Open and Welcome Thread: March 2021

Welcome Tristan!

Welcome! If you ever have an idea for a post you'd like to write, I'd be glad to read over a draft. And be sure to check out the useful links page for other resources you mind find useful.

Great to see you're still involved, Tristan! Looking forward to reading your thoughts :)

Hey Rob, welcome to the forum!

Given your interest in Buddhism, you might be interested to join the Buddhists in EA Facebook group. There is also an EA Meditation community that you or others interested in mindfulness can join. I believe they have 3 weekly guided meditations for people to join. Two people in my group in EA Philippines regularly join the meditations and find them valuable.

Regarding what you said about wanting to do something you could directly see the impact of, I think there's many ways you can still achieve this within EA. As you learn more about EA, you can have 1-1's or chats with people newer to EA than you, and help them learn more about EA or one of its causes/concepts, give them career or productivity advice, or even just some tips on mindfulness. 

Also, being able to volunteer for an EA project can allow you to see some more direct impact other than just donating. There might be a volunteer or job opportunity that might interest you in the EA Work Club.

Lastly, regarding if anyone in EA is doing anything for communities on a local level in the developed world, I can think of a few ideas:

1. Mental health is a big problem both in developed and developing countries, and is prioritized by some people in the EA community. For example, the charity Canopie, incubated by the EA org Charity Entrepreneurship, are developing and testing a mobile app to treat pregnancy-related mental health issues in the United States. So I think if you can find ways to cost-effectively improve mental health in your local community, that could still be impactful to work on.
2. Another thing that involves local communities is if you're in the U.S., having approval voting become the voting method in your state could be high-impact, because of how approval voting can lessen polarization. The EA-aligned org called The Center for Election Science works on this.
3. Finding ways to get involved or educated about the policymaking in your area, and seeing if you can advocate for more effective and evidence-based policies, can plausibly be high-impact too.
4. Finally, I guess doing EA community building work, or running Rationality talks/workshops for your local community, are ways you can introduce people in your area to some relevant ideas, which can help them think of other ways they can make an impact on the world.

I hope some of these links and ideas help!

Welcome Sive! Have you joined an EA fellowship yet? An intro one can help you understand the general underlying concepts, and an in-depth one can also let you go deeper in them if you've finished an intro fellowship :)

Welcome Sive!

It didn't have a card image, and so couldn't be displayed in the list on the sequences page. Sorry about that — the sequences creation tech is used by sufficiently few users that we / LW haven't prioritized making it a good user experience. Thanks for making it!

Hey! Just a quick comment that I totally support you paying down your student loan debt before donating, or at least before donating much (some people donate 1% when they're short on cash to get in the habit). I really think that one of the best things you can do early on is get yourself into a good financial situation.

You can also learn lots and share what you learn with your friends - hopefully this website can be useful for that!

Hey!
Re #4, I found this, but I'm not sure if they're still active. If this doesn't work, you very welcome to join us at EA Anywhere.

Hey  Rwoehrle, 
Thanks for sharing! I think it's always good to take a very pragmatic approach towards donating. As long as you have a debt to pay, it seems like it's worth putting money into that, and building a safety net for yourself first (a bit like putting an oxygen mask on yourself before you gonna get one on your child). When it comes to volunteering for animal groups, I'd recommend ACE top charities, or charities that are founded by Open Philanthropy or Animal Welfare Found, they should be kind of safe bets. Personally, I like The Humane League, and orgs around Open Wing Alliance (because this is an intervention that seems to be proven to be net positive for chickens). You can look for online volunteer opportunities with them. E.g. I work for an EA organization full time, but recently decided to donate some hours of graphic work to Fish Welfare Initiative. Maybe you can think of things you like to do, and the skills you have and go from that. I think that volunteering is a great thing, and you can start with as little as 1-2 hours a week. 
Also, try to join this group with EA Online Events: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EAOnlineEvents to connect with the community online until you will find (or maybe start) a group near you. All the best!

Welcome Schuyler!

Welcome Schuyler! I haven't encountered anyone else yet in the EA community who works on energy and climate policy in a government role, so it's nice to have someone with your background. 

You might be interested to join the Effective Environmentalism Facebook group, which gathers people who want to discuss and collaborate on impactful action for the climate crisis and other sustainability challenges. If you haven't seen some of Founders Pledge's resources on their Climate Change analysis and charity recommendations, such as this executive summary, I'd encourage you to read them. I'd also love to hear your thoughts on them!

Hey Evelyn, I'll DM you about this to figure it out!

For anyone else having issues please email eafellowshipweekend@gmail.com.