Welcome!
If you're new to the EA Forum:
- Consider using this thread to introduce yourself!
- You could talk about how you found effective altruism, what causes you work on and care about, or personal details that aren't EA-related at all.
- (You can also put this info into your Forum bio.)
Everyone:
- If you have something to share that doesn't feel like a full post, add it here! (You can also create a Shortform post.)
- You might also share good news, big or small (See this post for ideas.)
- You can also ask questions about anything that confuses you (and you can answer them, or discuss the answers).
For inspiration, you can see the last open thread here.
Other Forum resources
Here's my latest thinking on making EA more effective:
https://medium.com/@mnemko/maximally-effective-altruism-5910308265ff
Hi everyone! It seems quite plausible to me that EA can not indefinitely prevent itself from becoming a politically charged topic, once it becomes more prominent in public awareness. What are the current ideas about how to handle this?
Hey everyone!
while thinking about extreme poverty I came across the thought that some people in extreme poverty might not know how to spend their money as effectively as possible to have the highest chance of survival or most healthy life.
Maybe EA could create guides directly for those people in order to help them on how to manage their income as effectively as possible.
This is just an idea that came to my mind and I have no certainty about this concept, I would love to hear other EAs opinions on it. Please tell me if I am completely wrong.
greetings
Sebastian
Hi everyone! My name is Nolan and I'm a first year college student at the University of Chicago. I found out about EA through other students and just completed the intro fellowship. I'm particularly interested in animal welfare and AI safety. I'm excited to keep learning about EA and implement it into my life through my career choices and donations.
Hi, I'm a management consultant who has focused on long-term strategic planning for about 20 years. In particular, I work with live teams to think 15-30 years in the future about what they want to realize. As they do so, they shift to being selfless, holistic and kind i.e. unlike the person they are in everyday office politics.
I share ideas about long-term strategic planning offsites/retreats in a newspaper column and a newsletter.
I 'm also a Cornell/AT&T Bell Labs alum living in Kingston Jamaica.
What's the GiveWell of AI Safety?
Is there an EA subgroup focused on philosophical pragmatism? EA has a strong utilitarian image. There's a lot more nuance though one problem with utilitarianism is that if the ends justify the means, then sufficiently impactful ends can justify any means -- even very problematic issues like the recent SBF revelations.
Philosophical pragmatism offers a lot of insight for the EA movement. That would see ends and the cost benefit calcs that are beloved around here as one important though not all encompassing factor in decision-making.
Hey everyone. Tristan here from Tasmania. I first heard about EA from a Peter Singer lecture at Melbourne in 2014 on his book TLYCS. Have since completed a Master of Public Health. I've been working as a bush walking guide for the last year but currently looking for EA related work. Applying for jobs on the 80,000 hours job board at organizations like GiveWell, GiveDirectly, and AMF.
Also looking to engage with people about EA and related topics in Tasmania, or online. Looking at potentially starting a university or other EA group in Tasmania.
Let me know if you have any advice re looking for EA work/ starting a EA group.
I created an EA group for Mastodon: @EffectiveAltruism@chirp.social
The way groups work: If you follow the group and tag its handle in a Mastodon post, it will automatically boost the post so that all its followers see it.
If you have a Mastodon account, please follow the group and post some content to join the conversation!
Hello! My name is Manuel del Río. I am a 42-year old Spanish trilingual (Galician, English and Spanish) TEFL teacher and satellite school head of studies, and I have been working for the last twelve years in Official Language Schools of the Galician Autonomous Region (Northwestern corner of Spain ). Other work I have done was in the fields of translation and cultural journalism.
I studied at the University of Santiago de Compostela, where I took degrees in History and English Philology, and a Master's in Literary Theory, Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies.
I recently learned about Effective Altruism as an aftermath of the FTX bankruptcy affair (some marginal good can come out of the bad, I guess) and am interested in learning more about it and possibly getting engaged. I find its minimalistic program of helping others in a rationally optimized way quite appealing, and have informed myself about some of the wonderful work the people in this community are doing. I do have some intellectual qualms about strict utilitarianism as an ethical compass, and have a Confucian affinity for helping those near us and therefore, making distinctions, but I don't find them incompatible with a juxtaposed broader sweep. One can help the community AND the wider circle of humanity.
I look forward to getting to know more about EA and its community everyone in this community, and getting myself involved.
Have a nice day!
Hi,
My name is Andie Rodriguez, I'm a bilingual (English and Spanish) 23yo Puerto Rican, who recently graduated from college. I majored in Philosophy, Economics, and Psychology. Currently I'm looking for full time employment. Although I've used the EA job board, it was recommended that I type a post here to see if I can connect with anyone who might have job recommendations (or advice) for a recent grad like me.
I look forward to getting more involved in EA, and getting to learn more about everyone in this community!
What are some negative and positive sentiments about OpenAI within the EA community?
I know OpenPhil made them a 30m grant in 2017, but Holden no longer seems to be on the board and a bunch of people left to create Anthropic. Whats up with that?
Does anyone here know why Center for Human-Compatible AI hasn't published any research this year even though they have been one of the most prolific AGI safety organizations in previous years?
https://humancompatible.ai/research
Hi everyone.
I'm Evan Harper, a community manager at Metaculus. It occurred to me that I spent way too much time writing a question about Top Gun: Maverick today that will probably just drop off the front page quickly, and I wanted to say hi to the EA Forums at some point anyway, so I'm taking the excuse to shamelessly promote. I can also more proudly promote our re-opened forecast on the Raphael Warnock / Herschel Walker Senate election in Georgia. Both these are intended to help bring in new forecasters as part of the ongoing Beginner Tournament. And just... (read more)
Hi All. I've known about effective altruism for quite a while and it's helped me a lot. Mostly found out about it after a breakup I had and improved how I viewed the world to be more objective and rational. I found this video and was wondering if anyone else had it. I think it raises some points but that it also has a lot of flaws which shouldn't be overlooked. I commented on my criticisms. Know they're are definitely more academic and sophisticated responses to this topic but think it's approachable and also gives insight into how people who are very much... (read more)
After graduating with a masters in economics from Oxford in July 2022, I’ve been a charity entrepreneur. This is my uncut journey on that path Follow me on my journey as I document everything behind the scenes of being a charity startup founder!
YouTube playlist https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLatl23CKLmapNvrypAYgxOHwevQY231Oq
Twitter @simonsallstrom
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF OUR CHARITY?
DirectEd Development Foundation - direct donations for education. Our purpose is to identify high potential students in sub Saharan Africa, starting in Kenya and Ethiopia, an... (read more)
So someone I know has studied social media (e.g. working advising the C-level at companies who are building tools for a state-level entity to monitor extremists in social media).
Someone I know has run an online community created from scratch, that grew to thousands of people. At times, there were disputes and controversies, and they came under attack and they managed it well (probably ???).
I'm writing to give some tools to the moderator:
Hi all. I've been digging through EA ideas and content over the past two years and becoming increasingly involved over the past year. Attended EAGxVirtual, which was amazing, and am looking forward to attending my first in-person group event in Manchester, UK. I've been working for a homelessness charity for nearly 5 years now (having carried out a variety of roles) and am looking to make a move into a higher-impact role. I've got a few forum posts percolating so, hopefully, I'll be posting some of these soon. Glad to be here in the community!
Anyone work at GiveWell? I was somewhat intrigued by the new senior researcher position though curious to learn more about the direction of the organization. Specifically, I'd be curious into how deep GiveWell is open to looking into state capacity issues. I saw the relatively recent jpal work and curious if they'd be open to doing more of that work.
https://www.givewell.org/about/jobs/senior-researcher
Hi! I initially posted this in the 'hiring' thread, but since that's expired, I want to share it here as well.
I'm now working as a freelance writer and editor, mostly for people in the EA community. I can help you get out those Forum posts that have been languishing in your drafts, or articulate ideas that are bouncing around your head. If you're interested, email me at ambace@gmail.com, or book a quick chat in my Calendly. Also feel free to message me here on the Forum. There are some writing samples here, here, and on my Forum profile.
Hello,
I'm a grant writer and project manager in the UK charity sector, looking to more actively engage with EA. My particular area of interest is drug-resistance and the mitigation of that X-risk. I'm pretty up on the theory behind EA ideas, but have mostly been in the "LessWrong Diaspora" rather than engaging with the EA space specifically.
If anyone knows of UK charities tackling drug-resistance, I'd greatly appreciated pointing in their direction.
Hi all! I connected with EA in Bonn, where I am currently a visiting researcher in the department of English, American, and Celtic Studies. I live more permanently in New Jersey, where I am professor in the English department with strong interest in environmental issues. I am interested in writing more for general audiences on sustainability and climate communication. Looking forward to getting to know more folks here.
Hi everyone! I'm a DPhil philosophy student at Oxford University where I write a dissertation on Longtermism (see my bio for some more info). I've been involved with EA for several years and just decided to (finally!) create a forum account. Looking forward to commenting on some of the great forum posts instead of just reading them as I did so far :)
Hi all! New to the forum, but I've been aware of and thinking about EA for a while, and would like to begin engaging a bit with the community. I'm a PhD student in physics at the University of Geneva working on quantum communication.
I'm particularly interested in chatting with anyone with ideas or knowledge about humanitarian use cases for quantum computing (might start a thread about this later, especially if anyone else is interested). My education re: quantum computing has tended to focus more on principles than applications, but when applications are mentioned they tend to fall into the broad categories of finance or pharmaceutical research. I'm hoping to find some different perspectives.
Cheers!
There should be a small crack team dedicated to identifying rich people who'd be good candidates for EA benefactors and recruiting them, now that SBF and FTX are down for the count. If you're interested in doing this, message me and I can give you some names privately.
I'm not sure they would call it "recruiting", but there already are large parts of existing nonprofits that talk to current & future ultra high net worth individuals, such as Longview Philanthropy, Founders Pledge, Generation Pledge, and Open Philanthropy. But there are only a very limited number of potentially sympathetic ultra high net worth individuals, and you don't want to put them off effective giving, so it's important to do it right. As such, I definitely would not suggest starting a new crack team to try to do this work. Instead, it's better to talk to the existing groups that cater to UHNWIs, first.
Hi all, I'm Michael Simm. I am a nonprofit entreprenuer focused on disruptive systems (eg, understanding and using emerging technologies to make the future better). I'd love to see how much if at all people in EA are familiar with disruptive technologies and how open they might be to learning about a new one, one that might impact EA greatly.
When I first became interested in disruptive technologies, I had my focus on climate change. I quickly identified electric cars, solar panels, and energy storage (particularly batteries) to be on the verge of upending ... (read more)
Hi, everyone! I am an undergraduate student journalist. Personally, I am particularly interested in global poverty. I'm something of a sympathizer to EA - I really like certain aspects, but not other ones. Right now I'm writing an opinion column about the movement and its ideas that will be partly laudatory and partly critical.
I'm looking to speak with people who are more involved in the movement than I am to get their perspective. If you want to do a brief discussion with me about your experience and thoughts about EA, I'd love to talk to you. Feel free to send me a message here or email me at sericson@mndaily.com.
Hey all!
New to the forum and currently working as a HS Math Teacher. Really interested in the movement building side of things and through that lens have started volunteering with Giving What We Can on their Charity Election initiative.
In short, Giving What We Can wants to offer any school full sponsorship to host a charity election, a school-wide election among three charities. Through the election, students vote to direct up to $2,000 in fully sponsored funds to their choice of three highly impactful charities.
If you know of any schools, educa... (read more)
My name is Nnaemeka Nnadi. I am a lecturer at Plateau State University and also the chief scientific officer of Phage biology and therapeutic hub, a non-profit focused on isolating phages and phage biobanks for the global phage community. I am also one of the co-lead for Africa Phage forum; the umbrella body for all phage researchers in Africa. Antibiotic resistance is a global issue and will hit Africa the most, Nigeria for example depends on external sources for their drugs. Phages are viruses that feed on bacteria, it has proven effective in... (read more)
Hi everyone, I'm Dominik.
I'm a graduate student pursuing a Master's in Public Sector Innovation from multiple different European universities. I got pointed to EA through Will MacAskill's recent book (and the entire rabbit hole of literature leading up to it). It has been astounding and encouraging to see that there is an entire community of people out here seeking to apply reason and scientific insight to doing as much good as possible!
Currently, am looking for prospective Master's thesis topics (TBD until end of November) - and I am open to pretty much e... (read more)
Both the vibes and possibly the reality of tech layoffs/demand for SWE is falling, at least on Hacker news.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33463908
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025223
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33083279
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32312303
This seems useful to flag (might be big enough that it seems like an opportunity for the various orgs that are looking for SWE and other talent, even after considering fit/alignment/lemons).
Hello Guys, I'm Miguel, creator of whitehatStoic ! That focuses on sharing my journey helping the idea of Effective Altruism grow. New To The Forum but have been involved to altruistic projects here in there over the years. Glad to be here and have a nice day!
I posted a compilation of all EA memes from October here, so you don't have to wade through Facebook to encounter EA memes.
David, let’s connect - also a management consultant exploring a pivot to AI!
Hello everyone, my name is Dawson.
I'm a data scientist in Denver, Colorado. I got into EA a few years ago after hearing about it on Sam Harris's podcast. Thinking about earning to give and the length my dollar could go for others was extremely influential and continues to be fulfilling for me.
I would love to start participating in the conversation. I just launched a Substack--it's a bit idiosyncratic and not strictly about EA, but I think my inaugural post would be interesting to a lot of people here. Would love to hear any criticism or discussion so I can... (read more)
Hi everyone. My name is Dominion Alajemba, I am from Nigeria in Africa.
About a month ago, I stumbled upon a status update on EA for Christians made by Daniel Ajudeonu on the WhatsApp app.
My interest has been sparked, and I'm very happy to know that I can contribute my own little quota to solving the world's pressing issues. Little drops make the ocean, they say.
I am a Creative, and I'm currently studying Adult Non-formal Education/English and Literature, in the University of Benin, Nigeria. I'm in my last semester.
As a creative, I use graphic design as a medium/channel to express my opinions, thoughts and convictions. I infuse my storytelling, content writing/developing, photography, and video editing skills to this.
I know that with what I have, and what I'll have, I can contribute immensely to this cause.
Narrowing it down, I have picked particular interests in Plastic Pollution, environmental degradation and deforestation (which are major causes of Climate Change) and food wastage, which falls under Food Security. I do hope I can give my very best in these aspects.
Navigating the entirety of EA and EA for Christians can be quite challenging as there's a ton of info to go through and consume, so I'd appreciate any help I can get.
Thank you.
Is there a central or topic-specific bounty board?
(I'm personally looking for AI interpretability tasks). I know there are distributed opinions on what's important but I'd like a central place for them and for them to be prioritized in some way:
- bounty price sizes
- (expert) authority
- popularity (votes or prediction market)
I know there's a job board, but I'd like a content/problem-focused board instead.
Hi Everyone. Dominic (Dom) Leary.
I read Professor MacAskill’s article on a recent flight to Ireland and was touched by his rallying cry to drive charitable initiatives that can help society address the problems that our governments, global institutions, and private sector can not do given the lack of appropriate inter-governmental legal frameworks and misaligned interests of capital markets.
I don’t know how I can contribute but I do know that lone voices carry little influence so I’m reaching out to connect. I am now based in Rome, Italy after having spent the past 30+ years of my career travelling from the UK to SEA, Australasian, US, and back to Europe through the Pre-Post Brexit.
I would welcome meeting other like-minded EA Forum members here in Rome.
Dom Leary
Hi everybody! I'm Victoria, I'm currently based in Edinburgh and I heard about EA through LessWrong. I've been involved with the local EA group for almost a year now, and with rationalism for a few years longer than that. I'm only now getting around to being active on the forum here.
I was a medical student, but I'm taking a year out and seriously considering moving into either direct existential risk research/policy or something like operations/'interpreting' research. When I've had opportunities to do things like that I've really enjoyed it. I've also previously freelanced with Nonlinear and CEA for research and writing gigs.
Long-term I could see myself getting into AI, possibly something like helping build infrastructure for AI researchers to better communicate, or direct AI work (with my neuroscience degree).
See youse all around!
Hello :) I'm Mischi. I'm currently based in Berlin and I've first heard of EA through Will MacAskill's conversations with Sam Harris. I've been quite excited to discover just how much is going on in the movement and how many people are involved, although I realize I probably don't know the half of it yet!
Hi all!
I'm Jason (Jay) Dykstra, a radiologist and adoptive dad in MI, US. I've been around EA for several years in various groups, but I haven't engaged the forum until now!
My wife and I have come to LOVE earning to give, donating 80% of our post-tax income to EA-friendly orgs and living off around $50K a year. The "expenditure limit" model (different limits for different folks obviously!) is easier than expected once you build the mindset and SO wonderful seeing the impact around the world, as many of you know. :)
I mentor lots of young adults in easily creating a similar, sustainable mindset for their own journey. With their help I founded blessbig.org, a free online hub like Give Well that uses EA approaches to recommend high impact orgs in more cause groups (e.g. elderly care, first responders, religious orgs) than typical EA sites. So fun to see folks learn, give, and join the world in celebrating the difference!
Thanks for every contribution YOU make to doing good better, and feel free to reach out anytime!
email.jay.dykstra@gmail.com
Hello Jason,
welcome to the forum! Nice to hear you are comfortable with earning to give as your cause area.
I have some questions regarding your donation website.
Where do you get your rating for the projects? Sometimes you are unable to find data from charity evaluation sites, and then you typically list it with:
Impact Evidence – Strong
Relative Need – Stronger
Financial Transparency – Strongest
Financial Efficiency – Strongest
The last two are usually given the best rating, even if you have no external sources which you normally use to justify the rating.
For example:
https://blessbig.org/evangelism-discipleship-missions/
Do you have further information on the difference between strong, stronger and strongest? What qualifies for each rating?
You mention that your team spend hundreds of hours in research, but never says it anything about the conclusion and methods they used specifically. Can you please provide us with more information how you decide to list an organization and how you choose your ratings?
I have different request, please link your sources.
I was curious about your claim that your work (big blessing?) was mentioned in the Washington Post, and I was unable to find it via ... (read more)
Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum.
Having read a few forum posts over the past couple of weeks, I wanted to become a bit more active and start commenting.
I've recently started the process of reviewing EA career options (over at 80k hours), and plan to pivot to a more EA-aligned role in a year or so. I've studied mechanical engineering, and I'm currently pursuing a PhD related to engineering and climate change. Also, I'm in the process of becoming a certified systemic coach (for coaching individuals and teams). I live in Braunschweig, Germany.
Looking forward to get in touch with people here, to get ideas about a new job/role, and to interesting discussions!
(Hastily written, sry)
I would love to see more of the theories of change that researchers in EA have for their own career! I'm particularly interested to see them in Global Priorities Research as its done at GPI (because I find that both extremely interesting and I'm very uncertain how useful it is apart from field-building).
Two main reasons:
- It's not easy at all (in my experience) to figure out which claims are actually decision relevant in major ways. Seeing these theories of change might make it much easier for junior researchers to develop a "tast
... (read more)I’m writing to look for people interested in participating in this contest:
Ban Charles He Contest
Sort of inspired by this post, I’m disappointed by a lot of my forum writing because my content is minor and mentally easy and not that meaningful. (While more forum writing probably isn't the ideal solution) there is more difficult writing I can do:
Basically, I have “answers” to a number of arguments or viewpoints that are either “used against EA” or just occupy a lot of time on EA online media. I think this is bad.
These arguments or viewpoints are:
- Newcomb’s p
... (read more)Hi, new to the forum. Looking forward to joining the EA community.
Hello! New to the forum, though I’ve been lurking the blogs/podcasts/articles around the EA community for a while!
Wondering if there are any other folks out here coming from the design/technology industry space, like I am? Would love to hear from anyone about their journey and finding their niche within the community! :)
Hi, new to the forum! Asking here as it seems to small of a question for its own post:
I finished reading "The precipice" this week, and found the list of current/future existential risks a bit short, especially compared to natural ones. For example, AFAIK space debris might make spaceflight impossible in the near future, making it most likely* impossible to become a multiplanetary species, robbing us of lots of resources, and sooner or later meaning a natural risk will wipe us out on earth (which Ord classifies as an existential risk).
I know space debris has become a hot topic over the last few years, is there any work in an EA context on it? Similarly, have people tried to compile lists with all currently conceivable/knowable existential risks?
* I dont know much about spaceflight, but it sounded impossible to build spacecraft that could withstand the level of debris that would build up once we reach a tipping point and a lot of satellites become debris.
I used a model I fine-tuned to generate takes on Effective Altruism. The prompt is "effective altruism is." Here are its first three:
... (read more)(And generally, you or anyone else should feel free to report comments from moderators if you find them damaging the forum's discussion. It may well happen, and it's important to get that kind of feedback)
Thanks, you may be right.
To be clear, I found these generated examples clearly false and misleading but still something that I can understand people who feel like this, so I found it a bit funny and uncanny, while I totally agree with JoyOptimizer's concern.
They are only trained to be maximally adorable and cuddle my enemies to a fluffy friendship!