I am majoring in Social Data Analytics and Research at UTDallas and looking for opportunities in the social sector. I have previously worked as a Data Analyst at a botique consulting firm for ~2.7 years.
If you are considering reading something I have written on this forum, please see: Interpreting the Systemistas-Randomistas debate on development strategy
I got into the EA van thanks to 80k hours. And I got into the 80k hours van when I saw it on HackerNews. And I got into the HackerNews van since CGP Grey mentioned it on the Hello Internet podcast. And I got into Hello Internet (the first podcast I ever listened to) because my family was finally willing to get an internet connection. And my family was able to get an internet connection because of rising internet penetration in India.
So, pop quiz - is increasing internet penetration a good intervention for EA community building? Feel free to DM me your answer and say hi to me! :-)
Point me to opportunities for a Data Analyst to work in the social sector
Ah! That makes sense.
I agree that the EA thing to do would be to work on and explore cause areas by oneself instead of just blindly relying on 80k hours cause areas or something like that.
If someone said "I am not going to wear masks because I am not going to defer to expert opinions on epidemiology of COVID19" how would someone taking the advice of this article respond to that?
Overall, being a noob, I found the language in this article difficult to read. So, I am giving you a specific scenario that many people can relate to and then trying to learn what you are saying from that.
I am pretty sure this is not worthy of a full cross post, but I think a shortform could be tolerable.
I wrote a piece about Economic Complexity. I have seen a few posts on the forum (Like 1 and 2) about Complexity Science and I appreciate the healthy skepticism people have of it. If you are also such an appreciator, you might like my piece.
I attended EAGx Berkeley event on Dec 2, 2022. Previously I had engaged with EA by participating & later facilitating in Intro to EA Virtual programs, writing on this forum and attending the US Policy careers speaker series. All these previous engagements were virtual. This was the first time I was in a room full of EAs! I want to thank the organizers for giving me a travel grant for this event. It would have been impossible for me to attend this event without it.
It was a net positive experience for me. I had 4 goals in mind. 3 of them went much better than expected and 1 of them didn't go as well. I explain my goals and how they went below. They are listed in priority:
Other thoughts:
Thanks a lot for making this! I just started research on something Econ growth adjacent and this reading list could come in handy. So I really appreciate it.
I do not think its about discount rates. I was recently corrected on this point here. It looks like conservatives and moderates thinking closer to the present have other better reasons like population axiologies or tractability concerns or something along those lines.
There is ambiguity in the terminology here. So here is how I visualize it with my own terminology. Its not a Venn diagram but this is how I see it.
I thoroughly enjoyed this! The tone of the writing matched perfectly with the idea that is being conveyed.
If I may add a category:
Recently Less wrong has created this feature. C'mon EA Forum!
Really liked this one -brief and to the point! Here is my attempt to condense it further presuming I understood the author properly and also understood the ITN framework properly (correct me if I'm wrong about either!) :
Say I subscribed to the ITN (Importance, Tractability, Neglectedness) framework before I started my work on cause area X and wrote down my scores for I, T and N. When I look at an example of someone failing and giving up (like the one OP mentions in the post), my first instinct would be to do 2 things:
If I understood it correctly, this post argues that 2 should be modified: Modified 2. Maintain the T score I had given earlier, since the devil is in the details and the details of my solve are different from the failed solve I am looking at.
So, I still update my neglectedness (a small update) but maintain my tractability score (no update). Overall, not an "over-update".