Let's say you're right, and biosecurity is close to impossible to control and is almost certainly going to destroy us all. Doesn't that just make it even more urgent to work on it?

Hello! I have a question! Let's say you could have as much money as you wanted to spend, how much do you think you could spend effectively?

I like your document, and I've saved it in my Google keep for future reference. So thanks!

I'm a not-newcomer who's considering how to relay the takeaways from this post to my local EA group. I didn't get condescendingness that you did, but I'm gonna take that into account now. So thanks!

Agreed! Commenting to make my strong upvote even stronger

I don't think that the first premise is necessarily correct

I'm not sure that the 'bad signs' are always signs you should leave. For example the first one:

"I'm not good enough to contribute"

I personally have always thought I'm not good enough at whatever I'm trying to accomplish, and I doubt that'll ever stop completely. Sometimes I'm proven wrong in that belief, sometimes not. So even though I catch myself thinking that I don't think this is a sign I should leave the movement :)

This isn't what you intended by posting this, but I think it's useful to say it anyways.

You sound discouraged in the same way that I used to be before I was involved in the EA community. It can be pretty hard to see where you fit in by looking at the forum and 80k. Getting help to plan my career and getting involved in the community really changed all of that for me by giving me direction and peers to relate to.

Here's some things I really really encourage you to do, that I think will be helpful:

• Go to an EA conference. Doesn't matter if it's EAG or EAGx, just go and talk to as many people as you can. If you don't have the money to travel, ask for monetary support. If youre unsure if you're "EA enough" to go, apply and let the conference holders decide for you.

• Get some help making a rough career plan or steps to get enough knowledge to make that plan. EA knowledge is a lot to take in. My country's EA group had people who were willing to learn about me and help me figure out what my options were. It really helped me find clarity in what I already could plan/decide, and what I needed to gather more information about.

Sorry that this is a bit of a mess, but I hope that its at least somewhat helpful

In Norway there's a local group for a county/state that doesn't really have a large university. That group has a bunch of farmers and tradespeople in it :)

Kind of off topic, but I want to throw it out there anyways. If Engaged Buddhism is a social movement that

1. has an opinion on what the best way to do good is
2. is actually doing something in practice Then we (EA and EB) should probably be talking. There might be valuable things we can learn from eachother