Career Advice for High-Impact Activism

After reading some nice stuff in your article I really feel speechless, because it is quit pretty article. Beside this it is also a long lasting article. Thanks for giving me such type of useful information..

I agree about choice of college. I often say that college is first about signalling your intelligence / work ethic, second about networking, and third about actually learning. It’s not that you don’t learn some insightful things in college, but you could learn those anywhere (reading textbooks, Wikipedia, etc.), and you don’t need to pay big money to do that.

I agree with the comments about majors too. If you’re entering a specialized field that requires a certain undergrad degree, it matters for that reason. If not, then major doesn’t matter much, except again for signalling reasons. So it’s generally good to choose a quantitative major for more effective signalling, although choosing something you enjoy and in which you’ll get good grades is important too.

My experience is that for almost any job outside of academia, the actual content that you learn in college is mostly irrelevant. You learn what you need to know on the job itself. So college is basically an exercise gym and testing ground.

I’m not sure I agree that academics have almost no impact. It depends a lot on the field and the kind of work they do. It seems possible that Peter Singer has indirectly helped more animals than anyone else in world history, maybe several times more than the next person. Some fields of advocacy, like reducing wild-animal suffering or averting computational suffering in the far future, are heavily academic at this point because so little is known about the correct approach. Once a cause becomes more practical (like veg outreach is), at that point academic theories matter less. Still, they must be relevant, or else you wouldn’t have relied on academic studies for “Change of Heart.” :)

Thanks for the post, Nick!

Miguel- Thanks! Brian - Touche, good points re academics :) My only thoughts in response are: a) Singer had an impact because of his books, not teaching or research papers, though obviously those did rest on a bedrock of academia. not easy to follow in his footsteps though! b) def agree the work of academics can be very useful (good point there), i guess what i meant to say in the post is that for someone who wants to do the most good possible, that’s not the place to do the most good. (Because other options can do more good, because the most useful research can be done or at least commissioned by non-academics who will know the most important things to research, and because a lot of the basic research already has been or will be done by people who would not otherwise spend their time doing great things for the world). But I did not mean to denigrate them as a class, so thanks for pointing out the positives!

”Nick: because a lot of the basic research already has been or will be done by people who would not otherwise spend their time doing great things for the world”

Yes, exactly. This is why I think outreach and spreading better values are usually more important than gaining more knowledge. Exceptions include (a) when you have to do some internal research just to know where to begin advocating and how best to do that, like with Effective Animal Activism and (b) cases like Robert Elwood’s research on crab sentience where the research itself can be one of the most compelling ways to make people care more about the topic and can serve as a way to channel and build concern for invertebrate suffering. In general, I think high-leverage research will usually look like activism (e.g., Peter Singer’s writings or the advice of 80,000 Hours).

Thank you Nick. I cannot tell you how cathartic it is to read that academics have virtually no impact. Now at the point of almost finishing my PhD, this has something that has troubled me for years and I CANNOT WAIT to be finished with academia and finally start achieving something good for the world.

From my time working in animal advocacy, I think technological skills that also cross into the creative realm are the best type to have. There is a huge need for activists with the ability to create good designs: print, online, merchandise, video, photography, etc. In addition, communication skills that are straightforward, creative, and usable in social media are highly sought after. I think this is one area where a particular major in comms or marketing is still useful. A lot of people think they have good communication skills - and perhaps they do have adequate skills, but not at the level high impact activists and activist groups require. This level can really only be achieved as a result of experiencing heavy editing by professors and student teachers who resent you and your brilliance ;-)

Thanks for the insightful article!

Hi Nick, I’m a fan of your work and also have thought about these questions a great deal myself (and am thinking about them all the more now that I have children). Two lines of thought are as follows (not refutations or criticisms – just questions/observations/concerns/thoughts that have occurred to me as I’ve thought through these same issues):

1) You said you’d have chosen an Ivy League “given the number of future influencers, future wealthy individuals, and future politicians and business leaders that occupy elite schools.” My understanding, however, is that the elites at these schools tend to surround themselves with their peers (selective dining groups, sororities, etc. that recruit from their prep school networks) for a rather insular class experience. I think one would have to be either lucky or a really charismatic extrovert to develop positive influence over these people. And, finally, I wonder – given that people who benefit from the status quo tend to believe in its worth more than others – if those people would be less likely to listen to a more idealistic person. The Tyson family’s son went to Yale. That’s not proof, but it makes me wonder how many of these corporate families’ kids would want to question the status quo thanks to a persuasive college friend or roommate? These are empirical questions. I just do not know the answers, but maybe you can find some folks who attended the Ivies as activists and idealists and can lend some insights? It also strikes me that there might be a big trade-off between graduating with a bunch of student loan debt from a very expensive school versus a “free ride” at a “lesser” school? Unless you’re going to be a high earner, that debt might inhibit one’s ability to choose a career as an activist or donate to charity. Again, just some thoughts as you develop your own thoughts about this further.

2) There’s a huge risk in assuming persons who become high earners with the idea of donating to charity will actually do so. As you already know, what happens in our more and more stratefied society is that we only see and live near folks “like us.” First, this sets our idea of normal, so the richer you get, the more you still think of yourself as just middle class or not doing as well as so-and-so (e.g., the hedge fund managers who run to their therapists when their bonuses aren’t as obscene as their colleagues’). In America, almost everyone thinks of themselves as middle class. But, second, even if one could resist that temptation, there’s a reason people try to live like others in their peer group. If your home, car, etc. is not “up to par” to those you work with and who may be promoting you, this can really keep you from being advanced on the ladder because it signals your unworthiness (“He makes $65K and still drives that clunker to work – can’t see him as managing this department”). It’s only after people know you’re rich that you can step out of the need to impress. It’s very hard to get rich that way if you’re depending on others to promote you or invest in you. There’s a reason the elites of society do – and anthropologically almost always have – devote large amounts of time and resources to signaling their wealth: It helps you get richer. Remember all those psych studies where real experts are judged negatively in casual clothes while actors espousing b.s. – but wearing clothes that fit the part – were judged as competent. The idealist who went into Wall Street or engineering, etc. to do well enough to give a lot to charity may well be held back if they give “too much.” And, even when they do “make it,” when will they say enough is enough … because (finally), since many people who were idealistic in youth will have children eventually and almost always transfer their altruistic energies to them first and foremost, being affluent just makes you more able to afford the better schools (either private or by buying homes in the expensive, affluent neighborhoods) and save for – you guessed it – expensive elite colleges! And so the cycle continues.

Again, you have wonderful ideas and points. This is “big thinking” that I would love to see more of. Please continue to develop your ideas and gather information on this extremely important of questions!

Thanks for all you do!

Jo, thanks for the kind words, and I agree with your points!

Kelly, thanks for your comments! RE: your point #1 I definitely agree that probably students at ivy league schools are going to be more insular and less likely than some other groups to be persuaded to be altruistic/vegetarian/devoted to making the world better/etc. But even if they were, say, 4 times harder to reach, I think they’d still be the ideal people to be networking with because of the influence those that you CAN reach will eventually have. RE: debt, that’s a good point, though I’d guess that having a Yale/Harvard/etc diploma could help make up for that debt fairly quickly.

I definitely agree with your second point as well - that a lot of people who say they will go into careers to make a lot of money to donate to charity will not really do it, for the same general reasons you outline above. However I think the value in connecting with such people still holds for two reasons. First, a lot of their value is not what they donate but the decisions they make from the positions of influence they may hold. IE if they are a politician, federal judge, business leader, etc., they don’t have to donate a dime to help the world become better, if they are (as a result of your influence) more receptive to advocacy groups pushing for corporate or legislative change that can be a huge help. Second, it only takes one or two high earners who DO follow through to make an incredible impact. Look at the impact of Bill Gates on the world, for example. (not that everyone is going to be a billionaire :) ). But in the animal advocacy world i inhabit, for example, most farm animal protection groups have budgets under $2 million. Having just one or two millionaires who came to care about that issue (due to my influence if i went to school with them and befriended them) and donating heavily to it would make an insanely large difference in the lives of many animals.

I guess in a nutshell, i agree with both of your points but think that despite those limitations there still is a huge amount of potential value.

Hi!

I think there is a major opportunity for academics-namely when it comes to biological sciences. Just as one brief example-in order to overcome animal testing models, animal advocates need to work from within the system to demonstrate more effective, non-animal models, which is far more effective than external activism. Academics have a major influence on policy and life science academics could use skills for food policy, agriculture policy, scientific testing policy, etc. Non-academic activists may be more effective at influencing the choices of individual consumers-but academics may be more effective at influencing the entire system. Furthermore, academics become expert on a topic- and society at large is more inclined to listen to experts.

Also, I think there is an opportunity for a choice in undergraduate education to be extremely relevant & to make a major impact in one’s life and activism. My undergraduate degree was in biology and the education completely shaped my entire view of the world. When advocating I can make science-based arguments in anatomy, physiology, ethology, evolution, etc. and people I feel people tend to take my arguments to a higher consideration. Also, I found I am much better able to understand the complex ecological impacts of animal agriculture. And I can read, understand, and argue with scientific papers and research. True, if I had chosen to major in medieval literature or business, it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference to my advocacy skills-but a life science education gives one an advantage.

I would strongly recommend any one who is interested in animal advocacy, and also enjoys the process of gaining an education, to continue on in academia as far as they’d like. If done strategically and if in the right subject, it has potential to make extreme impacts.