ludwigbald's Quick takes

By ludwigbald @ 2021-08-17T14:00 (+1)

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ludwigbald @ 2023-05-23T12:33 (+5)

Hey, there's a new university around!

EAs have long floated the idea of starting or buying a university, but a group of sustainability activists and experts has actually done so. It's privately funded, accredited in Germany, offers bachelor's, master's and MBA degrees. Teaching is online-only, I suppose for cost savings and global inclusivity.

What do you think?

tomorrow.university

ludwigbald @ 2021-11-24T21:21 (+5)

Is anyone working on summarizing the new German coalition agreement from an EA perspective?

Otherwise I'll do it soon™. I'm happy to take advice here!

Simon_Grimm @ 2021-11-29T14:25 (+4)

Hey Ludwig, happy to collaborate on this. A bunch of other EAs and I analyzed the initial party programs under EA considerations; this should be easily adapted to the final agreement and turned into a forum post.

ludwigbald @ 2023-01-08T12:42 (+4)

I think, on the forum, there should be a clearer distinction between people speaking privately or on behalf of their organization.

Maybe org updates should always be posted by an org account.

ludwigbald @ 2023-11-30T12:15 (+2)

Do you have any takes on insect farming? There's a company that sells protein powder made from crickets, and they basically claim they feel no pain and are super efficient. Could that be on the same scale or even better than vegan protein powder, made from e.g. peas?

https://eatsens.com/pages/cricket-protein

niplav @ 2023-12-01T17:15 (+5)

Tomasik 2019, Tomasik 2017a and Tomasik 2017b argue against this:

  • Even if insects are unlikely to be sentient, assuming marginally decreasing sentience with neuron count and nonzero probability of insect sentience imply that eating bigger animals is probably better.
  • The conditions of insects in insects farming are pretty bad.
  • Eating plants is usually more efficient.
MathiasKB @ 2023-11-30T12:57 (+3)

I'm quite excited about cricket protein! Nutritionally it's superior to vegan protein supplements, especially for people who are otherwise vegan and won't get animal protein.

My intuition is that it very much comes down to whether one views an undisturbed cricket life as net-positive or negative. A cricket farm breeds millions of crickets in a 6 week cycle where the crickets are frozen to death not long before they naturally would die of old age.

Rethink Priorities recently incubated the insect institute who I think are exploring insect sentience. They're more qualified to speak on this than I am.

EDIT: turns out I don't know shit about crickets or nutrition. Rethink has a cool report on insect farming, also points out my claim on their death being soon before natural old age is likely wrong. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ruFmR5oBgqLgTcp2b/insects-raised-for-food-and-feed-global-scale-practices-and#Cricket_farming_practices_and_conditions

Benny Smith @ 2023-11-30T16:09 (+11)

There’s nothing magical about “animal protein.” Plants and plant-based protein powders provide the same nutrients, minus the moral atrocity.

Insect sentience is debated, but I’m not sure why we’d take the risk when we can just go vegan.

I’m highly skeptical that farmed crickets would live “undisturbed” lives, given the historical track record of how animals are treated when we optimize their lives for meat production rather than their own welfare. Generally, we should treat sentient beings as an end in themselves, not as a means to an end.

ludwigbald @ 2021-08-17T12:00 (+2)

Local groups have an opportunity to do much more than just creating and connecting local effective altruists. Being local to a place, we have special knowledge and influence. A few ideas:

Anything else?

Aaron Gertler @ 2021-08-19T18:30 (+3)

See this post on "local priorities research" for more ideas. The author shares this "non-exhaustive list of examples":

  • Local cause area prioritisation
  • Local problem profile research
  • High impact local career pathway research
  • Risk assessment
  • Giving and philanthropy landscape research
  • Charity evaluation
  • Public policy research
  • Analysis of the convergence and divergence between EA and local culture/religion/ethics
ludwigbald @ 2021-08-20T07:30 (+1)

Thanks, that's exactly what I've been looking for! :)