CB🔸
Bio
Participation3
I'm living in Lyon, France. Learned about EA in 2018, found that great, digged a lot into the topic. The idea of "what in the world improves well-being or causes suffering the most, and what can we do" really influenced me a whole lot - especially when mixed with meditation that allowed me to be more active in my life.
I'm doing a lot of personal research on a whole lot of topics. I also co-wrote a book in French with a few recommendations on how to take action for a better world, and included a chapter on EA (the title is "Acting for a Sustainable World", Éditions Jouvence). I've participated in a few conferences after that, it's a good way to improve oral skills.
One of the most reliable thing I have found so far is helping animal charities : farmed animals are much more numerous than humans (and have much worse living conditions), and there absolutely is evidence that animal charities are getting some improvements (especially from The Humane League). I tried to donate a lot there.
Long-termism could also be important, but I think that we'll hit energy limits before getting to an extinction event - I wrote an EA forum post for that here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wXzc75txE5hbHqYug/the-great-energy-descent-short-version-an-important-thing-ea
How I can help others
I just have an interest in whatever topic sounds really important, so I have a LOT of data on a lot of topics. These include energy, the environment, resource depletion, simple ways to understand the economy, limits to growth, why we fail to solve the sustainability issue, and how we got to that very weird specific point in history.
I also have a lot of stuff on Buddhism and meditation and on "what makes us happy" (check the Waking Up app!)
Posts 5
Comments201
Great idea ! I really support this debate, I think it is a topic that is currently not taken into account enough.
I'd be surprised if there isn't something in the order of a 100x difference in cost effectiveness in favour of animals interventions (as indicated in some of the resources above).
Animals are much more numerous, neglected, and have terrible living conditions, so there's simply much more to do. And as indicated through research on the moral weight Project, it's hard to have a high confidence that their level of sentience is very low compared to humans.
We have a natural tendency to prefer humans (we know them well, after all), so a context in which we can challenge this assumption is welcome.
New York might be too challenging on that salary, but I lived in Lyon (France's 2nd biggest city) on less than that (36k a year) and donated a third of my earnings to animal welfare charities.
Now I don't spend much, the situation would be different in the US (higher welfare expenses), and I dont have kids. But I expect most people in France with this salary to be able to give 10% of their income without sacrificing their wellbeing.
Wow, very good post, thanks ! I really appreciate the example, and the fact that it is based on discussing with people on opinions they already agree with. Also, I like that you came to the conclusion that we should talk about this topic by examining other options to do good and you concluded they had a lower expected impact or were too difficult fr most people (maybe you could use bullet points in this section).
Do you have data supporting the fact that people do change their diet afterwards ? That seems possible but asking.
Also, you example does not mention fish or small animals. Are there differences in approaching them
Thanks for the clear summary ! Good to know that Harari decided to write on this topic, his way of presenting things is often really engaging.
Is there a section on the impact of AI on animals ? This is a topic of great importance he probably cares about as well.