people. I don't know enough to say if this is true, but it's another reason Hickel excludes China.)

So much here! Once I've read and thought more, I'll try to give these all a shot. Right now, I don't have answers to most of them.

Thank you!

Yes, I think this is correct. It's worth thinking about what the best path would be - and, although I'm leaning more and more towards a graduate degree in economics, I'm still uncertain and I agree that it wouldn't be necessary for every type of policy work.

As for social entrepreneurship vs structural change, this is difficult because

(a) for-profit social enterprises may be more sustainable because of a lack of reliance on grants that may not materialise;

(b) policy change is much harder to achieve (perhaps) than even a successful social enterprise.

Very interesting! I will let you know. I definitely want to spend some time just looking at the data for myself, and will let you know when I come to some (tentative) conclusions.

Thank you! Lots of food for thought - need to get back to my internship, but I look forward to thinking and reading more about the things you mention.

Thank you so much for this! It's a very interesting perspective, and you sound like exactly the sort of person I would love to talk to about my next steps!

'Reading through your summary of Hickel's points, my immediate reaction was that he is pushing his agenda pretty hard. As others have outlined, both relative and absolute poverty have decreased as a % of the population. Of course the growth of population has outpaced the decrease in poverty, but that's a little dishonest to show only this side of the picture.'

• Yes, I thought this

I'm aware of these, but thanks for reminding me :)

Only vaguely, but it's an interesting idea. I wonder how I'd do this and what the likely impact would be, particularly as compared to being more directly involved in policy myself.

Fascinating! Thanks for this. I tried to point out your 4th bullet point and I'm definitely a little sceptical, since Hickel's book is clearly a polemic with an agenda, but I think it's a valuable contribution (like you say).

That said, the 'this article by Hickel' link isn't working for me.

Thanks, Aidan! I enjoyed Hauke's talk on this topic at EAGx. Thanks for reminding me to check out the post :)

Thank you, Max! I appreciate the links to more reading on the debate :)

This is a very important topic and I'd like to learn more about it. Hopefully, I'll get to hear you discuss it at the Unconference.