Lastweek tonight

Last week we saw 80k-org suggesting that Earning-to-give might be a good option but we should first consider contributing directly, by working in an effective NGO, doing research, or working for the government, as the sectors are talent-constrained rather than money-constrained. Followed by how to get in…

As our priorities line up with the research done by 80k-org, we consider with this post what is needed and if it is possible for us to contribute directly. We form a prelimnary analysis as suggested by 80k-org.

Applying to your own career

80k-org suggests the following to deal with each global problem listed in their website:

For each problem, list out some specific career options you could take that would help the problem. You can get ideas in our profiles, as well as further reading on each area. Also remember you can contribute to any problem area through donations and advocacy, even if it’s not the focus of your day job. -advice of 80k-world-problems

So for lack of any better way to reduce the list of global problems, I took the 80k-org survey that allows us to prioritize the issues according to your current knowledge.

Out of this came,

  • Global priorities research
  • Health in under-developed countries
  • AI

This is a short list of where I could work, considering my current knowedge that I fed into the system. I looked at each one of them and this is what they need.

Global priorities research

Global priorities research is about figuring out which global problem has higher priority.

For example, if a foundation wants to improve others’ lives as much as possible, should it focus on immigration policy, international development, scientific research or something else? Or if the government of India wants to spur economic development, should it focus on improving education, healthcare, microeconomic reform, or something else?

Most needed are researchers, and in particular:

Researchers trained in economics, mathematics, or philosophy to develop the methodology for setting global priorities. Researchers trained in social and natural sciences with the ability to collect data and analyse specific global problems. and people who can do research and manegirial works.

The idea with other complimentary positions, is to be of real high impact by helping other researchers and the research group to keep focus and prioritize what is important. You could also do research and publish as a result.

But, I don’t have an economics degree/math/philosophy. In fact economics is something that I have never done. Managing I guess I have done in parts. I have never really done it though, other than organising events and some leadership roles here and there. I am NOT a natural leader, I don’t always lead, it depends on the ‘status’ at a location. If people are indecisive, I can tell them what to do.

Earning-to-give is an option here, but is not really the bottleneck.

If you want to work in this area as a researcher, you’ll need training in the relevant disciplines.

If you are an undergraduate, you can major in, or take classes in mathematics, economics, statistics, or analytic philosophy. If you are out of university, you can take online classes in these subjects, for example this introduction to microeconomics.

This seems like a good option to at least grasp something about economics, to see how it is, to get a feel etc…

In general, the best graduate subject is an Economics PhD. Other useful subjects include statistics, applied maths and public policy.

Economics Phd, seems out of question for now, because, even if I do courses, why would any one give me a phd. If this is what I really need to do, I should at least jump careers I guess, work for a year or 2 and with that experience apply for a masters/phd and go to the US. Hopefully, with the option of either working to make money and later getting into places where I am most needed. But looking at the long term it might be worth it. As the industry is talent constrained. If I am able to position myself in good place, then I could create large impact.

Summary

Excluding Earning-to-give for now, it appears that this problem needs economists, mathematicians or philosophers. More preferred are Phd’s in Economics. However, for me to contribute it seems quite a stretch. Of course I am young and could take an introduction to microeconomics course and see what it is all about. Although, I am not confident anyone is interested in giving a masters in engineering a phd in Economics, even if I really wanted. However when push comes to shove, I guess I can figure out something. An economics degree has much more advantages than just working in the NGO’s. If shit hits the roof one could also fall back on other options like working for a proper paying job in a for-profit organization.

Example career path

  • Do online course, try to get a job for a year and try to apply for phd or masters economics/statistics/mathematics. And go on from there,

if you get through, you have a high chance of landing a good research job in academia or policy – promising areas for social impact – and you have back-up options in the corporate sector since the skills you learn are in-demand (unlike many PhD programs). You should especially consider an economics PhD if you want to go into research roles, are good at math (i.e. quant GRE score above 165) and have a proven interest in economics research.

I didn’t have 165 but I had 157 or something. I am sure I can train it. I am sure I am jumping to conclusions and that I can find my motivation just as 80k hrs says, “People grow to like other things as well”.

ToDo: profile on different careers. I want to start there.

P.S

My friends (32 years old) younger brother who did his economics masters in holland, is earning in hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Health in poor countries

Every year around ten million people in poorer countries die of illnesses that can be very cheaply prevented or managed, including malaria, HIV, tuberculosis and diarrhoea. Tens of millions more suffer from persistent undernutrition or parasitic diseases that cause them to be less mentally and physically capable than they otherwise would be.

Options for working on the problem include serving as a donor to effective projects, working as an economist in intergovernmental organizations such as the World Bank or World Health Organization, or starting or working in a non-profit that scales up proven treatments.

Wow, is economics king? Everywhere they seem to need economists. I could be that economist. No points for guessing that somehow an economics phd will help!

What skill sets and resources are most needed? The ability to fundraise large sums, or move money within bureaucracies to better projects. People with on-the-ground logistical skills in international development (i.e. the kind of person who could get 100,000 malaria nets distributed in Africa). Entrepreneurs (mostly in non-profits but also sometimes for-profits) who could found one of these charities. Development economists and cost-effectiveness researchers, including economists, statisticians and disease control experts. Money to fund GiveWell recommended charities. We think that people capable of starting outstanding projects in this area are likely to be able to attract the necessary funding, making the area mostly talent constrained.

Career paths

  • Plan a career around founding a new global health non-profit
  • Researcher at Give well
  • Fundraising large sums of money or move money within bureaucracies to better projects
  • Development economists and cost-effectiveness researchers, including economists, statisticians and disease control experts.
  • Grantmaker at Bill and melinda gates foundation
  • biomedical researcher

Of course donating is an option, but it needs to be evaluated what could be my contribution. For example, maybe I can hire two econometricians to work on this topic for me. How about that! Just like Global priorities research, money is not the bottleneck here, if there is an option to do other work with greater impact then that should be priority.

Artificail intelligence

Looking at this video it definitely puts the fear of AI into everybody. The arguments made are strong. A gist is that AI has all the necessary ingredients to become the next industrial revolution. As in, the growth would be super quick, once stable AI is made that can think for itself. The issue lies in understanding what should be the morals of an AI. ‘Cause the AI can quickly become too powerful as it has an almost infinite memory and it can possibly not be controlled. When wielded right it could solve a great deal of problems.

The jist is that one could work on

  • Technical research, that is quite talent constrained
  • Strategy and policy research
  • Complementary roles –> Academic Project manager
  • Advocacy and capacity building –> Research management

Looking at this the picture I get is that I can’t really work for AI in say tech research as I have no programming background what so ever. I am not sure its a personal fit. I can probably work in a managerial role, a role that brings huge funding and the like. Econometricians don’t seem to have a role here, but policy makers and the like are needed.

Earning to give is an option. There seems to be a surplus with big institutions that would typically get academic funding, but there is hardly any with orgs like MIRI. Donating to them is still an option.

Summary of what I could do for each problem

Overall it appears to me that there are two types of work, you can do. One is to earn-to-give. And the other is everything else. Everything else involves things like, doing techinical research or other research (like GiveWell), supporting NGO’s as an economist, founding charities and working on other complimentary roles in NGO’s that create high impact.

80k-org suggests to try to contribute directly before considering Giving-what-we-can. Right now giving-what-we-can seems to be the quickest thing I can do. By that I mean that I can already do it. If the above roles listed in each of the profiles are important and the need of the hour, then I better start looking at each of them and see which one will suit me and in which I will have the biggest chance of success. Something like chance of success multiplies by impact should allow me to decide what I should work on.

I will continue reading 80k-org website and move on to the other important things like Career-Capital. It seems wise to develop skills and work in managing institutions that are responsible for large impact. Also to consider in that case would be jumping career and my current capital being earned.

It is also important that…

Just as we saw with choosing a problem, this means the most effective approach for you will be something you enjoy, that motivates you, and is a good fit for your skills. We sometimes come across people tempted to do a job they’d hate in order to have more impact. That’s likely a bad idea, since they’ll just burn out. Their example could also discourage others from doing good.

Approaches to EA

There are four approaches to EA.

  • Earning to give
  • advocacy
  • research
  • direct working

Earning to give

A well known way, wherein you donate a part of your salary. I have talked about this in earlier posts.

ToDo: Understand which job allows you to give the most, and what is feasible for me from my current scenario.

Advocacy

Sort of like preaching or spreading the word, is advocacy.

In fact, there’s reason to think that advocacy is typically better than earning to give. One reason for this is that everyone wants more money so there’s a lot of competition, which places a limit on how much you can easily earn (and subsequently donate). There’s a lot less competition to spread good ideas, for the reasons we just discussed. So we expect that it would be possible for many people to influence more money than they could donate.

Taking a stable job and doing advocacy part time can be effective because you don’t need to worry about funding your advocacy, which helps you to stay independent and take bigger risks. You’ll also be seen as more impartial.

Finally, you’ll be in a better position to advocate for attention to pressing problems if you’re successful in your field, because you’ll be more credible and make more influential connections. So sometimes the best path for advocacy is just to enter the field where you have the greatest chances of success.

Not sure how much I am suited for this or will be in the future. It’s one of the things I don’t want to do, having met people in general and the real low probability for me to convert people. I tried it in my days just after de-converting from religion. The point is no one seems to respond to logic. If that is the case then, I can barely do any good. I have tried speaking to quite some people, and people are hell bent in their own ways and don’t respond to logic or give you shit logic in return.

I see myself pushing many people I know in the near future, pushing people to atleast do 1 or 2%. 10% is a huge stretch for these people. It’s as though I almost speak about “these people” in contempt. Maybe, when I see people(including me) talking about useless things as though life depended only on this, and forgetting a whole world just on the other side that is burning.

Research

If you might be a top 10% researcher in a pressing problem area, then it’s likely to be the highest impact path for you.

You can probably get there. People are at their peaks in their 40’s. Everything takes time and it is possible to gain interest in new activities or fields. But then it comes down to personal fit. I liked the status quo of being a researcher. If not given the weight of “having to run for another 5 years on the same thing”, I wouldn’t mind doing it. Although I got a mere 7.5/10, it is not representative of my hardwork, amount of work done in short span given the guidance I had, or the actual work done in the project. I think I could do it, but 80k-org is not talking about doing a phd in some seemingly useless topic in mechanical engineering.

A research job in a pressing problem area? like working as a researcher for GiveWell, could very well be an option. I am a hardworker, and I will put all the energy necessary to learn at the job. I could also gain enough career capital and then jump to NGO’s. In order to do this, jumping into what a GiveWell profile expects would be a good start.

In some essence it is problem solving, gathering data and making sense out of it, and explaining to an audience without biases. It is in a small way what I do now at work. I look at what data I need, look for it, compile all the info I have to make an informed choice. DS of some sorts.

Seems promising, will add it to the job profiles I plan to do for next week.

Also one could work in supporting roles such as academic admin.

If you’re interested in these positions, the best path is usually to pursue a PhD, pick a field, then apply to research groups.

Doesn’t sound like something I would be interested in, but I would need to look into it as well as part of the job profiles I plan to write about next week.

Direct working

Starting a charity that focuses on neglected (hence high impact) areas (ex: sms for vaccinations in India after 6 months of research) is one example. Anything you do that impacts the problem area directly is Direct working I guess.

Finally, direct work can be for-profit as well as non-profit. For instance, Send Wave enables African migrant workers to transfer money to their families through a mobile app for fees of 3%, rather than 10% fees with Western Union. So for every $1 of revenue they make, they make some of the poorest people in the world several dollars richer. They’ve already had an impact equivalent to donating millions of dollars, and they’re growing quickly. The total size of the market is hundreds of billions of dollars, and several times larger than all aid spending. If they can slightly accelerate the roll out of cheaper ways to transfer money, it’ll have a big impact.

One mistake people make is trying to work out which organizations are needed from their armchair, or by choosing an issue that they’ve happened to come across in their own lives. Instead, go and learn about big, neglected social problems. Take a job in the area, do further study and speak to lots of people working on the problem, to find out what the world really needs. You need to get near the edge of an area before you’ll spot the ideas others haven’t, and have the connections you’ll need to execute.

Planning already to do something specific and gaining skills is one way, but things can change in time. I keep thinking I should focus on career capital, instead of focusing on choosing what I should exactly do right away.

TBC in another post