There’s one benefit in early activism, though: even if it doesn’t have a major impact, it will allow you to credibly signal your interest in the cause and thus network with other people who are active in the field. This may have a considerable impact on your ability to achieve things related to the cause later on.
E.g. when I started getting interested in educational games, I wrote a bunch of blog posts about the topic (as I was studying it), and even though I haven’t yet accomplished anything concrete, those posts helped me get on the radar of a bunch of people in the field who have offered useful advice. Similarly, even though my stint in politics some years back didn’t really accomplish anything concrete, it did net me lots of new contacts who liked what I did do. The early conference articles on AI risk that I wrote weren’t very significant by themselves but they helped me get to know the MIRI-(then SIAI-)folk better, and so on.
There’s one benefit in early activism, though: even if it doesn’t have a major impact, it will allow you to credibly signal your interest in the cause and thus network with other people who are active in the field. This may have a considerable impact on your ability to achieve things related to the cause later on.
E.g. when I started getting interested in educational games, I wrote a bunch of blog posts about the topic (as I was studying it), and even though I haven’t yet accomplished anything concrete, those posts helped me get on the radar of a bunch of people in the field who have offered useful advice. Similarly, even though my stint in politics some years back didn’t really accomplish anything concrete, it did net me lots of new contacts who liked what I did do. The early conference articles on AI risk that I wrote weren’t very significant by themselves but they helped me get to know the MIRI-(then SIAI-)folk better, and so on.
Interesting. This is one more reason for me to start a blog, getting actual exposure at a young age.