New broader waiver to the freeze for life-saving assistance announced

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-issues-new-waiver-humanitarian-aid-amid-freeze-2025-01-29/ 

I’m not sure “sharing articles on PEPFAR as widely as you can” won’t have some negative consequences.

I’ve been following the posts around this on Twitter/X & they routinely get disdain & hate from MAGA users. Like if one put up a link to contact Congress, I wouldn’t put it past some people to contact Congress to say the program is wasteful, doesn’t prioritize US citizens, only helps irresponsible gay people, etc. The ignorance & selfish cruelty on display has been very disheartening. It has shaken my faith in humanity, not even a faith in people being really empathetic & good, but the faith that people won’t hatefully oppose something so good because of a warped world-view.

The support on places like Bluesky has been much better.

If you publicize how the government aid org is wasting money, the entire budget may more likely get cut, not redirected to more effective aid.

May be better to highlight what the effective aid could do.

I hope Every Egg starts selling their animal free eggs in stores soon.

Maybe the most tractable new idea to improve lives by 5% or more at scale!

I recently came across this short-sleepers intervention idea on Twitter. https://x.com/byersblake/status/1865853596769849671?s=46

And when I started listing out big project ideas like economic/political systems change, reducing diseases/aging/major causes of death, resolving climate change, working on advanced market commitments, etc., I couldn’t think of anything that was as tractable that would significantly improve lives at scale. There are ways to improve democratic decision making & alignment with people’s values & priorities in big ways, but implementing the mechanisms is a big political challenge if not a non-starter. Attacking major causes of death is feasible if we find scalable solutions for aging, obesity, & addictions. We could likely increase lifespans/healthspans by 5% or more, but at this point we may get a decent amount of this when existing markets scale GLP1 drugs.

It seems like a short-sleepers intervention, even if it only reduced required sleeping hours from 8 to 6, would be equivalent to giving most people 6 more years of conscious life or a 7.5% longer healthy life if it could be done in an affordable drug/therapy. And it seems most challenges for an intervention would be narrow technical challenges & known regulatory challenges instead of unwieldy, widespread political/societal challenges.

I really like the potential here. I’ll keep reading more on it & look forward to any updates or opportunities to support it.

I’m still using donation multipliers to increase the amount of funds given/directed to orgs: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BFbNymbn4ukmKWHrX/donation-multiplier-stacking-directing-1-27x-to-6-6x-more

So I’m lined up to give $950 to the Evidence Action donation match campaign https://supporters.evidenceaction.org/page/2024match?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=giving_season

And I’m doing it on a new credit card with a $200 cash back bonus.

Then my remaining holiday donation of $550 will be split between the GiveWell All Grants Fund & the Giving Multiplier matching fund (https://givingmultiplier.org/matching) But I’m holding off until January to make this one on the off chance tax deductions will be more viable next year.

When & where can I watch the video?

Many of the most cost-effective & scale-able interventions are preventative, like child immunizations in globally poor areas. Unfortunately preventative work usually isn’t as flashy, like there isn’t a lot of fan-fare or striking event when in 6 months a vaccinated child doesn’t get malaria.

In what ways might the Mr. Beast team or others creatively work through/around this challenge to make highly-effective preventative work more compelling?

Would you consider more work & content in nutrition for pregnant mothers & developing children in globally poor regions?

-Multi-micronutrient & calcium supplementation & education for pregnant mothers to prevent still-births/early-births/underweight-births.

-Complementary feeding supplies & education for families with infants to prevent stunting.

-SQ-LNS (https://www.unicef.org/documents/nutrition/SQLNS-Guidance) distribution to prevent malnutrition in early childhood.

Research presented in the “Best Things First” book (https://lomborg.com/best-things-first) estimate a benefit of $14-$24 for every $1 spent on these interventions in globally poor regions.

Some people in this comment thread are repeatedly making the mistake of talking about the increase in satisfaction due to increased wealth of already-wealthy/developed-country-people. Increases in satisfaction related to increases in income only start to plateau around the $80k per year mark. https://images.app.goo.gl/7jDJFqbj3Eq1ePeY7

The per capita global income is around $10,000. Most people in the world would be significantly more satisfied with 2x, or even 7x, their current income.