Thanks Aaron! I'd love to join that Discord, but the link says that the invitation has expired.

Is there an official place for real-time chat among virtual attendees? If not, would it be okay for me to create an unofficial Discord or similar? Again, absolutely amazing work putting this together so quickly Amy.

Hey Amy and Barry, thanks so much for pulling this together, and so quickly -- incredible work!

I would like to use the Grip agenda website to add items to my agenda (i.e. not just view it) but it won't let meas I haven't registered. I fear that this means I also won't be able to click through to the live streams when they happen. Maybe I'm just missing a registration link somewhere, but this might be a bug where only people who were actually registered for EAG SF are able to interact with the agenda (and, potentially, view the livestreams).

Just thought I'd bring this to your attention! Again, amazing work getting this event up so fast on a new platform.

ETA: I just reread and saw this:

On Saturday morning, you can visit the agenda page to see a link to the broadcast.

It's already Saturday evening here, but I think it is not yet Saturday morning in SF! So maybe the links will appear in the agenda then. It would still be great, if the feature is simple to activate, for non-attendees to be able to add items to their agenda -- but I 100% understand if this is not possible, and will just make my own agenda manually. :)

I wonder whether Development Media International would be a particularly good choice at this time, not only for preventing COVID-19, but also because it is a charity that is likely to be more able to continue its regular operations during a pandemic (versus, say, charities that distribute bednets or medicine).

This is also a fantastic lifehack for searching for information on websites whose own search bar functionality is... subpar.

Australian equivalent: https://www.abmdr.org.au/ (They say on this one that you could be asked to donate to someone anywhere in the world, as it's part of a worldwide network.)

I signed up for this a couple of months ago. Pretty simple process, probably the same one that's described above. My main worry was not dropping more than 1/4 of the swabs! (They need three, but give you four in case you drop one as it's invalid if the tip has touched any surface except the inside of your mouth.)

This may be a touch too philosophical, but I enjoyed Derek Parfit's essay 'Personal Identity', as I think that it provides a brief insight into one of the central concerns of this major EA thinker.

My university group is planning to do a reading group around this book next year. While discussing how we'd all get access to a copy without each individually buying one, we discovered to our delight that it's available through our university library as en e-book. Just putting this out there because if any other student group is planning something similar, check if your uni library has or can get e-book access, too.

Another option would be to buy it for your university library, but ask them (or ask a sympathetic philosophy professor to ask them if students can't directly request this) to put it into short loans, 2-hour loan, high use, or whatever your university calls the section for books that can only be consulted for short periods. But the e-book is way more convenient and will thus probably increase the number of people who read and attend your group each week/fortnight/month.

Excellent idea, and highly detailed and informative post.

I was reading an article recently which suggested that scholars who speak English as an additional language can struggle with the expectation to write their work in English---especially in fields such as philosophy where prose expression forms the bulk of academic articles (less of an issue in the sciences). The article concluded that there should be more opportunities for translation, so that authors can express their ideas in the language they are most proficient and comfortable in. Perhaps this would be something for EA to think about offering? i.e. could offering to pay for translation of articles/books by non-native English speakers working in high-impact research areas essentially improve their productivity compared to them having to write in their non-native language? I've also never seen an EA event in which the speaker spoke through an interpreter, for example, but if someone did prefer to use one, it would be good for this to have been considered/offered as an option.

Also, one thing I've both read and personally noticed learning and teaching languages is that even very advanced speakers will usually do maths in their native language, and it can be hard to communicate orally about numbers in your non-native language. If you are doing a presentation at an EA event and mentioning numbers or percentages, it could be helpful (both for English as an Additional Language speakers and general accessibility) to display those figures on your slides also.

Thanks again for the excellent post!

Although I can't comment on the sense of community felt by the local residents, I observed and to some extent experienced this in Spain. I'd say the key was the combination of high urban density and availability of shared spaces. Another factor could be the low price of eating/drinking outside the home - - I'd say this facilitates socializing since it's easier to say "Let's meet at X at 9pm [Spanish people have dinner very late!]" rather than having to prepare your house to host guests. There's a joke that you only go into a Spanish person's flat for a wake (which is an exaggeration, but somewhat based on truth).

Someone also mentioned to me that it is culturally more normal in Europe for people to socialize after work, likely due to some of the factors I mentioned. Cal Newport recently implied that this may have been the case in other countries pre-television. It's also socially acceptable to take children to most events, even late into the evening.

Unfortunately, these aren't really cultural characteristics, as I'd say it's fundamentally based in the high urban density.