This is useful but doesnt entirely answer William's question. To put it another way: suppose GiveDirectly reduced extreme poverty in East Africa by 50%. What would your best estimate of the effect of that on xrisk be? I'd expect it to be quite positive, but havent thought about how to estimate the magnitude.

I expect there's a high probability (maybe 50%) that factory farms are just as bad for chickens as they are for humans, and a somewhat lower probability (maybe 25%) that they are just as bad for fish. I expect it's more likely that factory farms are worse for humans than that they're worse for chickens/fish, so in expectation, they're worse for humans, but not much worse.

Woaha, I didn't realize that anyone thought that, it would make me change my views greatly if I did.

Can you talk more about what convinced you that they're a good giving opportunity on the margin?

I asked Tobias Pulver about this specifically. He told me about their future plans and how they'd like to use marginal funds. They have things that they would have done if they'd had more money but couldn't do. I don't know if they're okay with me speaking about this publicly but I invite Tobias or anyone else at REG to comment on this.

I heard - all be it second hand, and last year - of two people involved, Lukas Gloor and Tobias Pulver, saying that thought that the minimal share of GBS/EAF manpower - 1.5 FTEs - that was being invested in REG was sufficient.

Is the number of reads really relevant? How come? I figure people who read content generally don't act on it, and certainly not in high impact ways.

What do you think the average (mean) expected value of an EA group is?

Machine learning group looks cool: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1582428355359588/?fref=ts

I look forwards to seeing it there! Will it be a slightly different version taking into account feedback?

Obligatory link: To Inspire People to Give, Be Public About Your Giving

Yes, I agree. 'Effective altruist' appears to me to be a label picking out a very particular and narrow movement and group of people, despite the broadness of the words we happen to have adopted as a label.

Like the GoogleDoc you posted before, I think this would get the best response on the Giving What We Can blog, or as a quick link on the Effective Altruists facebook group :-) It could go in a forum open thread too!