Open thread: July - September 2024

Hi all.

I'm writing on behalf of Giv Effektivt, the Danish sister organization of Give Well and GWWC. 

Please consider helping Giving Effektivt reach 300 members before the new year. A membership costs 50DKK ($7). 

We need ~110 more members to be able to offer tax deductions of around 450.000DKK ($66.000) for donations to Giv Effektivt in 2024-2025. All EU citizens can become members.  

One of our fantastic donors will give a 100DKK donation for each new member until we reach our goal of 300 members. I’m doing SoMe and email campaigns to get the word out. 

Please feel free to share the message with friends or EAs in your network! :-) 

Thank you so much! 

Hello! 

My name is Timothy Motte and I write https://www.realisticoptimist.io/ , a paid newsletter publishing in-depth interviews with startup founders around the world. 

Tech startups used to be a Silicon Valley-only phenomenon. That isn't the case anymore. You now have tech startups in Colombia, Iraq and Indonesia. Even Somaliland. 

Startups solve problems and create jobs. Startups propping up globally is an incredible catalyst for global socio-economic progress. 

This potential can only be achieved with quality information informing the founders, VCs and operators working in this new globalized sphere. That's why I started the Realistic Optimist.

Would love to chat about all things startups related, especially the hidden, negative effects they can have on economies. I rarely read pragmatic, contrarian takes on these topics. 

Previous to this, I founded a startup connecting Palestinian startup founders to mentors/investors in the Palestinian diaspora. 

Hi. I’m looking for career advice. I am 25 with no college degree and little work experience (I am currently employed as a cashier). What would be the best strategy for me if I’m looking to make a large amount of money to give to charity after TAI? My timelines are fairly short, maybe around 5-10 years. I think the chance of human extinction from misaligned AI is very low but am worried about s-risks (sadistic humans torturing digital minds, continuation of wild animal suffering, etc.). Influencing these things now seems hard but may be easier in the future with a clearer picture of things so I want to save up.

One career option that has been suggested is entering a trade, such as electrical or HVAC work. It is possible that wages for skilled manual labor will rise as intellectual work becomes automated, additionally a construction boom for datacenters could drive demand. Alternatively, I could try to become a software engineer. I’d be very grateful for comments or suggestions .

How fungible do donations to anti-AI-xrisk charities tend to be with the broader pool of EA money?

For context: I tend to expect anti-AI-xrisk donations to be the highest-value ones I can make. My workplace offers $10,000 per year of donation-matching to a limited set of charities. None of these charities, from what I've managed to find during recent searches, particularly directly do anti-AI-xrisk work. However, off in other EA space, one of the charities they support matched donations to is Effective Ventures. This leaves me with a question: for my first $10,000 of donations next year, should I expect to get better value by doing a matched donation to Effective Ventures or by doing a non-matched donation to my anti-AI-xrisk charity of choice?

As far as I can tell, the answer here comes down to the sub-question of what the fungibility-patterns at play are. If I can reasonably expect that money I put into Effective Ventures will cause other donors to put money-they'd-otherwise-have-put-there into the anti-AI-xrisk field instead, I should do the matched donation to Effective Ventures; if I can't reasonably expect that, then I should just donate to the anti-AI-xrisk field directly.

Have the patterns here been studied at all? I know GiveWell has made some attempts to incorporate that sort of fungibility effect into their own models, but haven't seen it discussed in much detail outside of the GiveWell context.

Hi all! My name's Osnat. I have been interested on and off in effective altruism since my teens, but only just signed up for the forum.

I've been interested in science, ethics, and science as an ethical pursuit since I was very little. I have a background in physics and I trained as a space historian (it's a real job!)

Since finishing my PhD last year I've decided that

a) I can put my skills to better use outside academia than inside it

b) since I know quite a lot about how science is done in practice, thanks to my science-y background and science-adjacent research, I want to work on tools to make science more effective

c) science (and indeed most areas of life) would benefit greatly from more forecasting

d) I would do a decent amount of good by trying to make forecasting more accessible to policymakers and scientists. Not a tremendous amount of good, but more than I was doing before. And I think one has to start somewhere.

So, now I am working on testing free, open-source prediction market software and on engaging people with forecasting.

I write about stuff and things at osnatkatz.com.

Hi everyone! My name is Ulf Graf. I am a 33 year old lecturer in public health at Halmstad University, Sweden. My main interest now is "Effective Altruism Systemic Change", so if anyone else is interested, please contact me! I think that green basic income (basic income funded by green taxation) has most potential for systemic change.

So now I am looking more into taxes that can change the world (at least a little). Because with taxes, it may be possible to tackle poverty, climate change, animal suffering, health problems and premature death and also fund basic income. Environmental taxes like carbon taxes, energy taxes, deforestation taxes, meat taxes, aviation fuel taxes, shipping-fuel taxes, green land value tax and the polluter pays principle may be helpful in that case. Charity Entrepreneurship has suggested charities that try to reduce alcohol, tobacco and sodium consumption. So health taxes are also interesting because alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy food and air pollution accounts for 29,4 million deaths and 819 million DALY annually.

I became interested in effective altruism because I had made my bachelor's thesis about buddhist views of altruism and was looking for articles about altruism. In 2019, I clicked on the Happier Lives Institute's research agenda and thought it was really interesting. So I replied to everything in that agenda in an email and said that I wanted to volunteer there. Since then I jave been helping out there in periods. I also have been a board member of the Swedish Netwok for Global Mental Health. I am also trying to start a research project that is "dance on prescription", since I have been dancing a lot. But I am interested in global health, mental health, happiness, climate change, public health and other things as well.

Fun fact 1: I was at a hilarious job interview once. A 65-year-old professor and her 45-year-old secretary interviewed me for a job as a research assistant.
"What do you do on your leisure time?" the professor asked.
"I am doing pole dancing," I said because I was going on a pole fitness course.
"I don't know what it is. Can you please explain that for me?"
"Well..."
"It is when you are dancing around a pole," the secretary said and tried to change topic for the conversation.
"That sounds great! My husband never wants to dance with me so I should put up a pole in my bedroom so we can dance."
She was thinking pole dancing was dancing around a small maypole. When the interview was over, the secretary told her what pole dancing was and they laughed so they bursted out in tears. I got the job.

Fun fact 2: Ulf means wolf and Graf means grave in old norse. It may sound cool but it is a dorky name and only popular among people who are over 80-years-old.

References:
Global Burden of Disease Collaborators & Ärnlöv, J. (2020). Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The Lancet, 396(10258), 1223-1249.

Murray, C. J. (2019). Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study. Lancet, 393(10184), 1958-72.

Sumaila, U. R., Wabnitz, C. C., Teh, L. S., Teh, L. C., Lam, V. W., Sumaila, H., ... & Polasky, S. (2024). Utilizing basic income to create a sustainable, poverty-free tomorrow. Cell Reports Sustainability.

All the best,
Ulf Graf



 

Hi everyone! 👋🏻

I'm John and I'm new here.

I'm from Chicago but am currently living in Medellin, Colombia working remotely for Eder Financial, a non-profit financial company serving other non-profits and religious organizations.

I was a police officer for about 5 years after college (my childhood dream). After some time I realized it was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, so I left the force and switched to private sector work.

Even though I left my job as a police office I still want to use my career to help people. I first learned about Effective Altruism through 80,000 Hours and am excited about the work and ideas of the EA community.

I've been focusing on building skills in strategy and operations in my current role, but now I'm excited to start looking for work opportunities at EA organizations.

Looking forward to getting to know others in the EA community and learning more about the EA community itself!

Hi EA Community!

I am a recent graduate of Biomedical Science from Nigeria. I have a growing interest in biosecurity and pandemic prevention and preparedness, especially as a countermeasure to bioterrorism. I plan to obtain a masters in biotechnology after now, but I'd like to obtain guidance on the suitability of this career move towards making the most impact in biosecurity. Any help with networking, mentorship, and allied events will be much appreciated. Thank you!

Hi everyone, I'm 32 and pretty lucky in that I have a career which fits my exact personal childhood wounds getting to work in suicide prevention. As you can imagine I use the word 'lucky' with more than a little tongue in my cheek. 

That said I'm very much wanting to have a greater impact than the one my job allows, as I've heard it put: your job won't pay you what you're worth it'll pay you what the role is worth. I love the impact that I get to make but... if I could do it without the paperwork and admin oh boy would I ever lmao. 

To that end I have a blog where I can write and spread my good cheer without needing permission. I share insights from my career, lived experience and industry experts so you can make the world more inviting for those on the fringes, basically. 

People like me, people like my mum who lives with voices.

I'm keen to network with others who are writing, blogging / making content trying to make a difference. Especially people interested in creating businesses, services, digital products and the like in order to maximise good. Double especially people in Australia. 

I feel like this place is exactly what I desperately needed about 20 years ago, thank you to all of you who've made it what it is! I hope to contribute. I'd love to get more involved in my local EA Chapter but have very little big bursts of time available, so this forum feels like the perfect way to meet in the middle. 

I'm keen to meet you!

Good evening. I have just signed up for this forum. I have been interested in effective altruism, on and off, for about ten years. If you're wondering why I have not been more focused in my long-term attention, I keep getting distracted in whether I really believe in socialism or Quakerism or whatever. I like the philosophy behind things. When I lived in London, I attended events fairly regularly. When I moved back to the Leeds area, I let this drop.

I am a middle-ranking civil service in Britain. I have come to the conclusion that I've not done as well as I could have done with my career, which is probably because I spend too much time reading and thinking, and not enough time doing.

I am hoping that engagement with this forum will give me a sense of community and spur me on to do more good work in the real world.

Hey everyone!

I'm Aditi Basu and I'm based in Melbourne, Australia. I quit my full-time job last week to do more impactful work in the animal welfare space. It's something I have been very passionate about but just didn't have the guts to make the leap of faith (due to reasons falling under the low income high uncertainty umbrella). The Effective Altruism movement & community have played a big part in my decision to make this leap. In the one year I've been a part of this community, it has significantly changed the way I approach my life and make decisions. 

I'm taking up to a year off to identify gaps in the pro-animal movement and work on (unpaid yet impactful) projects and at the same time make connections and forge collaborations with other similarly oriented individuals working in this space. 

I'll also aim to create a post on this forum in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out!

Fun facts about me: 
I'm very much into Brazilian jiu-jitsu. 
In the past, I've enjoyed long distance running and rock-climbing. 
I have three cat babies who I absolutely adore and love.

Aditi

How to include math in posts? I've tried but mathematical text does not appear. The EA forum user manual doesn't include enough information about this. I would be very grateful if someone could help me with this.

I'm interested in arguments surrounding energy-efficiency (and maximum intensity, if they're not the same thing) of pain and pleasure. I'm looking for any considerations or links regarding (1) the suitability of "H=D" (equal efficiency and possibly intensity) as a prior; (2) whether, given this prior, we have good a posteriori reasons to expect a skew in either the positive or negative direction; and (3) the conceivability of modifying human minds' faculties to experience "super-bliss" commensurate with the badness of the worst-possible outcome, such that the possible intensities of human experience hinge on these considerations.

Picturing extreme torture - or even reading accounts of much less extreme suffering - pushes me towards suffering-focused ethics. But I don't hold a particularly strong normative intuition here and I feel that it stems primarily from the differences in perceived intensities, which of course I have to be careful with.

Stuff I've read so far:

Are pain and pleasure equally energy-efficient?

Simon Knutsson's reply

Hedonic Asymmetries