Intro & overview

This is a brief overview of an "Introduction to 80,000 Hours" workshop written by fellow LessWronger Bae's Theorem. It's to the point - a set of slides & an outline going over 80k hours' key points and core advice, then helping attendees apply it first to an outside party, then to themselves.

You can find the 15-slide presentation here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1raV5fr7HryQ-3tEskHgfemje2SlSgtLCESo-mqZ2nVo/edit#slide=id.p

The (revised) article that Bae's Theorem based the content off of can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1clHJQaoAt9YaguMZFH6gkDSPTsolEylME92X2dBnaWk/edit This document also includes the 1-page handout he used in the workshop for easy reference during the activities.

General content outline:

Introduction to 80,000 Hours as an organization
A summary of 80k Hours' claims
The 80k Hours' career decision process

Checking personal fit
Career exploration
Mitigating accidental harm
Building career capital
Taking care of yourself and your mental health
Coordinating with others & communities
Taking measured risks

Options to make a difference in any career
Additional resources
ACTIVITY: Mock career advising interview with an impact-minded college student (done to give practice thinking in EA mindset without touching personal identity)
BREAKOUT: Split into groups of 2-3 and take 6 minutes to think of possible short-term and long-term actions each can take to improve the impact of their career. Discuss with the group.

Other notes

After the workshop, we had a brief discussion on group norms, talked about other activities we could take on as a group to boost our impact, and the topic for the next meetup (effective interventions for global poverty).

There's a slight schism in the group, between people who want to *take action NOW* even if it's not strictly the most effective (e.g. do research on the efficacy of local charities, volunteer somewhere), and people who want to focus more strictly on generating donations & awareness for EA causes.

There are two recurring arguments for the first approach. First, by taking local community action, we'd raise the visibility of our EA group and EA in general, while also painting it in a positive light for anyone encountering it. This would (hopefully) have the effect of increasing group membership and EA donations in the me...

samstowers

samstowers' Posts

samstowers' Comments