Anyone have a written down email they sent to their Congresspeople? I would love to share it with my friends. If not, I’ll try to make one by today. Thank you for this information, it was very informative and needs all our advocacy.

Edit: This is what I plan on saying when I call tomorrow. Feel free to copy and say the same thing to your constituent:

Greetings ______,

I am ______, a concerned constituent of yours from zip code _____. I am calling in regard to your Republican colleagues blocking the renewal of PEPFAR, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR is the largest commitment in history by any single country to address a disease, and is estimated to have averted 25 million deaths from AIDS and enabled 5.5 million babies to be born free from HIV infection over the past 20 years. It even now averts over a million HIV/AIDS deaths annually. It has provided funding for HIV prevention, care, and treatment internationally, supporting 55 low- and middle-income countries that are collectively home to 78% of all people living with HIV. Together with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, PEPFAR has transformed AIDS in low-income countries, especially those in Africa, from a death sentence to a readily treatable chronic disease by deploying programs that provide antiretroviral treatment even in the most remote villages.

Will Congressman (or Congresswomen) _______ please fight to renew this life saving program?

Great post. This reminds me of this New York Times Opinion video on PEPFAR, for my visual learners. 

Looking forward to more meetups at the Dim Sum venue! By the way, on the avenue next to the White Castle in Journal Square, Jersey City there is blocks of Indian restaurants with excellent vegan and vegetarian options! (I tried every restaurant there by the time I graduated from Hudson County Community College a couple blocks away, haha.)
 

Hey Harrison, very interesting project you are working on and I hope it becomes a success! I love the idea of getting high schoolers to think more altruistically!

I understand your stated explanation for only selecting private high schools, but have you thought of later expanding to charter or magnet high schools?

From EA forums and in-person meetups, I fear EA is already, and further going into, a kind of echo chamber due to it's demographic of wealthy, elite, intellectual circles. Your project can be a great way to expand EA’s demographic.

The Harvard economist Roland Fryer has done similar research and projects, but instead money was used to successfully incentivize underrepresented students to academically succeed in charter and public schools. I would suggest checking out his work.

Best of luck on your project!

I love your style of writing and the organization of it with subheadings.
 

This section was  beautifully written:

I held the ethical principle in my palm, like a small flower. I stared at it for a long time. And then I started to spin it gently, looking at it from all angles, probing with my fingertips. When I was ready, slowly, I began to pull it apart. Petal by petal, leaf by leaf, revealing its soft and complex innards and hundreds of fertile seeds. As I inspected each piece, I questioned them. Their purpose. Their necessity. Their possibility and their shortcomings.

 

And today, I can walk through a garden of unique flowers, born of those seeds. I cherish my favorites. But I also respect those I dislike in a way I never respected their progenitor, in a way born of understanding for all they are and all that has shaped them.

I too had a mentor who I venerated and felt lost when he disappointed me.
 

Excerpts (and slightly modified) from my journal on a past idol who let me down:
 

In my adolescence, I too was misled by one of my idols, a cousin. He lived 8 blocks from me, was 2 years my senior, and we went to the same high school. I strived to emulate his image to the tee. He was top 5% of his class, a straight ‘A’  student, popular, and always dating gorgeous women. A full-ride scholarship to a four-year university helped him become the first person in his family to attend one. 

I was partially inspired by him to achieve principal honors (the equivalent of dean honors in high school) in my junior year of high school.

Still, the elder gifted scholar lived a double life, where he engaged in unethical activities. Seeing my hero able to achieve academic, social, and financial success while engaging in such immoral behaviors, I felt justified to follow suit.

He didn’t know about my unscrupulous actions for a year but when he became aware, he gave me advice on how to get away with it and how to improve on it. Not on how to stop.  In fact, my mentor would pick me up around the corner of my house to drive us toward inequity.
 

We parted ways when I realized I couldn’t be around a lifestyle I saw destroy his life and potential. His double life led him to lose his scholarship, have to drop out of college, and strain his relationship with his parents. Sleeping on park benches and couch surfing among miscreates became his new nighttime routine.

My view on scholastics became distorted. The man I had worshipped had given up on academia. If my cousin, the golden boy from the block who shared many of the same obstacles I faced, couldn’t succeed in university, how could I? Can I only prosper if I follow his unethical principles?
 

It took months for me to realize that no failed idol, no statistics, and no peers, should discourage me from achieving a higher education. Although my life of impropriety is far behind me, I still crusade learning from my past and mistakes.

“ Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others... Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.”

-Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian

As the proud son of Peruvian immigrants, I’m so happy to see EA getting involved in the Latin American community!

I would recommend looking into Peru’s top universities such as Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, and Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM) to start EA college groups there or recruit professionals from there.

From what I’ve been told by family and family friends (I grew up very involved in the North NJ Peruvian community and culture), Peru has a way better high school (secundaria) education system in mathematics than US public high schools. Some people told me they were required to take Calculus I and Calculus II to graduate high school.

Also, Peruvian-Americans in the United States have a percentage of obtaining a bachelor's degree than the average American and Caucasian Americans. According to Wikipedia, “44% of Peruvians born in the United States over the age of 25 have college degrees,[8] exceeding the US national average of 24%.” Last year when I checked the US Census data website’s most recent data, it showed around 36%, if I remember correctly.

Working with the Institute for Liberty and Democracy based in Lima can have a high impact too. The magazine “The Economist” once called it one of the two most important think tanks in the world and was founded by multi-award-winning economist Hernando de Soto.

“ The Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), led by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, works with developing countries to implement property and business rights reforms that provide the legal tools and institutions required for citizens to participate in the formal national and global economy. ILD works toward a world in which all people have equal access to secure rights to their real property and business assets to pull themselves—and their countries—out of poverty.” https://www.ild.org.pe/

Hey Tyler, I love this post! It felt intuitive to me that when people are in legal issues, it’s in their and those indirectly and indirectly involved best interests to not speak too much on the matter under investigation. But I am noticing many EAs are frustrated and at times demanding EA public figures and leaders to give more information.

This post is a necessary legal explanation for a lack of direct and continuous information during the current FTX affairs. As someone with no legal background, I really appreciated how you avoided to use legal jargon.

You said, “ Some people are saying this is no surprise, as all of crypto was a Ponzi scheme from the start.” if you’re willing enough to post other people’s opinions, then you agree with it to an extent.

And then you further try to support this connotation of crypto and Ponzi scheme by saying “some Ponzi schemes have been operated there I’m sure.”

As stated earlier, I’m not taking sides on if crypto is a net good or net bad, but let’s be honest and straightforward on our said statements. And not try to redefine our noted statements to save face.

Fair point. I understand OP’s post was more of a vent (mine coming soon), but he should’ve expanded more of his reason and evidence for calling blockchain a “Ponzi scheme.”

(Side note: By no means am I a one of these “crypto bros.” I have as little money invested in it as you’d expect any other average Hispanic son of immigrants and recent community college graduate would. I’d say I’m neutral when it comes to crypto.)