Mitchell Laughlin🔸
Bio
Participation4
Analyst in the Australian Treasury reporting on the economies of Australia's major trading partners and financial markets. Giving What We Can (GWWC) pledge member since September 2022. EA Sydney organiser.
How others can help me
If you're in Sydney, come along to EA Sydney's events, and give us feedback on how we're doing.
How I can help others
If you're new to EA, in Sydney, and keen to learn more feel free to reach out. I'd be happy to chat about effective giving, high-impact careers, moral philosophy, etc.
Posts 7
Comments22
This feels self-flagellating, and after reading your family planning vs animal welfare piece, in which you spent 26% of the word count explaining why your analysis was bad despite pretty much all of the comments being positive, and which I think was really valuable, I am a little worried you might be underselling yourself.
As Charlie's said, it is a little tricky for an outsider to know what you're capable of without more information. I don't want to be unrealistic and suggest that you'll be able to do whatever you set your mind to, but I would note that aptitude is not fixed.
If it would help to have some back and forth with someone, feel free to reach out.
Strongly upvoting so others see it. This is similar in fashion to some work that Greg Sadler has done with Good Ancestors Policy in Australia (which has had a surprising amount of success). I also know Ben from some time when we were both in Canberra and am comfortable in vouching for his character.
tldr, thanks for writing.
I would consider myself to be a very trusting and forgiving person who always starts with the mentality of "Yes, but most people are inherently good". I definitely went through a long period of "Ah well I mean surely Sam (SBF) isn't actually a 'bad' guy right". This felt like a productive slap in the face.
I would still prefer to be more than less trusting, but maybe I should dial it back a bit. Thanks.
I noticed there was one Jewish organisation and one Christian organisation on the list, and am familiar with GiveDirectly's 2022-2023 Zakat fund. Do you know if there is an organisation focussed on effective giving for Muslims? Afterfund was mentioned here but I'm not sure how effective the proposed interventions would be in contrast to others that the EA community would typically support. Not sure if it's worth flagging, but I'm not Muslim, just interested!
Thanks!
I have some hesitations about supporting Richard Hanania given what I understand of his views and history. But in the same way I would say I support *example economic policy* of *example politician I don't like* if I believed it was genuinely good policy, I think I should also say that I found this article of Richard's quite warming.