Over the last year, I've written six posts about mistakes in the effective altruism community. I thought it would be helpful to collect them all here:
- Focus more on talent gaps, less on funding gaps
- Don't assume diminishing returns for small charities
- We need to use different rules of thumb to coordinate with the community
- Safe credentials are not always the best way to get career capital
- Working at effective altruist organisations is good for career capital
- Lots of people are analysing replaceability incorrectly
- Why effective altruism is totally wrong
- Probably more people should be aiming to do direct work. In particular, at startups and in less explored cause areas.
- Probably fewer people should be aiming to earn to give.
- When donating, we should be doing more to quickly fund startups.
When considering the career capital of an EA organization, it's probably best to take outside view. Imagine working for a small nonprofit outside EA - what does long-term career capital look like? It can be good or bad, depending on what you want for the long term. Remember, outsiders don't necessarily think that "effective altruism has stumbled across a group of neglected but highly important ideas."
I agree - I cover some of the arguments against working at EA orgs in the article. My point was just that the benefits seem neglected, so they're better than people normally think.