KevinO's Quick takes

The EA subreddit is getting more participation from critics and/or people understandably upset about FTX. This is resulting in some low quality posts hitting the frontpage of the subreddit, since it's so small and not very active.

Today I learned about Simpol, an org working on solving global coordination problems: https://simpol.org

Their approach is to encourage governments to work together to enact "simultaneous policy" across multiple issues to take action while avoiding first-mover challenges or a race to the bottom. By negotiating across multiple issues, concessions can be made to entities that might lose out in some areas in order to keep the entire negotiation net-positive for all.

So far my learning has been from this podcast episode, although it took a while to really explain the not-very-complex solution. https://www.jimruttshow.com/john-bunzl/ 

Get $50 to donate to charity at 2pm EST/11am PST (Nov 18) at the following url: https://www.tisbest.org/redefinegifting/
 

We could still use more short, casual videos to win tens of thousands of dollars for effective charities! See Project for Awesome 2023: Make a short video for an EA charity!

Long term-ist book that I missed: "The Good Ancestor: How To Think Long Term in a Short-Term World" by Roman Krznaric,  released in October 2020. (The US version has a different subtitle.)

And the TED Talk

I just started listening to the audiobook. I'm about 8 minutes in and he's already mentioning existential risk from AI and pandemics. In the next lines he mentions Bostrom and alludes to Ord. He draws a parallel between colonialism's disregard for indigenous populations and the practice of ignoring future people.

Edit: after the intro we start to veer away from EA and talk about e.g. extinction rebellion as role models. Talking about a 100+ year horizon as being long term thinking.

Searching on this forum, I can see that I missed references to it in https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/znaZXBY59Ln9SLrne/how-to-think-about-an-uncertain-future-lessons-from-other and https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ySwarSKFzxKLhCyo8/introduction-to-longtermism 

You can now vote in Project 4 Awesome to help EA charities win grants of, judging by past years, $25,000 USD.

You can vote for each video for each charity, and each vote counts. Click on the thumbnail to access the voting page for each video.

GFI: http://projectforawesome.com/?charity=r0qlq6nE

AMF: http://projectforawesome.com/?charity=IFzDtIVb

Give Directly: http://projectforawesome.com/?charity=2rRk4r7S

Clean Air Taskforce: http://www.projectforawesome.com/?charity=YBH2SiFJ

It's probably best to open one tab, do the CAPTCHA, and then open the rest of the tabs so you don't have to repeat the CAPTCHA. (Credit to Michael; I have no idea how to link to users.)

The topics of working for an EA org and altruist careers are discussed occasionally in our local group. 

I wanted to share my rough thoughts and some relevant forum posts that I've compiled in this google doc. The main thesis is that it's really difficult to get a job at an EA org, as far as I know, and most people will have messier career paths.

Some of the posts I link in the doc, specifically around alternate career paths:

The career and the community

Consider a wider range of jobs, paths and problems if you want to improve the long-term future

My current impressions on career choice for longtermists

NPR ask for personal messages from people involved in their local EA communities to play during a live interview with William MacAskill: https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/wq1nlm/help_with_upcoming_npr_interview_with_william/ 

A new-to-me take on the Amazon. Claims deforestation would lead to changing rain patterns "from Argentina up to the American midwest", "which means that Amazon dieback would disrupt/destroy water and food supplies across much of the western hemisphere". The article talks about the state of journalism, climate strategy,  and climate science.

https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/revisiting-the-amazon-fires