I absolutely love this.

This may seem off topic, but one thing I've "learned" from years of meditation practice is that no one "earns" or freely chooses anything, like their intelligence level, for example. Nor do they freely choose to work on improving their intelligence level. There is no pride or shame in any ability because no one chooses what happens in their life. Consciousness just sort of notices what happens and mistakenly applies agency to certain phenomena. . .or maybe not. . .what the hell am I talking about? :) The moral of the story is do what you can, how you can, to make the world the best place it can be. 

Wow, great article Dan! It's good to see such a down-to-earth cause area for the sometimes abstract realm of Suffering-focused EA. . .Is there any data for the number of people suffering from kidney stone pain globally? I saw you give data for the U.S., but I just wonder how prevalent this issue is around the world, and particularly in lower and middle income countries. Thanks!