EA Updates for February 2021
By DavidNash @ 2021-01-29T14:17 (+23)
Upcoming Virtual Events
- 2nd February - EA Consultants Coffee Chat - Join the Facebook group to find out more details
- 4th February - Charity Entrepreneurship Q&A with Joey Savoie
- 7th February - Giving What We Can Meetup - With guest Michelle Hutchinson, Head of Advising at 80,000 Hours
- 13th February - Climate Change Icebreakers - Organised by Effective Environmentalism
- 17th February - Effective Giving Open Forum with GWWC
- 20th February - Introductory EA Fellowship - Applications close 7th February
- 20th February - Legal Topics in Effective Altruism - Virtual reading group running until 10th April
- 20-21st March - EA Global: Reconnect - Virtual conference, applications open mid February
- 26-28th March - EA Fellowship Weekend
- 29-31st October - EA Global: London 2021
Meta
- Joey Savoie and Vaidehi Agarwalla with a post on what they think are the top 3 charity ideas in the EA meta space
- The EA Consulting Network has set up a newsletter for consultants interested in effective altruism
- 80,000 Hours podcast with Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be
- An update from the Centre for Effective Altruism on their work in the fourth quarter of 2020
- CEA with an overview of areas they are not focusing on
- Founders Pledge with an overview of their research in 2020
- Michelle Hutchinson looking at possible gaps in the EA community
- There is a new calendar for virtual EA related events around the world
- CEA's strategy for 2021
- Shay Ben Moshe has written up their career decision making process to help others making similar choices
- A post looking at how effective altruism was promoted at a large tech company
- The EA Forum now has a page for new users to help them get more involved
- Fabienne with a post asking 'Can I have impact if I’m average?'
- The 10 most viewed posts on the EA Forum in 2020
- An Ask Me Anything with Ajeya Cotra, researcher at Open Philanthropy
- Eli Nathan with thoughts on on operations careers at effective altruism related organisations
- People are coordinating on Project for Awesome to raise funds for potentially impactful charities
- EA organisation updates for December 2020
- Open Philanthropy on their approach to recruiting a strong team
- Richard Ngo with the post "Lessons from my time in Effective Altruism"
- Michelle Hutchinson with a post looking at training bottlenecks in EA
- Arden Kohler with a critical summary of Meacham’s "Person-Affecting Views and Saturating Counterpart Relations"
- Jack Malde looking at which concepts are important to know when deciding between causes
Grants
- Open Phil have made 18 grants recently with a total value of $22,620,000
- $15,900,000 - Scientific research
- $5,500,000 - Atherosclerosis and Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Therapy
- $5,300,000 - Strep A Vaccine
- $2,500,000 - In Vitro Fertilization Research
- $2,000,000 - COVID-19 Testing Platform
- $2,390,000 - GiveWell — General Support
- $1,356,000 - Farm animal welfare
- $1,000,000 - International Refugee Assistance Project
- $780,000 - Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness
- $695,000 - Criminal Justice Reform
- $500,000 - Land Use Reform
- $15,900,000 - Scientific research
- The Global Fund signed 157 grants for a total of $8,540,000,000 for HIV, TB and malaria programs and to strengthen systems for health
Global Development
- A case study on the intersection of U.S. foreign aid and EA
- The African Continental Free Trade Area has opened aiming to bring together 1.3 billion people in a $3.4 trillion economic bloc
- Africa Insiders with an overview of upcoming elections this year
- Founders Pledge with a podcast on "Solving problems for small businesses in Africa with Daniel Yu, Founder & Global CEO of Sokowatch"
- Devex with a report on a new white paper outlining China's development past and future
- Care International looking at which humanitarian crises were most ignored in 2020
- Derek Foster on improving preference-based health metrics
- A post asking if foreign aid is effective
- Exemplars in Global Health looking at how Ethiopia decreased their under-five mortality rate by 56 percent in 15 years
- Coverage of the work by Sella Nevo and Google AI to improve global flood forecasting
Animal Welfare
- The Effective Animal Advocacy community have a new updated community directory
- Ville Sokk has created a new online calculator to look at how consumption of different animals affects climate change and animal welfare
- Animal Advocacy Careers with an overview of their effective animal advocacy bottlenecks surveys
- Richard Parr with a post on how the 'veggie burger ban' was defeated
- Jennifer-Justine Kirsch, Tom Billington and Haven King-Nobles from Fish Welfare Initiative have formed a partnership with Gramodaya Trust to expand higher welfare production methods to at least 50 new farms per year
Existential & Catastrophic Risks
- Nuclear Weapons is a new resource hub for people who want to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons
- The World Economic Forum with global risks for 2021
- The Future of Life Institute have a podcast with Beatrice Fihn on the total elimination of nuclear weapons
- Toby Ord has a section on existential risks in the UN's Human Development Report 2020 (Page 120)
- EA Global Transcript - Noah Taylor: Developing a research agenda for bridging existential risk and peace and conflict studies
- Jenny Xiao with a post looking at "International Cooperation Against Existential Risks: Insights from International Relations Theory"
- Michael Andregg with a new infographic based on The Precipice
Improving Institutions
- A post looking at quantifying the value of evaluations
- Nuño Sempere with an overview of forecasting in 2020
- An Ask Me Anything with Elizabeth Edwards-Appell, former State Representative in New Hampshire
Environment
- A write up with concerns about Giving Green, with their response in the comments
- EA Global Transcript - R. Daniel Bressler: Climate change deaths increase the social cost of carbon
Longtermism
- Fin Moorhouse with an introduction to longtermism
- The Legal Priorities Project have released their research agenda
- Richard Fisher on the importance of existential hope
- A podcast with Sean Carroll on consciousness, physicalism, and the history of intellectual progress
Emerging Technology
- The Centre for the Governance of AI with their 2020 annual report
- Jade Leung was on Matt Clifford's Podcast looking at the history of emerging technologies
- Metaculus with a forecasting tournament dedicated to predicting advances in AI
- Charlotte Stix & Matthijs M. Maas with a paper looking at bridging the gap between AI researchers with near-term and long-term concerns
- Toph with the post "What does it mean to become an expert in AI Hardware?"
- 2020 survey of artificial general Intelligence projects by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute
Other Links
- Andreas Fazekas and Nate Golden with posts on why they have taken the Giving What We Can Pledge
- The 2020 Future of Life award has been bestowed upon William Foege & Viktor Zhdanov for their critical contribution to eradicating smallpox
- The Qualia Research Institute with an overview of their history & 2021 strategy
- Richard Ngo with a post on "Scope-sensitive ethics: capturing the core intuition motivating utilitarianism"
- Peter Singer and Agata Sagan on making a moral plan for 2021
- A podcast with Simon Beard on Parfit, climate change, and existential risk
- Clearer Thinking with a new tool to help people achieve their goals
- José Oliveira on doing the most good as an artist
Good News
- Germany has approved a draft law to end mass culling of male chicks
- The U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force on the 22nd of January