Upcoming Virtual Events
- 3rd March - Lead Exposure Elimination - A global health career profile with Lucia Coulter, organised by EA Cambridge
- 9th March - Audrey Tang on Taiwan’s digital democracy, an event by the Centre for the Governance of AI
- 11th March - Tech EA London Social - Icebreakers
- 14th March - Giving What We Can Meetup
- 17-19th March - Oxford Workshop on Global Priorities Research - applications close 28th February
- 20-21st March - EA Global: Reconnect - Virtual conference
- 27th March - LSE Future of Humanity Summit
- 26-28th March - EA Fellowship Weekend - For people who are newer to EA
- 29-31st October - EA Global: London 2021
Latest Research and Updates
Meta
- The Giving What We Can pledge campaign has brought in 978 new members with over 500 having taken the GWWC Pledge
- Global Priorities Institute have released their annual report for 2019-20
- There is an EA Focusmate group for people who want to increase their productivity and also meet others interested in EA
- Luke Freeman is looking for feedback on an interactive donation tracking table to help map the EA charity space
- Let's Fund 2020 update
- One for the World - 2021 update
- 80,000 Hours one-on-one team plans, plus projects they’d like to see
- Ben West with research into retention within effective altruism
- An ask me anything with people who work in operations at EA related organisations
- Founders Pledge on why they say ‘funding opportunity’ instead of ‘charity’
- Haydn Belfield with several alternatives to donor lotteries
Grants
- Open Phil have made 5 grants recently with a total value of $2,461,000
- $1,306,000 - Farm animal welfare
- $1,005,000 - Scientific research
- $150,000 - Potential Risks from Advanced AI
- The Animal Welfare Fund, the Long-Term Future Fund, and the EA Infrastructure Fund are calling for applications, closing on the 7th of March
- Animal Charity Evaluator Movement Grants are accepting applications until the 12th of March
Global Development
- Max Roser on why economic growth should be a key focus if we want global poverty to decline
- GiveWell on where they recommend Open Philanthropy to donate $70,000,000 to in 2020
- An article looking at how Covid-19 has impacted the fight against malaria
- Azeem Azhar in conversation with Regina Dugan, CEO of new biomedical non-profit Wellcome Leap and former director of DARPA, discussing approaches to delivering breakthrough technologies in global health
- Kelsey Piper with an overview of how smallpox was eradicated
- Neela Saldanha, Tom Wein and Cait Lamberton with a post for Apolitical on how governments should take into account dignity when making policies
Animal Welfare
- 80,000 Hours podcast with Lewis Bollard on big wins against factory farming and how they happened
- Animal Advocacy Careers 2021 plans and 2020 review
- Aquatic Animal Alliance has been launched, a coalition of advocacy organisations
- There is a new calendar for animal welfare related events
- Jo Anderson(Faunalytics) and Saulius Šimčikas(Rethink Priorities) on the Sentience Institute podcast looking at important research related to animal advocacy
- An Ask Me Anything with Lewis Bollard on the EA Forum
Existential & Catastrophic Risks
- A paper with contributions from 40+ experts looking at the top 80 questions for UK biological security
- A paper assessing climate change’s contribution to global catastrophic risk
- Stefan Riedener with a paper looking at existential risks from a Christian perspective
- An interview with journalist Tom Chivers discussing existential risks
- David Manheim with a list of project ideas in biosecurity
Improving Institutions
- The UK is to launch a high risk, high reward scientific research agency, with £800,000,000 funding over four years
- The 2021 metascience symposium will be on the 16-18th and 23-25th of September
- Saloni Dattani & Nathaniel Bechhofer looking at the speed of scientific research and the debates around scientific reform
- Matt Clifford discussing the history and future of innovation with Anton Howes
- Stuart Ritchie looking at potential flaws in the scientific system that Covid-19 has revealed
- Caroline Fiennes with a post suggesting that many charities are too small to measure their own impact
Environment
- Bill Gates on a key idea from his new book on how to combat climate change
- Hannah Ritchie looking at the history of deforestation and whether this can be reversed
Longtermism
- A post looking at the objectives of longtermist policy making
- Michelle Hutchinson on why she finds longtermism hard and what keeps her motivated
Emerging Technology
- Matt Clifford in conversation with Marc Warner exploring how technology collides with politics, culture and society
- Daniel Kokotajlo with an argument against using GDP as a metric for AI timelines
Other Links
- Julia Galef and Jonathan Haidt with a podcast on understanding moral disagreements
- Sparkwave have a new tool to help people create positive behaviours
- Joe Carlsmith with a very popular post on the EA Forum called "Killing the ants"
- Brian Tan with a list of EA related documentaries, movies and TV series
- Lynette Bye with a post collating resources on personal mental health and finding a therapist
- Tobias Baumann with a post looking at how can we reduce suffering risks
- Tony Sena has a new project analysing religious text with an effective altruism lens
- Luke Muehlhauser with a succinct overview of superforecasting
- John Halstead looking at how much should people defer to expert opinion
- Stefan Schubert on a podcast introducing effective altruism and discussing the different obstacles that stop people from donating effectively
- Matthew Allcock with a tool for Clearer Thinking that helps people to determine when they should stop exploring
- Susannah Birkwood has a new podcast looking at impact in journalism
- Marcus Daniell on Hear This Idea discussing High Impact Athletes and the purpose of sport
Good News
- India is proposing to double healthcare spending in the annual budget
- Niger is set for their first peaceful transition of power
- Angola has decriminalised same-sex relationships
- Colombia has given protected status to nearly 2 million displaced Venezuelans
thanks for taking the time to do this!