The Effective Altruism (EA) / 80,000 Hours philosophy has guided many of my thoughts and actions over the past 4+ years. In this post, my goal is to articulate some of the most important and generalizable aspects of my EA journey so far. If you haven't yet encountered the EA / 80,000 Hours movement, I recommend checking out Part I!
Overall Reflections
Internalizing many of the EA / 80,000 Hours ideas guided me into the field of environmental public health / biostatistics, no question. This semester, I’ve really enjoyed seeing the close alignment between these fields / movements in my introductory public health classes. Of course, there are countless other fields in which one can pursue having a positive impact along the lines of the EA literature. I can simply confirm that I am glad to have made decisions in accordance with this paradigm.
However, critically examining one's overall impact is not for the faint of heart. Some of the most distressing loops I've gotten stuck in over the years include questioning whether certain career / life opportunities are worth their associated environmental costs (such as plane flights) and financial costs (i.e. would it be better to donate money now to a cause than to invest in my personal career capital, which may help that or another cause in the long term?), balancing avoidance of the "white savior complex" with the potential for bringing in funding and technical expertise to under-resourced areas, and deciding how much to focus on science vs. public policy more directly.
Balancing Different Kinds of Good
The crux of the matter is that nothing we can do is 100% good by all definitions. Even determining if our actions have net positive impact is challenging / impossible. Was my flight to Nepal to volunteer with Engineers Without Borders net positive? In addition to the work that we did and the personal connections we made, all of the learning I did over that summer has helped me to build a more resilient mental framework about global inequities and to more realistically compare pathways for reducing global poverty. But will my having that knowledge end up being more helpful to others than if I’d simply donated the money for my plane ticket to one of the most cost-effective charitable organizations? Wouldn’t my environmental footprint be so much smaller if, instead of going to graduate school and pursuing a professional career, I went and lived off the grid in a tiny cabin in the woods? But then I would be reducing my opportunities to interact with and help others...
The what-ifs are endless, and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you let yourself dive too deep too often.
Regarding the timing of individual giving, I have found this 80,000 Hours framework to be helpful. But that still doesn’t necessarily help us distinguish between / balance different types of “good”. Any model that we make to try and quantify and compare different kinds of impacts will have massive uncertainty and subjectivity because there are so many things that are difficult and/or rely on philosophical judgements to quantify. How do we value investment in public K-12 education versus Medicare? Funding to conserve biodiversity versus to fight oppression based on race, gender, or sexual identity? Etc...
Much as I enjoy building mathematical models to describe the world, I don't believe there is a way to maximize good across all the areas of life and society that I care about. Ultimately, on an individual level we have to choose what cause(s) to prioritize based on personal affinity and potential for impact. On a societal level, I believe that democracy is one of our best tools for deciding fair allocation of resources, though even the best national democracy is likely to fall short when considering international and/or intergenerational issues, given lack of representation by all affected parties. This, in turn, highlights the importance of public education, as it can help a population to be aware of the plights of other people across space and time.
Fighting the White / Privileged Savior Complex
One of the biggest issues with the traditional EA paradigm is that it often assumes, or at least strongly implies, that people from privileged backgrounds can know and do what’s best for people in under-resourced situations. This can lead to ineffective or even harmful interventions, and also often perpetuates professional and socio-cultural power differentials between people in higher- and lower-income countries or communities within the same country. This problem is acknowledged (with links to more lengthy discussions) in the Effective Altruism list of common objections.
My experiences associated with Engineers Without Borders confronted me with related issues countless times, and in large part convinced me to pursue a career in which I could help gain knowledge and allocate resources on more systemic levels. However, as I've discussed with multiple professors and other respected mentors, the counterweight is that directly focusing on research or interventions in low-income areas can bring in much-needed funding from higher-income institutions.
This issue will not disappear any time soon; I anticipate needing to re-evaluate my ability to provide assistance without overstepping in all my future projects. In general, I believe that people with lived experience and/or intimate expertise must be included (and ideally should lead) when making decisions regarding ways to promote causes such as poverty reduction and racial justice. I dive deeper into this last conviction in my Reflections on Privilege in Higher Education.
Careers in Science vs. Policy
Finally, there is clearly a spectrum in terms of how long it takes our work to positively impact the lives of others. In terms of fields that I’m interested in: many technical problems in science (especially those focused on methodology) are not immediately relevant for helping other people (and thus may feel less impactful) in the way that pushing forward legislation in a government agency or working for a non-governmental organization can be. This can be disheartening for those of us who are motivated by a more personal connection to the impacts of our work.
However, I sense (and have been told by respected mentors) that this is changing somewhat: many scientists are beginning to engage directly with decision makers. This trend is boosted by the increasing availability of near-real-time data sets (e.g. Covid-19 counts) and recognition that sorting through such data sets often requires scientific expertise.
At this point, while I'm sure I'll continue to grapple with such questions for many years to come, I'm operating under the hope that by gaining a data science skill set grounded in public health applications, I'll be able to strike a balance in my career between indirect and direct work to help others. Though I’m still very much in the midst of figuring this stuff out, my best advice to stay motivated (for anyone following a similar path) is to seek out opportunities to help others along the way, through mentoring, collaborating on applied projects, volunteering, or some combination of the above.
Parting Thoughts
Though I have found the EA / 80,000 Hours framework to be useful in framing my individual pursuit of positive societal impact, I do not believe that this is the only way to make decisions leading to a meaningful life. For instance, I highly value others' decision to pursue careers in music and writing fiction. Art could be considered a different kind of positive impact, but I tend to see it as divergent from the traditional EA / 80,000 Hours path.