Off the Clock #5: Leaving 80k with Maria Gutierrez Rojas

You can check out the video version of this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/AUuEaYltONg

Matt, Bella, and Cody sit down with Maria Gutierrez Rojas to discuss the 80k’s aesthetics, religion (again), bad billionaires, and why it’s hard to be an org that both gives advice and has opinions.

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Matt:
Hi, listeners, and welcome to Mic Discipline, a special segment of 80k After Hours where we take your feedback very seriously and speak carefully into our mics about topics that matter to us in an audio quality that you appreciate. I'm Matt Reardon from the one-on-one team.

Bella:
I'm Bella Forristal from marketing.

Cody:
I'm Cody Fenwick from the content team.

Matt:
And our special guest, MGRD herself, which is a name that I just made up for her. Maria Gutierrez Rojas, maybe Duda. Duda's not actually in your name.

Maria:
But it would be fun.

Cody:
It's a really good last name.

Maria:
It is, very. Also, it means doubt in Spanish.

Bella:
Ooh, I didn't know that.

Cody:
That's terrific. Roman Doubt.

Maria:
Yeah. My dad makes all sorts of bad dad jokes about it every single... Anyways.

Matt:
So Maria has many claims to fame beyond just her name and the acronyms you can make out of it.

Maria:
That is definitely the biggest one.

Matt:
You're an artist who both worked with 80k and created the famous ice cream meme that people may know. And you worked in television. And after, did you? I mean, according to your LinkedIn, which is all I have to rely on.

Maria:
Yeah, I guess I did.

Matt:
My parents loved Blue Bloods is all I'm saying.

Maria:
I mean, that is, I did work in Blue Bloods. Yeah, it's kind of cool. It makes me feel more real or something.

Cody:
You were also the face of the 80k jobs newsletter for a long time. That's how I first knew you.

Bella:
Oh, people always used to come up to me at EAGs and be like, Maria. And I was like, Not even close.

Maria:
The eyebrows or something, I guess. Also, it's weird. Cause I feel like my face in that newsletter looked a bit like me, but not totally like me.

Bella:
Right.

Maria:
So it works in half the way one would expect, like, people, instead of just being like, we're here from the newsletters, they just stare like this, and they're trying to work out whether it is. Anyway, sorry.

Cody:
Wait, Matt, do people ever think you're me from the newsletter?

Maria:
Oh, yeah, that would make sense.

Matt:
I mean, I don't get out enough to get this feedback. So, Maria, you are an artist.

Maria:
Yeah, I would say so.

Matt:
And consistent with my introduction. Right. This is the first episode that we are recording after the first episode of this production was released. So we've gotten all your feedback, and.

Maria:
So, you know, and I've seen the first episode, I kind of know what I'm walking into.

Matt:
And so now I want to ask our kind of resident EA art critic whether my podcast is like the Swapcard of EA podcasts.

Maria:
I’m glad you asked me that because it was in your notes and I completely did not...

Matt:
Totally shattering illusions.

Maria:
I mean, it was a very unpolished, random. Well, I'm gonna proceed. I did not understand what it meant at all. Yeah.

Bella:
What is the Swapcard of EA podcasts?

Maria:
I'm so lost. I'm glad you asked because I'm so lost.

Matt:
So if, like, all of our listeners, you're just overactive in EA Twitter, you'll have noticed that every time an EA conference comes around, we have this app called Swapcard, and people complain about it a lot as being a terrible kind of user experience. And I don't know. You care about user experience, don't you?

Maria:
Yeah. I see. I mean, this is maybe the time for me to say what I mean, like, what kind of artist I feel like I am or not. Like, I just don't care about how pretty or good the sound is. Or, I mean, if it had been, like, really hard to hear or something, I would have been like, yo, it was hard to hear. But, like, I feel like a very compartmentalised, like, do I care about the aesthetics of this or do I not? It is pretty radical, and it is not what people would expect. They're like, is my lookout ugly? Is my website ugly? And I'm like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Can it be more like Wikipedia where it doesn't matter if it's ugly or not? Like, like, can we just stop worrying about it? I, like, have a bunch of things where today people were worried about aesthetics in that domain. And I want. And maybe not everyone, but I want me to stop worrying and, like, I just don't care.

Bella:
The 80K website on this metric...

Maria:
I haven't been in a while.

Matt:
It's the same.

Maria:
Okay. So that's what I would have thought. I mean, my take on the 80K website was always like, okay, wait, something. The images are great. That has changed since I've left, I think. I don't know who's doing it right now, but when I left, Luisa was putting effort into finding better images, and she found better images. Like, the images are just now beautiful, and I think that helps a lot. I don't know. I, I feel like I was just gonna be a parrot. Like, maybe there's too much effort in making some things more pretty where I'm just like, just add some space. Like, I don't know, I think. I think it's very pretty. I think sometimes it could use less things, but, like, it's just pretty space recently.

Matt:
So, Maria, you probably didn't see this, but I imagine Cody and Bella, you both did. There's this guy on Twitter who was trying to make a name for himself as a graphic designer. So he would just go around finding websites with, I guess, a decent amount of traffic and just tweeting at them, being like, hey, I redesigned your homepage. How do you like this? That's cool. And, yeah, the one he had for us was something like, it was a lot more white and it was like a little 80K stuff, I think, on the left side. And then there was kind of this little fine, like, arrow weaving path kind of thing towards, like, here are the steps we want you to take and what we want you to read and stuff. What did Bella and Cody think of this?

Cody:
Oh, I really liked it a lot, I think. Yeah, I like most of the 80k website. I do think the front page looks a bit out of date, not quite as contemporary as you'd want it to be. And so that something like that looked real good, but, like, actually implementing it, I am aware, would just take a lot of work and our time, and so not sure it's worth putting effort into at the moment, but yeah.

Bella:
Unfortunately, the fact is that just so many of the design elements on the 80k site, including the homepage, have just been tested against, like, obvious alternatives and proven better. And we're just like, I don't know, man. This kind of works. Like, yeah, maybe that thing looks more slick, it looks more modern, but the thing that doesn't look modern also gets people to read stuff and maybe do stuff with their career. And so I'm kind of reluctant to do anything else.

Maria:
Yeah. Yeah. I don't like when people spend important time and resources really trying to get something to look better that it already satisfies, you know?

Bella:
Yeah, I think in my ideal world, it would look better and be more functional, but I think it is hard to do both at the same time. This would take a lot of effort, like Cody said. And I'm just not sure, like, without testing it, I'm not sure that this guy's alternative is better.

Maria:
And so I'm just like, maybe a semi spicy take is that I often think they're, like things that are aesthetic but are not visually aesthetic, that are more important than the visual aesthetics. And this applies to many domains, but the example on the 80k website would be, like, the cognitive structure of what is trying to be said. I would like that to be more aesthetically pleasing in a non visual way, like just better organised, like, or something.

Cody:
Just because we have a lot of information and it'd be easier if it were.

Maria:
And I think it's easy to try to think that the problem comes from aesthetics. Sorry, from visual aesthetics as opposed to.

Cody:
Like, the structure of the presented.

Bella:
I think we've also made some efforts in this direction over the years. Right.

Maria:
Oh, I think you have made good progress as well.

Bella:
Well, but I think we also. It's okay I wasn't around. I didn't, like, get involved in this, but my understanding is that the key ideas thing was back and forth, back and forth. Do we like it? Do we not like it? Yeah. And we're now on the not. So I'll tell you why. My understanding is that part of the motivation was to make the things, like, more like, philosophically clean. So it was like having like, from first principles, why do we think what we think? Like, here's an introduction to like, okay, what is morality even? How do you think about it? And then, like, kind of go from there. Like, yeah. And I think this basically didn't actually help people, it seems, or like it didn't help people more than the previous presentation and same information. And so we've, like, gone back from promoting, like, having key ideas as a core content and instead it's like career guide plus advanced series. And I think this seems like the right call. It's like less intellectually aesthetically pleasing or something, but, like, actually better for people to use and navigate. Seems like, yeah, just based on feedback and so on.

Matt:
So anyway, we don't know anything about aesthetics on priors, even Maria.

Maria:
That seems right internally.

Matt:
Right. But you do care about content. And I think your content feedback for our first episode was that you wanted to plumb the depths of Cody's soul and my soul.

Maria:
Yeah, that is what I wanted.

Matt:
So I was apparently... I have a big purity vibe, which maybe I even use the word purity vibe.

Maria:
And I also have a big purity vibe.

Matt:
Oh, that's interesting to me.

Maria:
Especially given that his purity vibe is like being like, no, she doesn't. Well, yeah, especially the other. The conversation we just had.

Matt:
And then Cody is lonely.

Maria:
Yeah.

Cody:
Is that how I came off in the first?

Maria:
I literally wrote a bullet point that says it was just a quote of what you said, which was like, yeah, but I've always been lonely, and that's true of everyone. And, like, when I was in my beanbag, listening to the episode, I almost posted and was like, preach it. And then I continued it. Preach it. Yeah.

Bella:
Huh.

Maria:
I also loved your I'm never lonely.

Bella:
Well, it's not I'm never lonely, but, yeah, I basically have the emotion of. I'm like, oh, I'm feeling sad because I am lonely.

Maria:
I think we should. Can we stop? Can we start with the lonely thing?

Matt:
Sure.

Maria:
Okay. Why was that such a good moment for me?

Matt:
Because two people made semantically opposite claims that meant the same thing syntactically, right. Where Bella says she's never been lonely. That is, she's never felt sad about being lonely. And Cody says, I've always been lonely, but I feel fine about it.

Maria:
Yeah, that is very interesting. I guess one of my best friends would define that as the difference between lonely and alone.

Bella:
Right.

Maria:
If you don't care, you're alone, but you're not lonely. If you're fine with it, if you care, you might not be alone. You might be surrounded by people, but you're lonely. I mean, I feel like I've always been lonely. And even more strongly. Cause not always, I think I've had a lot of support and intimacy in some periods of my life, but I do have this big feeling of, like, you're second part of that, and that's true for everyone. I'm like, surely people are loads more lonely that they let on. I don't see how this is not true. I'm not claiming that is actually true, but that is my you're feeling disposition towards the world is, like, surely everyone's, like, horribly lonely and doesn't speak about it.

Maria:
And, like, the Cody personality that, like, can say this and laugh a bit, and it's also true, and it's not that horrible that I can't say it. I don't know. I just love that moment.

Cody:
Oh, thanks. Yeah. I don't know. I do have a dog, so I do. He does provide me company. But of course, you know, the company a dog provides you is very interesting because it's like, there's no hiding how much they're providing you, but it only goes a certain way. Right. They're not interacting with. I don't. I mean, I feel very close to him, and. But we also. I mean, we have very different personalities. He's more social and a dog.

Maria:
And a dog.

Cody:
I don't know. I mean, I think, like, yeah, he likes licking the pavement more.

Bella:
He likes eating poop more than you do.

Cody:
Yeah.

Maria:
We should have a ticker for, like, how many times Matt rolls his eyes. He just did the first one.

Cody:
Yeah. Where was I going with that? I don't know. No, I just. Well, sorry. I've just known dogs who I felt like my personality was closer matched for Ollie and I, my current dog. We don't have the same personality. I think we have pretty different dispositions toward the world, but, like, we also, like, I think we both have this attitude of, like, well, we're in this together, you know, which is...

Maria:
Feel free to stop whenever and I can just overshare me when you want to stop oversharing. But, like, can you tell me more about your loneliness in general? The, like, that, like, reaction of, like, I've always been lonely and, like, that's just true and it's kind of unfortunate, but it's also true or something.

Cody:
Yeah. I don't know. I think. I think I'm just very in my head a lot, and, like, so I think about I. A lot of questions and a lot of, like, issues and just, like, a lot of, like, interactions I'll just kind of replay over and over about how they went and. But, like, also, like, I'm often thinking about philosophical questions and, like, what am I prioritising? Am I prioritising the right things? Am I working on the right things? Should I be doing something different? Should I, like, be kind of, like, radically overthrowing the way I think about things?

Like, you know, I just have very, like, questioning disposition and I feel like that's just kind of, like, lonely place to be in some ways, just intrinsically, because, you know, I could decide that, like, oh, everybody at 80k, actually, it turns out they're thinking about the problems the wrong way and, like, maybe I'll come to that conclusion and then, like, if I did, then it's like, well, then I have to figure something out and that's just on me.

Maria:
And in theory, doesn't. In theory, I mean, I'm with you. Yeah, but in theory, couldn't there be kinds of people that are, like, this very in their head, very questioning and have a lot of sharing of that kind of stuff?

Cody:
Maybe, but I think it always just does come back to you, or at least in my case, it feels like it always just comes back to me. And. And so, like, I feel like everything's, like, always a bit tentative, if that makes sense.

Maria:
It didn't. I'm not sure I got the tentative part.

Cody:
Oh, well, because you can always question everything.

Maria:
Yeah, I see what you mean.

Cody:
Like, every relationship you could have, you could always be, you always should at some point, ask the question, like, oh, is this the right relationship to keep pursuing at this time? Whereas I think, yeah, I mean, I think some people don't have that disposition as much where people are more like, just like, oh, no, I'm in this.

Matt:
A lot of non loneliness is just, in fact, being, like, anchored and fully committed to other specific people, regardless of what they think. And if you think a whole bunch, like, now, you're gonna disagree a whole bunch. And if thinking is the priority, then, like, that could unanchor you.

Cody:
Yeah.

Matt:
In the relevant sense.

Maria:
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I think, Yeah, it seems similar to me there. My loneliness feels like there's a lot of shit going on in my head, and, like, I don't really get enough opportunities to share the parts of it that I feel like I would want to share.

Cody:
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I think there's a funny thing about, like, conversations where, like, if you're gonna meet somebody and talk for, like, an hour, it kind of feels at the start you're like, it's an hour. We're gonna meet for an hour. Like, we could talk about so much. And then, like, you actually get into it, and by the end you're like, oh, my God, there's so much stuff I didn't say.

Maria:
Yeah.

Cody:
Like, there's so many different rabbit holes that we could have pursued in that conversation, but we chose, like, a certain path. And I don't know. Yeah.

Maria:
I'm so lonely that I'm excited about this podcast episode because I get to talk to you guys, and the main thing is, just like, I get to talk anyway.

Matt:
That was a long detour into loneliness, and a self indulgent one, if I may say so myself. Let's talk about something more profound.

Maria:
Religion.

Matt:
Religion and purity. Maria, are you a pure person? So, for context, I mentioned the conversation that we had before the podcast was about Aella, who we mentioned on a previous episode. And, you know what kind of topics? Aella likes sex very explicitly. Lots of sex things. And Maria was very enthusiastic about a recent kind of, like, viral thing that Aella had posted. Seemed like, I don't know, maybe it cut a little bit against this idea of purity. So square these for me.

Maria:
Ooh. I mean, should I first start with my purity and then be like, how does it not break down by me liking Aella or something? Yeah, sure. I don't know. I guess this is not like a label that feels very naturally internal or something. I just realise when I'm trying to explain things that I like or why I want things to be a certain way or stuff to people. Just like the evidence says that I end up describing something like purity, like, extremely often. So that's one thing.

Bella:
Wait, can you give an example of something you wanted?

Maria:
I feel like most activities, like peak activities and peak interests. So, like, best book I read. Matt just asked me. Best book I read in last year. It's called Math Without Numbers. And it's just this book about math, and it doesn't even have numbers, so it's like the pure essence. Ooh, I was so excited that I slammed my head. Pure essence. Like, so many things that can't be described of, like, the pure essence of things or, like, what I want to spend my mind time.

Cody:
Yeah, you want, like, the purest cocaine.

Maria:
I also. I mean, to complement that and, like, art. I feel very similar about art. I'm like, no, graphic design. No, no, let me paint. Like, let me just paint. Graphic design is a business. Okay. Interesting or something.

Bella:
Surely maybe graphic design is pure. Cause it's abstracted away from, like, real world pigments and stuff. You can just, like, pick.

Maria:
I mean, you can also paint abstractly, but graphic design has other purposes, which in some sense, it's functional. It's functional, which I'm not saying is better or worse. In some senses, it's less vain. It just has a purpose, a real. It does good things, but I don't know.

Cody:
Okay, this is interesting because when you brought up purity, I was thinking you meant purity more in the wholesome sense that I was just referring to.

Maria:
Well, so I feel like I had just these purity patterns. So, like, this is one that doesn't have, like, I guess, moral vibes. But then also I just. I'm just a goody two shoe. So, like, I guess I was religious growing up, and I was, like, very. I wanted to be religious. It was important for me. I'm on board with this religious. And it came with a lot of, like, very happy not to do drugs, very happy not to get drunk, very happy not to. I don't know, I'm just, like, just a goody two shoes. Like, that's where I feel comfortable even now, not being religious. I'm, like, still a goody two shoes.

Matt:
And you are turning me on to, like, the literal definition of purity. Probably has a lot to do with, like, simplicity and one dimensionality. Yeah. And maybe, like, the religious context is like, well, I live in the world. What's the world about? It's about one thing. It is about God and the right and the good. And so that's all there is. And that's in some sense, you want the world to be very pure and very focused on this one thing. The way that you can be focused on lots of anyone, things like Al is.

Maria:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. You really want to talk about that?

Matt:
To animate? I think a lot of people think purity and they think of wholesomeness and goodness and this kind of thing as being like, that's purity. But really, purity can be anything. And you appreciate the kind of anything kind of purity nowadays, at least.

Maria:
Yeah, yeah. Ayala. I guess purity and openness don't usually, like, usually trade off quite a bit. And I am very strong in both. And so Aella, I guess she does challenge me a lot. Like, I'm not saying to me, it's not like an easy experience, like just reading her. Like, there's just tonnes of signals and little things that go, like, freak out and don't know what's going on and don't want to know about this world and don't want to know about this person. And sometimes it's okay and right to listen to those. And I felt that in this instance, it's just been completely right not to. I'm just like, I don't know. I just find her a person who I, who's like, narrative of just like her experience in life.

Maria:
I kind of really understand because I'm a goody two shoes, maybe because I'm a goody two shoes, I find it enriching to, like, understand her perspective and her experiences or something like that. And, yeah, I'm scared, like a bit. Like, it's not, it's like when I first knew about her and started reading, it was this kind of like, scary, challenging experience for me. And it sometimes still is, but I don't know, I kind of respect and appreciate her nonetheless. Maybe even more so or something.

Cody:
It's like people who like horror movies.

Maria:
No, not quite.

Cody:
Well, like, you. You can really love a horror movie, but it's like kind of scary and kind of like off putting at times, but like, you're really drawn into it. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of what I mean.

Maria:
Yeah, I mean, it's not like that anymore, I think. But it's like, so basically I. There's like what I actually think reflectively about a bunch of things and whether they're right or wrong and then there's my intuitions and, like, obviously, there's a bunch of things about anything that's not a very too goody to choose traditional life that will always and forever set off my intuitions. And that's just how it's gonna be. And they don't have to be, ma. Sometimes they're matched by what I think is right and wrong, and sometimes they're not matched by what I think is right and wrong. And so, like, because my intuitions are pretty extremely old school and, like, conservative, like, I just have to get used to the idea that many times they are not a guide to morality.

And that's just, like, now a part of my life. Like, and it's. It's a fun part of my life. Like, I think one of the best. I've a funny, like, kind of, like, archetypical memory that I have is, like, one of my firsts, my first boyfriend, one of my first, I don't know, good friend of mine now, I was dating in, like, high school or after high school, and I was very Christian, and he's, like, just didn't care / atheist. And his mom is a yoga teacher who, like, probably, I don't know, believes in something related to Indian religion. And there's, like, basically in their house, there's, like, a bunch of many armed elephants. And I was grown up and intelligent by that point, and I was still kind of freaked out by many armed elephants.

And it was so ridiculous to me that I was just like, it's there. It's the many armed elephant. Something seems odd and wrong about it. And, like, now, just as a non christian religious icon. Yeah. And it's so obvious how, like, this is just an object of. And that is the truth about it. And I could not. It was so strong for me, and I still remember that. And now, because time has passed and I've just familiarised myself with other things and, like, also the world and yoga and, like, that kind of stuff. Like, I'm now, like, yay, hello, many armed elephant. You know, like, whenever I see one of those, I'm, like, funny kind people. That's the association I have with that are a bit too, like, maybe Westernising things that mean something different to.

Yeah, maybe that's a bit awkward or something, but I don't know. Now I just have positive vibes. But anyways, I think there's a lot of Aella to me, like, and it helps me.

Matt:
She's a many armed elephant.

Maria:
Yeah, she's a many armed elephant. And she helped me explore when I think my intuitions have something of value and when they don't. And she's up for. She's up for being challenged on those things a lot. And she sometimes she can't talk about having had similar intuitions once, which is unexpected and cool.

Cody:
Yeah. She has a Christian background as well. Yeah, yeah.

Maria:
So your experience of Aella?

Matt:
Oh, yeah. I mean, maybe I am not as deep or open about my attitudes. It's just like, it kind of grosses me out and makes me cringe and I feel like this is too low stakes, that I don't need to think very much about it or engage with it. And so it comes across my, you know, it comes to my attention every so often, and I'll mention it because it's kind of funny and extreme. You know, in a way, things in this genre are often interpreted, but then, you know, it kind of passes out of my notice and I feel like I don't need to confront it very much. So I don't.

Maria:
I think that's so fine. I think, and I think Aella's so cool that she would think it's fine. I mean, maybe not. Maybe sometimes. Maybe. I don't know. Like, you need to pick your battles in life, right? You're not saying I don't know, like, there are intuitions that I have that I'm like, I don't want to explore that. Like, and I don't want to challenge. I can't challenge myself in everything. I just need to let those be. If one change, one day when I'm 60, they change. Well, fun, but not. But not.

Matt:
Yeah. I mean, come to think of it, I'm probably actually closer to your position. I was thinking about why. Why do I bring her up when I do? And I think it's usually just to have an example of someone who's just, like, really going for it and trying to, like, live her life and figure things out and, like, yeah, this is what she's into. And clearly it's not what most people, at least publicly, are into, but it's like, it's a way. It's just a thing that you can point to say, like, look, you can care about whatever you want, just go deep on it.

Matt:
And here's someone going deep on something that you might never imagine yourself going deep on, but think about the whole vast world of things that you could go deep on, and instead, I don't know, you just kind of go through the motions of your day to day life, you don't have to live that way. You can be more extreme. Extreme people make the world interesting. Aela is certainly interesting.

Maria:
Yeah. Do you wanna tell me more about your past religiousness? I'm extremely interested.

Matt:
Yeah, unfortunately, it's gonna be extremely uninteresting. I don't. I would.

Maria:
You're too sure of that. I just find. I just find religiousness extremely interesting.

Matt:
So I do have one, like, interesting anecdote from when I was a little kid that relates to this. And, yeah, I think there was, like, this general theme of, like, me taking adults really seriously and, like, believing what they said. And I, like, mentioned this on the first episode. And so, I don't know, adults told me that God was real and that, like, well, you live for however long you live, I don't know, 70, 80 years. And then eternity gets decided based on what you did with those 70, 80 years. And eternity is either bliss or it's hell. And I was like, okay, that decision calculus is pretty easy. I really shouldn't care too much about what happens in this life because the next one's a whole lot bigger. And so, like, everything's about God. Everything is about not sinning and doing right and stuff.

Matt:
And so one interesting example of this is, like, you know, I was like, a seven or eight year old boy, and I kind of had, like, I felt like, really pulled by, like, violence and stuff like that. So I got, like, this toy sword one day. I remember my dad didn't really want to get it for me because, you know, he thinks violence is bad, being all mature and stuff. But anyway, I talked him into it and I got the thing and, you know, I didn't have friends, so.

Maria:
You didn't have friends. I also didn't have friends.

Matt:
So I had to play on my own or whatever, and I had to, like, imagine who I was fighting with my toy sword and stuff like that. And I was like, wait, killing is wrong. That's in the Ten Commandments. Can't do that. Can't even imagine.

Maria:
Why am I using it?

Matt:
That'd be bad. But I found a loophole. I was like, I can fight demons in the name of God and stuff like that. So basically, I just had to route all of my decisions and actions through this decision calculus of, like, what would God think of this? Is it right? And stuff like that. And I just, like, you know, I just did that for a bit too long. Well, I don't know if too long is the right answer here, because I think it was kind of a good intuition to have and explore and nurture in the sense that, like, all right, when I updated my empirical beliefs about the world and thought about whether.

Whether God was real or whether this particular God was real or something like that, like, when I undid that, I didn't undo the thing where it's like, yeah, there is just, like, some purpose that I should have in life, some higher thing that I should be, like, comparing my decisions to or weighing them up against. And so I don't know. That's why I'm like, this morality dude now working at this morality org.

Cody:
Yeah, that's interesting, because I was thinking this isn't morality at all. What you're describing. Before, it was just a very rational, prudential calculation. To be like, oh, 70 years of my life is nothing compared to infinity of bliss or torture. And that's just like, a really good. I was reading that can be purely egoistic. Right.

Maria:
I was thinking that he also agrees with, like, the principles. He, like, roughly agrees with the principles that this is based on. Like, and, yeah, killing does seem not that great. Or something exciting, but not that great.

Matt:
I think there was, like, some overlearning that happened. Basically, like, what I might have done initially as, like, a seven year old for transactional reasons. Like, I don't know, I created some associations with this idea of, like, of, like, goodness and purity just being generally good for purposes more than just, you know, my selfish interests.

Maria:
I love that story. It's a bit like my elephant. It's, like, so iconic. And it's very representative of, like, a lot of things that you do when you're religious. You're like, oh, I want to do this, but I can't do it in this way. So what's a like, the looking for loopholes is a classic. Is a classic move.

Matt:
We're recording this on March 2, which is about a week after some billionaire, I don't know her name, but I've seen her picture a whole lot on Twitter lately, gave $1 billion to the Bronx med school to make tuition free for all the med students. And some folks in the EA universe took exception to this, saying, this is a bad use of charitable dollars. What does the couch think?

Bella:
Wait, sorry, we need further context, which is some people in the EA universe took exception to this. Also, some people not in the EA universe took exception to this because they were like, I don't know, man. Seems like it could have been used better elsewhere or also, yeah, whatever they had all the various objections. But then the effective altruism Twitter account, which I believe is run by somebody at EA, I don't know who, retweeted the tweet with the billionaire announcing her donation being like, hey, I'm paraphrasing. Hey, this is really great. What a nice thing for you to do. Donate a billion dollars. Wow. Also, there may be some other more effective ways that you could donate more money if you felt like it. Bye. And then, like, someone else, quote, tweeted that being like.

Cody:
And it did list specific examples of, like, anti malaria charities and things like that.

Bella:
Yeah, yeah. Which, you know, seemed like a reasonable way to engage with this kind of issue. And then, yeah, another guy called Ben Gross quotes you said that being, like, these bootlickers. Wait, was it Ben Gross who did that?

Matt:
Yes. Yeah, I think he did both. So Ben Gross had his own original tweet saying, like, I hate this so much about the donation, without further explanation. And then when the EA org had that tweet, his comment was that we were bootlickers, or they were bootlickers.

Bella:
Being like, the problem with EAs is they, like, cosy up to billionaires instead of justifiedly criticising them like it's actually toothless or something. And I think there's something here to this critique. Like, hey, the effective altruism movement is nothing like the maximally radical thing that is, like, kill and eat the rich or whatever, you know.

Matt:
Which is obviously the solution to all the world's problems.

Bella:
Well, you know, it's a radical position that some people take, and I think it has its merits, which are that you get to, like, not appear to be accepting things that you think are bad.

Maria:
Like, if you do think they're bad.

Bella:
Yeah, sure. Like. Like, I think it's bad, actually, that this person, like, gave a whole bunch of money that could have, like, what was your tweet? Saved 200 lives, and instead of save 200,000 lives, but instead of save 500 on that order or something. And that was, like, generously assuming that, like, all of the life saved by the medical doctors were counterfactual. Is that right?

Matt:
Yeah. What I was, what I was trying to do was roughly approximate. Like, like, I don't know, Greg Lewis thing about doctor counterfactuals and, like, improving the quality of a doctor by so much over the course of their career, you expect them to save only about one life given the supply constraints on how many doctors you have. So you're really only making a qualitative difference between the marginal doctor who would or would not have gotten into med school, basically, is what most of the effect is. And that effect, as you might imagine, is very small. So that's the kind of direct effect. And so I tried to estimate, like, I don't know if med school tuition.

Maria:
Is $200,000 free for everyone, and so, like, now people that wouldn't have been able to do it can do it.

Matt:
And presumably they're gonna be better doctors.

Cody:
I don't think that's even the effect. Right. Because the effect is just making medical doctors who would have had more debt.

Maria:
Oh, and also that.

Cody:
No, I think that.

Maria:
I think that's just the thing.

Cody:
Right. It's just making people who would have had more student debt have no student debt.

Maria:
Well, some people wouldn't have been able to do it at all. And then were, why not?

Cody:
Why couldn't they just get loans?

Maria:
I don't know. Whatever their situation is, it just seemed too complicated, too hard not to. That starts earning money, really.

Matt:
Brings more people into the pool to be doctors, and then the filter becomes quality.

Maria:
Yeah.

Cody:
Yeah.

Bella:
Like, for example, if you have dependents that, you know, are gonna, like, be eating up a lot of your salary once you start making you need money right now, you, like, can't afford to take on a load of debt.

Cody:
Well, so, I mean, I just don't think this is the right calculation for doctors, though. Right. Because the reason you. The reason people do take on this debt is because it actually just does pay for itself over time, because you make enough money as a doctor such that it's worth it. The claim I heard of people defending it was that with something like, oh, this actually lets those doctors then choose less remunerative paths in the field of medicine that are maybe better for people, but.

Bella:
Well, you just expect to be under supplied.

Cody:
Right. Right.

Maria:
So there will be a bunch of different effects. There doesn't have to be one. And I think we've mentioned a lot of them.

Matt:
But the doctors don't have their hands tied whatsoever. You can speculate that's gonna be the thing. Doctors are gonna do what doctors are gonna do. I think the main effect is you've just increased the pool of candidates because it's now more financially attractive to go to med school than it was before.

Cody:
Yes, obviously. I mean, yeah. I mean, no, that's. That's true. But, like, I think. Yeah, I'm just not sure that, like. Yeah, I'm not sure just what the biggest predictable effects of that actually are even on the quality of the candidate.

Matt:
Yeah, I think I was being charitable in the 500 lives thing. Anyway, I think the interesting conversation that kind of got launched from this was about the Copenhagen interpretation of ethics. Because one thing that I don't know if it was Ben Gross or like some other kind of commentator kind of brought up is like, oh, you know, you guys, whenever someone does something for charity, you, like, you dump all over them. Why don't you dump on the people buying yachts or like, you know, going on vacations and crazy things like this all the time? And I don't know, I'm sort of, like, sympathetic at like, a meta level to the idea of, like, you know, gently criticising people's charitable decisions rather than their, like, consumption decisions just because it's more within the Overton window, if that makes sense to a third party observer.

If you just picked on every rich person you could find, oh, look at all this personal concept they're doing. They could be giving it to charity. That just feels like a very big leap. And the person is like, all right, you just want people to do your thing. Good for you. That's everyone in the world. Whereas if someone has already decided that they're going to commit a large amount of their money to helping the world, it almost feels like you're the, as the effective altruism org did, giving them a helpful suggestion for how they could do that better. It's like, we're actually quite close here, and maybe you can consider these other things. And this just seems like a reasonable position versus saying you need to totally turn your life around person. And this is just like, maybe it's better messaging. What do we think?

Bella:
I don't know. I think it depends who your target is. Like, I think if you're trying to do outreach to ultra high net worth individuals, you are obviously going to have a better time if you're looking at people who are looking to do good with their money or who are sympathetic to that kind of thing generally, than people who are like, no, I want more, bigger yachts. But if you're trying to, you know, talk on Twitter, that's a public outreach platform. Most of the people on there are not ultra high net worth individuals. Maybe there's one who's reading every tweet, but probably not. And I think, you know, it's a little more unclear to me what the better message is for that public.

Maria:
I'm not on Twitter. I mean, that maybe says things of how I would react to this and other things. And maybe it's a segue to club, but, like, I, and this is very personal. I just, I don't feel excited. I don't feel very excited about, like, telling people what to do. And I can feel more uncomfortable than most people talking about what people very broadly should do or this particular person who did this thing. Like, I feel just, like, I'm not saying never do it. And, like, just live your life and stop bossing around. No, like, I think there's definitely a space for, like, but I don't know. My personal limits are something like, are you in the room with this person or something? I don't know.

Cody:
I, like, I think there just are some pause, some opportunities here to, like, positively influence the discourse around these ideas in a way that, like, just does seem really good. And, like, this happens a lot. This is like, just kind of how the news works, right. Which is that, like, events happen, and then what you try and do is you try and take those events and talk about them in a way that, like, you think spreads ideas you think are important.

Maria:
Are important. Yeah.

Cody:
Often happens. Yeah. A while ago, like, yeah. It was probably a long time ago now, but there was, like, somebody who, like, killed a lion and people got really mad about the lion that was killed. Yeah. And then, like, some people, maybe in the EA universe, maybe otherwise, or certainly in the animal universe, were like, well, if you care about the killing of Cecil the lion, like, maybe you should care about all the chickens who get killed and tortured before they're eaten. And, like, so that, you know, and, like, obviously it's like, in some ways that just has nothing to do with the Cecil the lion case at all, but it's just a way of talking about something you think is important. And, like, that's one thing that's going on here, right. Which is like, somebody made a charitable decision and like, well, that's just an easy way to talk about how to think about making charitable decisions. And there are better and worse ways to think of it.

Maria:
I think I just have a very complicated relationship with the kind of whole influencing kind of mechanism that you described. It doesn't feel... So some people that's part of their life and who they are and what they think they're doing in life. And I feel very weird about, like, it doesn't feel like it's something I've chosen for that to be in my life. But it is a bit weird when you're involved with the a and are also saying, I'm not gonna take part of like, big global conversations in public platforms or something. I mean, like, I guess maybe my preference is something like, if you're gonna do something like that, like use something that happened to just have a public discussion about something. A very long podcast episode is definitely my preferred, like, where I can say lots of nuance. It would definitely be my preferred way. And like short, like very austere messages that don't have a lot of like, hedging. And I just, you know, become very naturally uncomfortable about saying like a short sentence in reaction to some big thing.

Cody:
And that kind of, I mean, one thing that frustrated me about some of the discussion afterwards was some people just said some things that were clearly untrue and showed just bad thinking about these topics. Like, I saw one reaction where somebody was defending the billionaire's decision and said something along the lines of, look, they made this decision. It means some people are going to get free tuition to medical school, which seems really good for them, and it doesn't mean more people with malaria are going to die as a result. And I was like, that's actually just not true because there just are opportunity costs in the world and people aren't good about thinking about it.

Maria:
I mean, can I fight you about it?

Cody:
Sure, let's fight about it.

Maria:
Yay.

Cody:
Well, so, I mean, so in this specific malaria case, it's actually not true. Like, I'm not sure if the gap of funding for malaria nets or other ways of presenting the disease is actually a billion dollars. So it's that, like, you'd actually, but like, there just are neglected causes in the world and, like, the fact that we're not doing something about them is just, it just like, is a cost to the choices we're making.

Maria:
Obviously, I super agree with the object level of all of that, but especially when, like trying to assess the, like opportunity cost and counterfactuals and stuff like that. I think like a classic kind of thing that people in the EA community and just people in general do is like percent counterfactuals that are not really counterfactuals. Like percent possibilities of the universe that were not possibilities in the universe. And like, the thing here is something like forgetting that humans and humans are humans and people have their psychology and stuff. So I'm like, thinking about like, were this person, I don't know who, and you probably briefly said, but I already forgot who this person is.

Matt:
Oh, I didn't know anything about, I forget her name.

Maria:
Oh, like her name. You just said, like, I even forget. Forgot, like, just anything about them. And, like, it all just really depends on how possible it was for this person to have been open to a different, like, giving decision or not. And if, like. And these are things that it's, like, kind of between you and God kind of thing. Like, if her psychology was like, that was her out of the possibilities that her brain and her knowledge of the world and her disposition in that moment, this was, like, the most charitable thing she could do, then this actually was the best outcome of all, because that was.

Cody:
I think this is one reason people talk about these issues more around something, like, putatively unwise charitable decision rather than, like, buying yachts or something. Because charitable decisions often do seem like something where, like, it really does seem very contingent. Like, if you just thought about, like, another cause at the time that you're thinking about charitable decision, like, it's just so. It's so. There's so little cost on you to making that change. Right? You just.

Maria:
But that's obvious to you, I guess. I'm trying to situate myself. When I found out about the stuff that eas did and researched, my mind was blown. It was really blown. I did not in a good way as, like, all these possibilities.

Matt:
This is underscoring Cody's point, though. I think what people are trying to do when they critique this decision is blow some people's minds in the future to say, look at what was possible.

Maria:
Yeah, yeah. That is very fair. I guess what I'm trying to say is also that it can be really easy to be in a situation where you. There is no way you could have thought about making a better charitable decision. Like, especially. I don't know if this is a not developed world thing or not. I grew up in Costa Rica, and it is not developed. It is also not developed. So it's the middle income country. And also, I guess, I don't know, my age and stuff. I wasn't this Internet person. I wasn't part of, like, the bigger world through the Internet when I was younger and stuff. So I just. My take on, like, doing the, like, making the world better at, like, when I was, like, 18 or something was, you can't.

Maria:
I just didn't think it was possible that people would get together and do research and organise, you know, charities, institutions or whatever, or even policy at a level of, like, sincerity and trying to do something useful and good that actually was happening in the world. I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying it always is what is promised or something. But I didn't know this thing was happening. And I had the information I had about the world kind of suggested that it wasn't possible. And, like, if someone had told me, you know, I saw, like, for me, charity was like, let's pay for a bunch of Americans to paint a school. And I saw that and I'm like, oh, here's a bunch of Americans painting school.

Cody:
Like, Americans who came to Costa Rica did that. Yeah.

Maria:
Yeah.

Bella:
But, like, I think I had this or something like this perspective, too, growing up. Right? Like, I was very much despairing. I was just like, well, there's all these problems in the world and there's, like, absolutely nothing that, you know, I'm gonna do or that really anyone can do. We're just all gonna die and it's just gonna be terrible forever. But I think that eventually I ended up changing my mind about that.

Maria:
Right? Yeah.

Bella:
And, like, why did I do it? I did it because my, like, I don't know, I learned stuff. I read stuff, I spoke to people. And ultimately my psychology was malleable. And I think that we're doing these people a disservice if we say something like, you know, oh, well, there was just no world in which, like, she could have considered something different.

Maria:
Yeah, I know, you're right.

Bella:
Instead I'm like, no, like, she's a person like us. And like, maybe, you know, there was something that somebody could have intervened at some point where she would have gone. Oh, okay. Actually, yeah. You know, I don't just care about Americans.

Maria:
Yeah, you're swaying me. Wait, can we just very quickly go back to religions just for a bit before we. Because there's still something I wanted to say and I felt like I didn't.

Matt:
Okay.

Maria:
It was just the way you described being religious. And I think this is true for many of the ex religious EA people I have met. And maybe it's just a bit too basic, but I still want to reflect on it. It's something like, there seems to be a personality trait, which is about not just living life like you're this leaf that's just floating around or something. You're like, okay, here's some rules I maybe believe and have been presented with. Now I'm gonna organise my life around it and I'm gonna try to do a specific thing. And that sounded like your religiousness was a bit like that. My, my religious was definitely a bit like that. It's like there's whole set of things that I think are maybe true, but most even more than true seem important and wise or something like that.

And I'm not gonna just be like, okay by rules. I'm gonna be like, okay, now I'm gonna, you know, structure my life around this as you do. And then I guess I was like, oh, wait, maybe those. I guess eventually I started doubting the whole package or something, but I still feel like I'm the kind of person where I'm like, well, what's the new package? Or something? And there is some sort of risk there where if you're, like, package of rules oriented, when they're, when the answers are not neat, you might want to make them neat, you might want to substitute, you know, like, you might just want to have it to fix the set of guidelines, wherever that's not, that's just not what exists. That's not how life looks. But, yeah, so there's pros and cons. Like, I think the pros are, I tried to do particular things based on my beliefs sometimes and stuff like that. Which seems correct for you too, as well.

Matt:
I mean, look, and like, all of us, probably, I'm gonna swim out into some deep waters of speculation here, but, like, there is kind of like this depression crisis in the developed world, almost. The richer your country is, the more people are depressed there, the more people are suicidal there, and things like that. Here's the theory, right? It's like, that is, like, derivative of a certain nihilism that comes from having all your needs met, where it's just like, you don't have to wake up and urgently track down food for yourself. You don't have to urgently seek shelter or treat your wounds or diseases all the time because you're mostly healthy most of the time. And there's nothing that nature is imposing on you as an urgent thing that gives you purpose. So you've got to find your own purpose.

Matt:
And, I don't know, we evolved to have the structure of nature just always bearing down on us. And so I think one way that people get themselves out of depression is to make some artificial nature that bears down on them some urgency and pleasing God. Definitely some of that. Satisfying the strictures of morality satisfies that. Getting swole also satisfies that. Lots of options, people. So, no, I think, like, this might be a later kind of discovered benefit of having this intuition.

Maria:
Yeah. I mean, that's for the person's benefit. You also, like, most. Most of the time when you're doing stuff like that, you also think you're not only doing it for yourself, there's also. You care about the object level. The outcomes you're gonna have. But it is a nice kind of second thing that happens. I mean, I do agree that, I mean, not having a purpose is deeply confusing and demoralising and you don't really know what to do at the time and you didn't really know how to prioritise things and you just try to. Yeah, it's not great.

Matt:
OK. Have you made your point?

Maria:
Yeah.

Matt:
Why'd you quit 80k?

Cody:
Wait, so, yeah, what's in the background? Yeah, when did you leave?

Maria:
I left. Oh, years now. I left in mid 2022, I believe. Something like that.

Cody:
And when did you start at 80K?

Maria:
Depends what starting means. I started, I used to work as a graphic designer and 80K started being one of my clients. I would do some jobs for 80K, graphic design jobs in 2015. That went on for several years, like 2015 and 16. And then I think 2017, I started not doing work for any other people, but it was still. I was still a freelance graphic designer, but it was like, I did a lot for 80k that year or something like that. I mean, this is quite fuzzy. And then 2018, I became like a normal, permanent employee or something like that.

Matt:
Yeah.

Cody:
Did you start working for 80k because of EA or was it just like a graphic design client?

Maria:
It was definitely not just an EA client, but it definitely just doing work for them definitely made me be more.

Cody:
Like, what's going on here?

Maria:
Yeah, yeah. What's going on with this group of people? It started because I asked for career advice. And they're like, what about just work? Do you want that? And I was like, yeah. Also that, yeah. It was fun.

Bella:
Maria, I'm not sure if I told you this story before. Maybe I have. But, like, when I first joined or, like, a couple weeks after I joined or something, I was, like, digging through the Google Drive looking for something. I ended up finding a report that you'd made about, like, I think it was your work on the 2017 video that we did. That was like, a most pressing problems video. It was like four minutes. Whatever. And I remember being so intimidated by how good the report was.

Maria:
I don't even remember that.

Bella:
I know, I know. Of course you don't. It was like, probably just like your average Tuesday. But I was like...

Maria:
Are you sure it wasn't like Rob who did it?

Bella:
I'm pretty damn confident that it was your writing throughout. Cause you're, like, writing in the first person, being like, I did, blah, blah. And I was like, oh, clearly.

Maria:
Oh, yeah, I feel so happy. Not that I intimidated you.

Bella:
But I was like, this is incredibly competent. Like, how am I gonna get this competent? You know? It was like one of those things, like, really set a fire under my seat.

Maria:
I was like, I don't think you're sharing that. I feel like I'm not a. I don't know. You definitely made me feel less insecure for that. So thank you.

Bella:
I think it's true.

Matt:
Okay, so, Maria, you were an amazing employee at 80k. You were writing reports that inspired future employees. But then you left. Why did you leave?

Maria:
I left... So I kind of love this opportunity to talk about it. So I'm gonna indulge or preamble everyone, I'm gonna indulge in the portfolio reasons why I left as opposed to being just like, oh, this simplistic one liner, Twitter why I left or something. So I remember the day I was like, oh, I think I should leave because I was preparing the plan for the job board for the next year, I think was like, 2021. And I was, like, drafting the 2022 plan. And then I saw it and I felt proud. I was like, this is a good plan. This is, if these things happen, the job board will do great. I think these things should happen. So I don't have uncertainties.

I feel confident on the plan, and I also feel confident that I don't want to be the one executing that, like the things that needed to be done are not things I was excited about. And I also, there was no chance... I was pretty confident that they needed to be done. So I just felt like the wrong person suddenly. And that didn't feel weird or problematic because the job board was still quite young and it just seemed natural that in very different stages of programmes, organisations, the character of a person that you need to do the very early stage work might be very different from the character of people who might be good later on. So that didn't feel weird. I'm just like, oh, manager, we need to hire some people and I need to be a boss.

Maria:
And I'm not sure about my abilities there, and I'm not sure it's the right time to even try those abilities. So that's when it started. And I messaged my managers, like, I'm not sure, but it was a very kind of chill. I'm not sure I'm the right person for this role right now. Okay. And then the second layer is that, yeah, I feel like there was always this weird, I'm uncomfortable feeling about me working at was so I could not put my finger on what was wrong. And it just took forever for me to, like, investigate what was going on and, like, reach the point where I could talk about it to people because it was so cloudy or something. And so, like, it was confusing because I'm like, it's not the people.

I've never been able to like people that I work with so much as right now. I deeply respect, like, deeply respect my co workers. So it's nothing about, like, yeah, some of us will have different working styles, and I prefer working with some of them to others, but, like, I'm like, well, the people are the organisations. There's not people. What is it? Or something. I don't know. Anyways, it took ages. One time, Howie gave me some of the biggest advice and the best advice where, like, I think we just talked for, like, an hour really fuzzily about what I was feeling, what was going on. And then at the end of it, he said, it was a long conversation. He said, I feel like you haven't gotten to the crux of what's wrong.

And I need, like, I think, like, you should figure it out. And that was really great advice because sometimes when you think a lot about a thing, you're very torn between. Is it worth it to think more and have the hope of clarity? Or am I just doing loops here in a thing that is hopeless, that I just need to stop obsessing over? And you can feel like you don't know which of those is the case and how he was like, it seems like there's a crux and, like, you could get to it and just try to get to it. I think I eventually did. I think the crux is I feel really uncomfortable participating in a big thing that in some way is about telling people somewhat, like, do this or do that. So, like, kind of the activity of, like, career advice. Career advice or anything advice. Like, if the word advice is in it, I'm already like, oh, gosh. Oh, no, I'm so uncomfortable. Or like, yeah, I feel like I...

Bella:
I really want to know more about this. One thing is, like, I feel like one way you could view 80k is that we're just like, we're opinionated. And we're like, look, the thing we feel pretty confident in, we're going to, like, tell you to do on like our, you know, page one is that like, you've got like 80,000 hours in your career. It's a pretty big deal. You should probably care about it, like, beyond that. Like here's our thoughts on, like, how you can care about it. Like, what it would mean and what that would mean you do. But like, otherwise it's mostly like, you should probably just think about it some. Yeah, and like, that just seems so uncontroversial to me.

Maria:
That seems uncontroversial to me, but like, I'm gonna get pretty, like trying to push back a lot, but this is just me being a lot of who I am as opposed to like trying to think what the right thing is or something. The me says something like, yeah, I mean, but that's something that can be done in one blog post once by one person. Right. So surely there's a lot more going on in 80k that's not just that, because if it was just about making one point that is clear and very basic, then you can just make that one point and like, make the article super famous and keep referring to it and like, but like, why do you need this whole like, enterprise around?

Bella:
Because we're all so opinionated and so we're gonna spend a lot of time being like, here's all the stuff that we think.

Maria:
Yeah, yeah. So, like the, I mean, the first thing I don't think would make me uncomfortable, but it will also not employ me.

Bella:
Yeah. And then the second thing is Open Phil not telling people what to do.

Maria:
I mean, one thing that makes me really happy, like really liberated about working at Open Phil is that we're not only telling... like that, only a little part of Open Phil funds meta, like EA stuff that actually matters a lot for my personal morale, I guess.

Bella:
Sorry, the level on which I meant, like telling people what to do is I'm like, here, you can have a grant to do this or, no, you can't have a grant to do this is like telling them what to do.

Maria:
Oh, I see that as extremely difficult, different. I see that as someone made their money, someone being Dustin, and has their money and is willing to give it away for things that they're on board with and not for others. But like people can do whatever they want and like to get his money, they need to have some sorts of plans that he is excited about. He / Open Phil research staff is excited about.

Bella:
So this seems like a direct analogue with 80k. Right. It's like, to follow our advice, you should, like, go work in whatever fields we tell you to, but, like, otherwise, you can do whatever you want, you know?

Maria:
I mean, yeah, obviously, 80k does have a very...

Matt:
I do often frame my, like, one on one conversations and being like, look, there's this place, Open Philanthropy, and I can explain to you what they care about if you want their money. And, like, here's how you can navigate to that if you're into it. I mean, it matters whether you're into it and you rather, like, do a good job on it. I think they'll be able to tell if you're into it and if you've done your homework.

Maria:
I mean, I think you're asking great questions, because they're the questions that get at the bottom of what is the thing that I'm averse to that, like, sometimes is the thing and sometimes isn't the thing. And I don't even understand it very well, so I'm going to try to respond for that. I'm not sure. Yeah, so, like, what's the difference? Like, obviously, 80k isn't, like, saying anything. Like, and everyone should agree with the things we're saying and do, but it's implicit, right?

Bella:
Like, it's like, we think this is our best guess. Like, here's what we think.

Maria:
I mean, I even think that a lot of you would think that there are many cases in life and many types of personalities and situations where someone should just not. Yeah, the advice doesn't apply and just don't worry about it. Or something. Something weird about, like, what are the incentives? Who is saying what? Who is doing, like, with the money? I'm like, here's some money. People can do things if they want this money. I don't know. There's something, like, super pure about like, who the actors are and what are the transactions that are happening? Whereas in 80k, I'm like, okay, these people are not doing any of the money. They're doing some connections. They're trying to advocate.

And also, like, I mean, maybe let's start with. Because it's a whole world. So, like, maybe let's start with a simple one, which is like, I feel like there is a kind of blurred, I don't know what 80k I get a mixed message about. Are we just saying, if you're interested, here's some things. Or are we also advocating for some things?

Cody:
What's the difference?

Bella:
Yeah.

Maria:
It boils down to language, I would think, and how you actually talk about the thing.

Bella:
I mean, what's the language of the problem profiles? It's like this is our best guess at the world's most pressing problems or something like that.

Cody:
We also say we're pretty confident we're wrong about it in some way.

Bella:
And then the next sentence after that is like, here's a link on the page to where you can form your own list because you'll probably disagree in various ways.

Maria:
Yeah.

Cody:
Some people will tell us we're like, we're too equivocal and we don't take enough positions on the websites.

Maria:
Weirdly, I can sometimes put myself in the position where you guys also don't have a strong enough take or something.

Cody:
So, yeah, I feel like I kind of do come at this from like a pretty opposite way to you, which is like before this I was in journalism and in the news business and like, I would like, I've like written opinion pieces and stuff. But a lot of the work of news is, I think, is often hiding the ball on how much you have an opinion, which is even just so much like you've written an article. And the fact that you've written an article means you think that's one of the most important things for you to be writing about that day. And there's just this thing of news judgement, which is deciding what the topic of the article is and what the headline should focus on.

Cody:
It's a thing you're trained in and it's called news judgement, but it's often very morally loaded in a way that I think is fine in practice, except that, like, there, it's just hard to be totally honest about that. I wish there was like a paragraph in every news story that was like, here's why we're writing about this. Like, and this really matters because x, Y and Z. And like, they almost never do that part, right. Like they have this idea that a lot of news articles just have this idea that like, oh, well, like, of course this is the thing that we're writing about and that's kind of implicit and like the reason we made that choice. We're not going to explain like, it's.

Bella:
The news of the day.

Cody:
It's like, yeah, exactly. It just happens to be what came up. Even though like, there's like basically an infinity of things they could write about and like infinity of different ways you could frame the same news story. They make judgement calls on all this, like informed in part by their opinions and, yeah, the thing I kind of like, in some ways better about working at 80k is, like, we're just upfront about the fact that, like, we're working on this stuff because we think it's one of the most important problems in the world. Here's how we try and think about how different problems are important. Here's our take on it. Like, and like, yeah, you're welcome to disagree with us, but, like, you know, you came to the site, you're interested in these takes.

Cody:
Here's what we think about them, and we just try now as upfront as possible with that.

Maria:
I think I also like that about it. I mean, one thing to be said about this disposition of mine that makes working at a place like 80k hard is that it's, I think it's never ending. Like, you can just be like, yeah, but this makes sense because of that. And then I'll be like, yeah, but then I don't like this part about it. I don't like that part about it. And I think that is why it's ultimately really good that I left, because it is like, I just think I was starting to have bitterness. I actually remember interacting with you. You were, like, joyful and happy. And I just was in the kitchen, I said something really bitter, and you were very new and unborn. I was like, oh, I'm just this unpleasant grinch, aren't I?

Bella:
I didn't experience you as a grinch.

Maria:
I felt very bitter. And, like, if you're in a situation where ultimately you think people are doing good things, it can even be like a relationship or something. And because of your personality, your, like, idiosyncrasies, you're gonna always, or almost always have a difficulty with what's going on and keep adding layers of bitterness. You should just get out and let people do their good work.

Bella:
I respect that so much. I'm like, if you like, obviously this is not attainable for everybody, but the ideal, I think, is to have, like, a job where you are just actually joyful about doing it. And I think, oh, man, it really annoys me how much, like, disagreeing sentiment with this there is out there. They're like, no, you need to get through your work. You need to find something that's tolerable. And I'm like, no, if you, like, try really hard to find something that you actually are just excited about, and you're like, wow, this is great. You have no bitterness, you know, or, like, minimal, whatever. You don't feel like you're just like, shouldering some kind of burden and that'd be really great.

Maria:
I mean, I think that's huge. That's a huge topic where, like, I don't mean you spend so many hours of your life doing whatever it is that your job is not from an altruistic and you get how many?

Matt:
How many exactly?

Maria:
I don't know. I don't know. How many? It must be some big number. And, like, from a purely your own happiness perspective and from, like, a not altruistic for the rest of the world, but just the happiness of you and those who work with you.

Bella:
Yeah, I think maybe also outsourcing. Yeah, because, like, ultimately, like, we do, you'd stayed doing the job board. Right. And then you felt increasingly better about it and, like, how good would the 2023 plan be? I don't know.

Maria:
That's exactly right. I mean, I think this is a classic EA mistake, or, like, people who are too rational mistake, which, like, you're a little animal. When you're happy, you do things well, and when you're sad, you're chewing up the couch, you're like a little dog. Like, you're also this higher brain thing, but there's some very basic mammal things that apply to how well you're gonna do things, or, like, how proud are you, how happy are you and stuff like that. And, like, don't try to circumvent those too much and make them too complicated because they're gonna keep applying to you as a person or something.

Bella:
I don't want to overstate the case, because I do think there's an opposite extreme, which is also, like, can be harmful for people where they're like, well, I must only do the thing where there's, like, nothing bad about it. And I'm, like, always the most happiest because I have sometimes experienced people trying to do this and they end up feeling really sad because there's nothing that's like that.

Maria:
I mean, it's so hard to say things where the true thing is a balanced thing, but I think you're totally right. I would not change. I have stayed sometimes doing projects or things for a while that felt effortful and not. And, like, I wouldn't change that for anything. Yeah. Like, there are right times in life to be, like, I need to learn about myself and about this thing and about why it's being hard or the outcome is just too precious to me. There's lots of circumstances why you might want to do something that, oh, you.

Bella:
Are the kind of person who can really persevere in adversity and you just find that.

Maria:
Exactly. That's the right tool for you. Yeah, yeah.

Bella:
I'm just not that hardcore.

Maria:
Yeah, I think it depends. For me.

Matt:
Bella, you're blossoming into hardcoredom. That's my opinion.

Bella:
I take that as a compliment.

Maria:
Into hardcoredom is such a mad compliment. What were you saying? Some things about 80k being upfront. Yeah, that seems very right. Maybe I'll just. Maybe I can say some things that randomly trigger my I don't want to tell people what to do buttons or something. One is like, and remember, please remember, these are not arguments. These are just, I'm never going to be happy about them or something. Kind of. One is just like the whole. And it has gotten a lot better, but the whole, like, we're just saying it, we're not doing the thing. Like, there's a world where like the people giving advice just have the role that they're giving advice on or something like that.

Maria:
Instead of like an 80k organisation, some like, conglomerate of like network, like blogging people that like, give advice and some consulting, but like, have the job and do the job or something like that. And I know you do connect people to a lot of people like that. So you're not like saying, I have all the details and I'm gonna give you dumb details that are not from the people in the field. You do actually lead people to those kinds of connections. But I just always gonna be. Feel a bit awkward about, like, the people who are writing it are not doing, like, just saying something where like, a lot of effort and energy and years and jobs are put into saying things that are not coming from, like, the primary source. Yeah, yeah, that just makes me a bit like.

Bella:
Yeah, I mean, there's some, like, real inauthenticity here and there's also, like, chances for us to fuck up. Right. Because, like, yeah, if we aren't, like, deeply involved in the fields that we're talking about, like, we'll, we'll lose interest, lose a lot of detail and maybe get things wrong. Yeah, but I think there's authenticity in another way.

Maria:
Yeah. Right.

Bella:
Which is just like the specialisation of labour thing. It's much harder for somebody who's like, really crushing it in some fields. Like, also really crush it.

Maria:
Like, it just seems like. I completely agree with the kind of honesty and like, well, it seems like people are not just. I mean, some people are overachievers and have the time and kind of behave that way. But like, mostly you kind of need to organise and pay a group of people to do this apart because it's too much work or something.

Bella:
And I think too much of someone's attention.

Bella:
The historical success of 80k is just like a good test case for that kind of argument where it's like, no, actually having some people who are thinking full time are like, what should even people do? Yeah, pretty cool.

Maria:
Yeah, I'm just always, my brain is always going to be like, icked about a bunch of stuff around that. What's another thing? I probably would always be wicked, I mean, the whole, just, it does, it wouldn't have to be the case necessarily, but just the fact that there is a community around this, that it's called EA and that it already has a bunch of things that are to me reminiscent maybe a little bit of past things I experienced when I was religious and stuff like that really doesn't help me feel super comfortable. Like in group / out group status, all these types of dynamics. And 80k could just definitely still exist if the EA community wasn't like any community. And so it's kind of like not even its fault at all or anything, but just that proximity makes it hard for me.

Matt:
I do appreciate you coming on my very community oriented platform.

Maria:
Thank you. Well, it's only because I knew you let me talk about stuff. Do you want to explain club to people?

Matt:
Club is your invention, Maria.

Maria:
Oh, no, I didn't. Definitely did not. When I explained it to you, did I claim. No, no.

Matt:
I, you're the first person who I heard use the term.

Maria:
I see. No, I read it. It was beautiful. I almost cried whenever it was hilarious. It's some, I don't even know what the source is of Club. I'm just gonna do it such bad justice.

Matt:
So, listeners, if you can find an instance of someone using the term club before Maria at dinner with me in 2021 sometime, there's no prize.

Maria:
Because I'll lose more money, I'm pretty sure. Oh, was it already found?

Matt:
Oh, my God. We were just totally wrong from the off. This is actually something I wanted to talk about. Right. Is like, Chana knew that steelman had been used before her in one specific instance. She just didn't think it was interesting, noteworthy or memorable because she knew that it wasn't the original instance. Luke Muehlhauser had used it on LessWrong. Yeah, but Chana was like, oh, that wasn't the original instance. I don't care. We still don't know where it is, but that clearly means that it wasn't Chana.

Maria:
Yeah, and she forgot to mention that.

Matt:
Yeah, forgot. Hence Matt loses 100 pounds. Thanks, listeners.

Maria:
Well, I feel like I did not dream about this, but there's just some funny post or somewhere, I think. Not even a single source. It's just a cultural. I don't know. Anyway, club is this thing where, like, there's a club and the thing that it is about is being in the club. So instead of being like, the bike riders club or the moviegoers club is the club. And it's almost this, like, to me, it has this kind of a bit of a, like, Waiting for Godot. Kinda like. What's the word I'm looking for? That type of theatre has a name.

Matt:
Surrealist.

Maria:
No, I know. It's so absurdist. Absurdist. Thank you. It has this absurdist vibe of, like. And we. We need the money for the pizza and we need the money and there's, like, roles and, like, the people who advertise and we need the money for.

Matt:
The pizza and the pizza for the money.

Maria:
Bureaucracy. And, like, a lot of this whole ecosystem flourishes around making the club work. And the club is about the club.

Cody:
I mean, aren't there just tonnes of these in real life?

Maria:
Oh, there's tonnes of these in real life.

Cody:
Like the Elks and the...

Maria:
I don't know what that is, but.

Cody:
I do think it's a club. It's just like, people who, like, just get together in their community and just spend time together.

Maria:
Oh, no.

Matt:
The Freemasons spend very little time talking about masonry.

Maria:
I mean, club. The thing about club is that if the club is about spending time together, I don't think that is quite a club. It's just a club about spending time together with people and usually based on some particular kind of thing, but it can even not be based on some particular kind of thing. But club is about the club itself, not spending time with people, which is the object level layer. It's about. I mean, it's hard to sustain because it's a ridiculous thing. But anyways, when I was still kind of, like, very. Not even understanding my own emotions about what made me uncomfortable about working someplace that told people what to do and that vibe, I used to refer to people as, like, my club feelings. And there's also. They're even stronger when they're not even about 80k and there's just like about the EA community in general.

Cody:
But isn't, I mean, isn't the EA community very much not a club?

Maria:
Oh, it's definitely not. Like there is so much object level, like, so like, I don't think.

Matt:
But even small steps in the direction.

Maria:
It's just like anyone who's trying to do a thing where a community starts being built on the object level thing starts to sometimes have some things that feel a bit club clubby.

Cody:
Sure.

Maria:
And like, these kinds of things really trigger me.

Cody:
Interesting.

Maria:
But like, absolutely. There is no.

Cody:
Would you say you're probably overly sensitive to clubbing?

Maria:
I think I'm like, I mean...

Cody:
I can get this feeling that sometimes, right, which is like we just have like a decent size operations team. And like, sometimes I'm like, wait, why do we need an operations team? Such that the other teams can keep functioning. But it's like, of course you do. Yeah, I think this is like a failure on my part to fully conceptualise what organisations need. But like, sometimes I'm like, oh, yeah, like, do we even just need somebody who's like taking care of the finances? It's like, yeah, of course you do.

Maria:
Yeah, of course you do. No, I think, I mean, a whole thing of my, why I struggled with these emotions for a bit is that I do think that they're not, that they're coming from like oversensitive to that place. So they were not only they, often the arguments fell apart or they were like too exaggerated or something like that. So, like, I think I erred for a couple of years in like, has some negative vibe of a thing when inspects it with reason, finds that can't really hold the complaint up, make it stand, hence, thinks intuition's wrong, bad, dumb, keep doing what you're doing because you can't really argue against it. And I think the right move was like, I don't know, like, personality, not happy. Seems hard to change.

Matt:
Yeah.

Cody:
Does this connect back to what you were discussing earlier about the intuitions and morality and like, you kind of...

Maria:
Well, this definitely connects back to having been religious and having been in a church and having seen I don't like the word community. Makes me cringe. And like, if it's very grassroots, like, people got together, like, if it's almost like indistinguishable from literally a group of friends, I'm like, yeah, nice. Love, friendship, community, intimacy. But as long as when organisation starts to happen.

Cody:
You're just anarchist.

Bella:
I think the word community also makes me cringe, but maybe for very different reasons. And I feel like one thing is I really. It really irks me whenever people talk about decisions or actions happening at the level of community because when they say this, they usually mean like, some particular prominent individual within the community or like, yeah, like, it's just really hard to, like, actually analyse, like, sentiment and action at the level of, like, a group of people who are heterogeneous and individuals. Anyway, whatever. That's one thing, then. I think the other thing is I'm just like. It is often associated with, like, if you're doing something for the community, it is inherently morally good. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? So, like, I watch a lot of, crochet drama videos.

Maria:
Can you say that again?

Bella:
Crochet. Crochet.

Maria:
Got it. Crochet. Unpack it.

Bella:
Fabric arts generally. So drama, fibre arts.

Matt:
Sorry, the quilters are savage.

Maria:
Oh, drama in their community? Yes. Oh, huh. I don't.

Bella:
I don't knit. I don't sew, I don't do any fibre arts.

Maria:
Their drama is just great.

Bella:
Their dramas, so good. And, it's very like, it's exactly the kind of like, gossip and drama that I love, which is like, it's low stakes. Ultimately, nobody really cares. Well, there was one time a lady faked her own death, but otherwise it's like, yeah, I know, but like, mostly it's like, you copied my yarn design.

Maria:
No, I didn't.

Bella:
It's like just kind of a vest. Well, I'm angry about it and I'm gonna block you on all social media and tell all my followers that you're evil. That's like the level.

Cody:
Have you seen the drama in the fountain pen community recently?

Bella:
No, but apparently...

Maria:
Oh, that's a great drama.

Bella:
Tell me about it.

Maria:
I might even become genuinely, actually invested because pens are great. Anyway, sorry.

Bella:
I've, like, heard secondhand that the fountain pen drama is great. I can't wait to learn about it. Okay. But anyway, like, I was, like, watching this video this morning. Sorry. The main person I watched is somebody is like a youtuber called Emma in the moment who, like, does videos about this. And they were like, making a video in response to the community drama, one of the people was like, I'm gonna, like, heal the crochet. I'm gonna heal the, like, indie fabric dyer community by, like, making a load of Instagram stories where I like, shout out eight different, like, fabric dyers that you can follow and I'm like, how is, these people are just, they're merchants that's selling wool, that's their job. How is this like some kind of like great act of defiance against like the void? Like it's nothing.

You're helping people make sales for their business, but because you use the word community of like the indie dyer community now, it's like good somehow. You know?

Maria:
Yeah. I mean, I do think he is pretty good. But like one intuition. Before I completely left religiousness, I was very tempted to become a Catholic. And the reason was I was a Christian all my life and Christians do a lot of, with respect to Christians, my experience of Christianity was that there was a lot of club. Club, like, there's just a lot of peripheral activities. Right. The kind of church I went to, there's like, you go to church and then you chat and there was food and you had friends and then you went out and there was camp and I started, I felt like a lot of the time the people coming were coming because it was nice to be around other people or because of a bunch of things that were not about being true to God. And that made me not want it for that reason.

I do also like people and like friends and I like socialising, but I was feeling lonely in my search for God inside a church because it would stop being about that. And so I was like, look at the Catholics that make it really boring. Like you just have to stay, you just have to go and sit there and you listen to the actual really important content and then you leave. Like there's no, if you go, you care about God, like there's no other way else would you go?

Cody:
I mean, I, I grew up Catholic, but Catholicism has so much so-called club elements. Like there's these bishops and then they have like, and it has like a whole city to themselves. They have all this money.

Maria:
That's a great point.

Cody:
And it's about growing the church. The purpose of having the church is to grow.

Maria:
Like, yeah, from a bureaucracy standpoint, you're completely correct.

Bella:
Having the church grow is not club. That's like getting into heaven club.

Cody:
Yeah, yeah, but, but the, like, the point of the Catholic church is that it is the church. Like there's like why couldn't they just know about God and read the Bible? It's like, no, you have to do it through the Catholic.

Bella:
At least they like, genuinely think that.

Cody:
Sure. Sure.

Maria:
I think it's mostly when you say something's club clubby, you just mean there's, like, something, some wrong vibes. Obviously, most people in the world are just trying to achieve some concrete things, but there's some kind of loopy thing going on that seems wrong. And then what's another trait is something like, and I think I got this from religiousness, and I still am grateful to Christianity, religion in general, for having given me this, because I like it about myself. I just really value acting sincerely and being really sure about what your motivations for something are and not letting yourself roll into situations where you're not sure what your incentives are and other people's. And, like, this kind of what you see is what you get. Being really transparent about what I want, being really transparent about why I'm doing the thing I'm doing.

Why is my job? Because I need money? Is it because I want to help? Is it both? How much, like, I'm just really into that kind of purity of, like, maybe intentions. Purity is something. And it's a bit. I mean, I like it about myself. It can also be a pain in the ass if you're. You can also feel too, like, high and mighty if you. You can value, you overvalue those things. And I think life is complicated. And to some extent, if you like that kind of stuff too much like me, you can just be weirdly wanting life to be different from what it actually is because it's just not. Not that simple.

Maria:
So, like, there's some, like, rejection of reality going on there that I'm not sure how healthy it is, but just at some dose of it, I, like kind of being in my couch in my, like, Sunday afternoons and not having that much of, like, why am I, where I am at again? If I'm, like, in this club role, I feel a bit more like, why was I doing what's my life about again? It was supposed to be about this suffering thing, but now I do this thing because of that thing, and then that will create that thing. So that's why I'm doing this other thing. Oh. And then that kind of spiritually, so to speak, seems harmful to me or something.

Matt:
And an Open Phil pays you closer to your market value. So it clarifies a bunch of decisions around that.

Maria:
I love kind of money clarity. I love money clarity around money. I love, like, this is your job. You get paid. I do this many hours, I loved, like, Open Phil had, like, a very clear section on, like, it was like, yeah, we're clear. You know, 40 hours a week is a normal thing, but what just, like, went deeper on, like, just a lot of clarity of, like, what was expected of you and that kind of stuff.

Matt:
And then you have your couch on Sunday. And today you've had your couch on Saturday.

Maria:
Yeah.

Matt:
With nice people back. A little too meta maybe, but a couch nonetheless. We gotta wrap up.

Maria:
Yeah. Well, it's been a while, I guess.

Matt:
Yeah. So Maria once at 80k. Back at 80k, but departing again because we have to go, folks. All right. Yeah.

Maria:
Thank you.