What I'm celebrating from EA and adjacent work in 2024

By Emma Richter🔸 @ 2024-12-31T21:12 (+126)

As 2024 draws to a close, I’m reflecting on the work and stories that inspired me this year: those from the effective altruism community, those I found out about through EA-related channels, and those otherwise related to EA.

I’ve appreciated the celebration of wins and successes over the past few years from @Shakeel Hashim's posts in 2022 and 2023. As @Lizka and @MaxDalton put very well in a post in 2022:

We often have high standards in effective altruism. This seems absolutely right: our work matters, so we must constantly strive to do better.

But we think that it's really important that the effective altruism community celebrate successes:

• If we focus too much on failures, we incentivize others/ourselves to minimize the risk of failure, and we will probably be too risk averse.
• We're humans: we're more motivated if we celebrate things that have gone well.

Rather than attempting to write a comprehensive review of this year's successes and wins related to EA, I want to share what has personally moved me this year—progress that gave me hope, individual stories and acts of altruism, and work that I found thought-provoking or valuable. I’ve structured the sections below as prompts to invite your own reflection on the year, as I’d love to hear your responses in the comments. We all have different relationships with EA ideas and the community surrounding them, and I find it valuable that we can bring different perspectives and responses to questions like these.

What progress in the world did you find exciting?

• The launch of the Lead Exposure Elimination Fund this year was exciting to see, and the launch of the Partnership for a Lead-Free Future. The fund jointly committed over $100 million to combat lead exposure, compared to the $15 million in private funding that went toward lead exposure reduction in 2023. It’s encouraging to see lead poisoning receiving attention and funding after being relatively neglected.
• The Open Wing Alliance reported this year that 89% of corporate cage-free commitments with deadlines of 2023 or earlier have been fulfilled—after years of hard work from advocates and animal welfare organizations. (Lewis Bollard outlines more big wins for farmed animals in 2024 in this post.)
• The states of Washington and California passed legislation banning octopus farming, and a federal bill to ban octopus farming was introduced into Congress this year.
• Côte d'Ivoire and South Sudan were the first countries to administer the new R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine to children at risk of malaria. Other countries are expected to introduce malaria vaccines by the end of this year, and countries plan to reach around 6.6 million children with the malaria vaccine in 2024 and 2025.

What individual stories inspired you?

• @Vincent van der Holst doubled the world record for cycling without hands for the Against Malaria Foundation—reaching 262.5 km in 9 hours 45 minutes in total—and raised €9,408! I love how Vincent found an unconventional way to raise money for an effective charity.
• @Elizabeth Klugh shared her experience donating her kidney to a friend. I was moved by her description of what her friend has gone on to do since then, and how Elizabeth acknowledged the costs and pain of kidney donation while still committing to such a generous act.
• @Julia_Wise🔸 and her husband continue to donate 50% of their income, even when he took a significant pay cut to work at a nonprofit. I love Julia’s practical assessment of what factors have made this possible for her.
• @jessica_mccurdy🔸 shared how she improved her wellbeing, including her mental health. I appreciate people openly discussing these topics and providing info that might be valuable to others (I’m thinking of Luisa Rodriguez’s post on imposter syndrome as well, and Howie Lempel on the 80k podcast talking about mental health).

What popular media or articles did you appreciate?

• “Olympian Marcus Daniell Shows Athletes Can Help Improve The World”: tennis player and 10% pledger Marcus Daniell raised “$64,152.91 to create positive change for 19,345 humans, and 96,229 animals and mitigate 41,343 tonnes of CO2e from the environment” at the time of the article.
• Coinciding with the Oscars where Oppenheimer was a nominee in different categories, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) launched the “Make Nukes History” campaign. The Los Angeles Times published an open letter from NTI and many prominent actors and artists, some from the film, calling for an end to nuclear weapons. The letter and subject received media coverage from outlets like the Hollywood Reporter, the Guardian, and USA Today.
• Stephanie Nolen’s “Malaria Vaccine Rollout to Africa Is a Cautionary Tale” considers why it took decades to have a malaria vaccine and the implications for future vaccines (like a vaccine for tuberculosis).

What writing from this year did you appreciate or find compelling?

• “On Owning Our EA Affiliation” by @Alix Pham resonated a lot with me, as the question of how people claim their affiliation with EA or distance themselves from it comes up a lot in my work on EA communications. I appreciate the reflections and responses the post prompted in the comments, and Alix’s discussion of EA as a public good, in a sense.
• I found “How I want to live my life” by @Peter Wildeford powerful in how he laid out his ideological commitments and values with clarity—it pushed me to think about what my version of a post like this would look like.

What made you grateful or excited to be involved in or related to effective altruism?

• Giving What We Can celebrated its 15th anniversary this year, and founders Will MacAskill and Toby Ord posted some lovely threads on X about it. I find it wild and inspiring to consider that the actions of a small group of people 15 years ago could blossom into thousands of individuals living out their values all around the world, and I’m proud to be a part of that community through my 10% pledge.
• I feel lucky to work with my colleagues at CEA—they inspire me in many ways, from their dedication to their work and their intellectual curiosity and seriousness to their Forum posts and sense of humor.