Whatever you give a man know that you are just a tiny bit of his life. He is struggling with giants. Try to be the most helpful tiny bit you can, but manage expectations.

Interesting post, I think I agree, but even if we should lower our confidence about almost all future predictions there should be some things that are more likely to happen and some actions that are likely to improve the outcomes of those things.

I would be interested in reflection about what those things might be, one possible example that comes to mind is climate change (which you mention) and another one is economic growth.

I recently became a board member and I was very confused because of many of the issues raised in this post. I have gained great ideas and a bit of clarity.

Thank you.

Thank you for explaining it so well.

I guess EA is interested in getting the best and that justifies giving hope to many people who are between OK and almost the best. But that process has some collateral damage. This post is maybe about options to deal with the collateral.

Are there some good arguments to care about this, even for someone who feels no empathy for invertebrates?

For example the environmental impact of losing so many insects.

I think for such neglected causes focusing in secondary reasons might bring some progress.

You are right but have you considered you can have more impact elsewhere?

Also 6 applications is a small sample, try 60 or 120 and you will surely get employment.

The question that comes to my mind is:

Could you accept being part of a process that is harmful (and already happening) for the chance to make it less harmful?

I think this is a great idea, I hope someone is crazy enough to try. 

The key point might be that the most important EA ideas are not partisan (all existential risks, improved quality of aid, caring for the long term future) and could be adopted by more than 90% of parties in the Western world. 

A less radical version would be "EA's who care about politics but don't identify with any party should overcome that shyness and evaluate which parties are they at least slightly aligned with, and which ones present to them the greatest opportunity."

In Europe there are several powerful parties, even in government, that have a structural problem attracting young people.

Another one would be that EA's trying to lobby for a particular idea should seek interactions with all parties until key ideas become the default option for everybody. 

This seems like a decent pitch to EA Infrastructure Fund, maybe it can be improved if you can get more specific on short term targets.

I hope you get what is needed to start! It sounds like a great project.

I really liked the story. Think of doing more!