{"id":74483,"date":"2021-10-21T15:07:42","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T15:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/?post_type=career_profile&p=74483"},"modified":"2024-11-19T18:45:10","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T18:45:10","slug":"historian-of-societal-trends","status":"publish","type":"career_profile","link":"https:\/\/80000hours.org\/career-reviews\/historian-of-societal-trends\/","title":{"rendered":"Historian of large societal trends, inflection points, progress, or collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a nutshell:<\/strong> Historical research into the long-term arc of history — by looking at societal trends over time and key inflection points — could help us better understand what might cause important technological and social shifts in the future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sometimes recommended \u2014 highly competitive<\/h3>\n

This career is potentially high-impact, but is exceptionally competitive.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Review status<\/h4>\n

Based on a shallow investigation 
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Why might becoming a historian of large social trends be high impact?<\/h2>\n

Studying subjects relevant to the long-term arc of history may shed light on the range of changes that are possible (or probable) in our future. These subjects may include things like economic, intellectual, or moral progress from a long-term perspective; the history of social movements or philanthropy; or the history of wellbeing. Historians in these areas can help us better understand long trends and key inflection points, such as the Industrial Revolution<\/a> and other promising topics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our impression is that although many of these topics have received attention from historians and other academics some are comparatively neglected, especially from a more quantitative or impact-focused perspective.<\/p>\n

In general, there seem to be a number of gaps that skilled historians, anthropologists, or economic historians<\/a> could help fill. Revealingly, Open Philanthropy commissioned their own studies of the history<\/a> and successes<\/a> of philanthropy because they couldn’t find much existing literature that met their needs. Most existing research is not aimed at deriving action-relevant lessons.<\/p>\n

We expect there will be opportunities to do this kind of historical research outside of academia \u2014 as an independent researcher, within a foundation like Open Philanthropy, or within another research organisation within effective altruism. However, these opportunities will likely be difficult to secure, as they require strong research skills, a good knowledge of effective altruism, and also the unusual mindset required to do the kind of research sketched above.<\/p>\n

Most people pursuing this career will likely aim to become an academic historian, which is also a highly competitive path.<\/p>\n

Academia<\/a> generally has a shortage of positions relative to the number of people who study PhDs, and humanities PhDs don’t provide strong backup options. If you have the quantitative skills, it seems less risky to pursue historical research as an economist, since an economics PhD also gives you other good options<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How can you estimate your chance of success as a history academic? We haven’t looked into the fields relevant to history in particular, but some of our discussion of parallel questions for philosophy academia<\/a> or academia in general<\/a> may be useful.<\/p>\n

It may also be possible to pursue this kind of research in ‘non-traditional’ academia, such as at organisations like the Global Priorities Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Example of someone pursuing this path<\/h2>\n