Open Thread: April — June 2023

Hello everyone, my name is Liz Kariuki and I'm new here. I'm taking the EA Virtual Course in the April - May cohort. I'm a 27y/o Kenyan woman with a Bachelor's degree in Economics. I haven't done any work with my course though since I'm also a self-taught programmer and I've worked in Web Development, Sales Automation, and content creation. I am also a member of my local Rotaract currently serving as the director of community service.

I am glad to have found this community since it brings my passions together. Everything seems a bit overwhelming at the moment. (Effective Altruism, Longtermism, 80,000 hours, AI Alignement, Forecasting etc) But I'm sure I'll be able to understand it and find my place in due time. Hoping to learn to make a better impact in the world through a meaningful career and giving to deserving causes. Open for jobs in Research Assistance and Content Creation.

Thanks.

Hello everyone,

My name is Denis, and I am thrilled to be a part of this altruism forum. As a person who deeply values kindness and empathy, I am excited to connect with like-minded individuals who share my passion for helping others.

I am looking forward to learning from all of you and contributing to discussions about ways we can make a positive impact in our communities and the world. Whether it's volunteering, donating to a cause, or simply showing kindness to those around us, I believe that each of us has the power to make a difference.

Thank you for welcoming me to this community, and I can't wait to get started!

Hi,

I have a BASc in Philosophy and Psychology. I'm still trying to figure out how I could do anything useful here, so maybe someone could help me out. 

I'm 27 years old, and currently work in an after-school program teaching children music. I tend to have a talent for accelerated learning (I am currently teaching piano, violin, guitar, ukulele and drums, and have now been teaching at least two of those instruments for as long or longer than it took me to learn them to a level where I can teach them). That's sadly coupled with a lack of consistent emotional investment, though, so I have not been able to successfully capitalize on it. 

I got 94th percentile on Verbal in the GRE and a perfect 6 in writing, but a 30th percentile on quant (it bothers me personally that a score that would have been an A- in most educational contexts I've experienced, or perhaps a B+ in some of the more rigorous ones in absolute terms was so low, as I think that's misleading, but that is the nature of the skew in the distribution I guess). I had a 3.6 GPA in my last 2 years and a 3.3 GPA cummulative. All from a relatively unremarkable university. I am also disabled in such a way that I cannot count on my own reliability for prolonged periods of time, which makes everything harder, but because I'm "so smart" (according to the people around me) it seems rather wasteful that I haven't found anything I can have a higher impact on thus far. 

This means that, when dealing with 80,000 hours, etc, I find it rather hard to see what is actually applicable to me. I find it rather unlikely that I will get into a "top 20 school", for example, which is a fairly recurrent pattern in all of the academic paths (which professors told me over and over that I should pursue during my undergrad). 

This is not a way of despairing ("Oh no! Can I even make the world better if I don't have a perfect score on one unnecessarily expensive test?!") but instead a personal angle through which I can bring up that:

1.) I don't believe that 80,000 hours provides actually useful advice to people who are not exoribitantly high achievers (or at least, it hasn't provided it for me thus far and I've been checking it out on and off for like 7 years at this point). 

2.) I do believe that people here can provide such advice, so it would be nice if I could receive some. 

On top of that, I've been nursing a notion that it might be a good idea to make "rationality", "futurism" or even "emotional resilience" summer camps for children, and if anybody is interested in a project like that, please let me know. 

Hey everyone, since I'm fairly new around here I thought it would be good to quickly introduce myself - I'm Maja, a digital marketing consultant. My journey with EA began when my partner introduced me to the movement a couple of years ago and since then I’ve been thinking about how I can best use my skills and career.

I find the ideas and people in the EA movement really inspiring, and I’m currently working on founding an effective giving organisation and community aimed at freelancers and entrepreneurs called Freelancing For Good (FFG). Our aim is to introduce freelancers to effective altruism and inspire them to use their skills and businesses for a positive impact.

I’m excited to be here and looking forward to connecting and learning from you all!

Hi!

My name is Aeneas, I currently in the middle of doing a PhD in Community Nutrition. Specifically looking at  ways to improve food environments (Grocery stores, Convenience stores). My Master's was in Plant Protein Chemistry and my undergrad in Dairy Chemistry. Trying to pivot more into a public facing role with the intention of eventually researching animal/veg*n perceptions/barriers at maybe a university. Hoping to hear more about the work everyone does, potential collaborations and ways to improve my own.

Have a grand day!

Hey everyone! 

My name is Leopold Brown and I'm new to the forum, although have been involved with EA ideas for around a year now, taking an introductory course with Tucson Effective Altruism, which I now help organize! Currently, I'm looking to test different aptitudes using Holden Karnofsky's approach. I'm also pursuing my undergrad in Math (and minors in computer sci and econ). 

I am hoping to post a writeup I've done about Fun Theory, which will hopefully give me some insight into the communicator aptitudes.

Look forward to seeing you all in the comments!

Hi everyone, some of this is an emotional dump if it goes against any guidelines or something I can change it. And if you don’t want to read something kind of depressing I understand. I don’t usually share period but I want the advice and I need to feel part of some group. It is a very long post and I in it I am working through some stuff mentally. It is hardly just an introduction, but if you can call it that it is a thorough one. I probably only felt comfortable commenting this based on the consideration shown in responses to O Carciente’s post.

I am an 18 year old senior just finishing up high school. What is next is complicated but I am excited to share. 
First my username Xor, it comes from my favorite programing language Ti-Basic not the language I use the most or find the most useful. However it is my first love, how I found programming. Xor is a binary or boolean logic operator it takes two true or false statements and compares them. If one statement is true and the other is false the operation is true, if both are true or both are false then the operation is false. It also looks and sounds pretty cool, plus I hardly ever get it.

I would like to share my dream and how it involves altruism. But first I want to explain my current situation. I live with my mom and dad who are christians. All my life I have believed in god. The church I went to is extreme in some ways. I have only ever seen a handful of movies all in school. For the last six years I have been struggling with doubts about christianity. Why are all other religions wrong. How can we be so sure. How come the bible is wrong compared to science. I have always been taught this is sin. I struggled with it for a long time silently I hardly ever ask for help much less for forgiveness. I found all of the answers and believed. No argument could stop me I knew an answer I had already questioned it all myself. Other religions, big bang, evolution and the rest of science I explained every thing to myself. Fifteen chapters into ”Rationality: From Ai to Zombies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky I became an atheist it wasn‘t an argument that convinced me it was understanding my mind. First there was a sense of freedom and excitement. But with it came pain, I feel incredibly lonely, I don’t believe I will get to die and see my little brother in heaven. My church is an extremely tight community, I have no friends outside of church nor family. I work for and with guys from my church at a small tech company. I have no money for my own apartment. No perspective job. I am scared but excited I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me. Sorry a lot this section might not be very important but I felt the need to share. This is me working it all out as I made this transition in self identity a few days ago. Ironically the day before Good Friday.
 
Besides my current state of mental stability, there are a couple of other effects this has had on my course of life. I was always pushed away from school, pulled actually by my friend group. I can’t blame it all on my friend group in the end it was my decision and to a degree I was happy with it. I love books and naturally excelled at school when I was younger. I grew older and found out that this wasn’t ideal for my social life and started slacking. I was already in advanced classes and have passed them without putting in effort. My parents forced me to continue applying myself to a degree. This has lead to a pretty bad GPA and left me unprepared for any further education. Things have changed in the last half a year. For my senior year I signed up for PSEO, getting high school and college credits through a community college. I failed every course I registered for except an online economics class that I gamed. I put in effort but not enough and eventually I was in too deep and I didn’t have a real way out. I spent the last quarter of the semester in the library rediscovering my love for reading and a new one for learning. 

Finally leading to a positive direction my current goals. I managed to get back into PSEO going from absolutely not wanting to be there to fighting to go with all that I had. My mom, dad and counselors told me not to. If I didn’t pass I wouldn’t graduate high school. It hasn’t been easy but I am doing well and am going to pass all of my classes as well as graduate high school. I am going back to the same community college in the fall. In the meantime I want to teach my self how to learn and think rationally, to control my self perfectly. I want to fill out my understanding in math, physics, biology, and writing. Then come fall I want to be amazing in school perform as perfectly as I know I am capable of. 

As for altruism I want to become a teacher. I want to build a course to teach everything in the most optimal way. I want to learn exactly how the human brain works when it comes to learning. How it processes, stores and organizes information. I want to build the single best tool for learning ever created. I want it to be so good that it is eventually deployed as the software used as direct interface with the brain. And make it free, the altruistic part. I want nobody anywhere to suffer because they can’t afford an education that they need. This is a big dream but I have some ideas on getting there. For now I am designing a course on learning which I will put on YouTube eventually turning that into a website and eventually build that into the end goal. For now I might be able to start saving up some of my own money so I can live by myself and get to work on changing the world. 

Fwheehwhf 


I will probably be bouncing around here and LessWrong, which is how I found EA forum, commenting and posting about what I find interesting. I hope to find on these forums mentors, friends and community. I am mostly here to learn ask and be taught. I am interested in the workings of the world, hungry to fix my ignorance and satisfy my curiosity.

In the style of Lex Fridman (if you don’t know him fix that) I’ll finish with a quote I like “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars” - Oscar Wilde

Hi folks,

I'm Matt. It's great to be here.

I'm a content strategist, UX designer, and technical writer based in Melbourne.

Personally and professionally I've long been interested in the intersection of technology, philosophy, ethics, and society—and discovering the Effective Altruism movement has felt like a natural supplement to these interests.

I've worked in technology and software design for a number of years—including stints at Apple and Google—but I'm extremely interested and motivated in seeing where I can have a positive impact elsewhere. AI, technology policy, and corporate communications feels like a good move to make, considering my career capital, but I'm still in the early stages of exploring this—so any advice, conversation, or consulting is appreciated.

I'm churning through a bunch of EA-related literature, research, and content, and am in the midst of taking the Giving What We Can pledge.

In my spare time? I collect vinyl records, host community dance parties, devour books, and hike.

That's it for now. It's lovely to meet you all, and I'm excited to be part of a vibrant, caring, and impactful community. (It'd be great to meet some like-minded people around Melbourne, to make this introduction feel more real!)

Cheers!

Hello all! Glad to find this wonderful community. 

My name is Kristopher Purens, and I am technologist with a deep love for the planet we inhabit.

My career has focused on deploying AI and data science into large corporations to solve difficult problems, with a focus on Earth-science related including energy, agriculture, and mining. I have worked directly in large companies, including in oil exploration and CPG, as well as in the startup environment developing new ways to use earth-observation and geospatial data. I am currently scoping out next steps in my career. A friend @Open Philanthropy recommended I check out this community and I am glad to have done so. 

My PhD was in the field of evolutionary paleobiology, where I developed new machine learning methods to measure organisms and their life history, understand patterns of origination and extinction, their fossil records, and identifying species. I am a breadth-focused scientist, who finds the similarities between different fields and learns how they can add value to each other. 

Finding this community has been pretty magical, when I realized that other people have similar lines of thinking and prioritization as I have.  When I was 25, I left a stable first career that had low opportunity of impact to pursue something that had an opportunity to make a difference. While working on my PhD, I realized that academia wasn't going to provide the right path to make the kind of impact I wanted, and started looking for industry jobs, focused on leadership development. I initially worked at Shell in oil exploration--looking to find ways to deploy machine learning systems to help people have affordable energy. I subsequently worked at sourcing for a major CPG, before moving into a started focused on Earth-observation tools to solve problems. I recently finished my time there, and am looking for next steps. 

My major focus right now is in technology to speed the discovery of critical metals used for batteries, as I believe this will be a major bottleneck in moving to a low-carbon future and avoiding the worst risks of climate change. I am currently testing my assumptions and verifying this makes sense for me. 

Please feel free to contact me on any area of mutual interest!

I made a little post to talk about some of my knowledge in paleontology that is relevant, can't wait to contribute more!


 

Hey all, I'm Miguel.

I've been reading on Effective Altruism for years, but only recently joined the Forum. I'm 26, from Venezuela, and I've got a Bachelor's in Philosophy, but work mostly on operations and HR. I live in Spain (Madrid-based), and do some volunteering at a local LGBTQ nonprofit that helps refugees persecuted by their sexual orientation or gender identity obtain asylum in Spain.

I've just recently signed up because I've been doing some thinking on a project that could have a high impact in the world through an impact in the EA community, for which I plan on writing a post at some point. Inspired by the work of the Friendship Bench, after I read about them in this thread by Michael Plant, I've been thinking of building a similar project but aimed at EAs who have mental health issues, who are going through a hard time, or who simply struggle with their emotions. I'm not a psychologist (though I am considering studying Psychology in the future depending on the viability of this project), but I don't think a degree in mental health should be needed for this. At first it'd just be me, setting up a Calendly and offering to talk to anyone in the EA community who needs it (especially founders, who are by default under especial strain given their circumstances), as a friend; and creating a few monitored support groups of EAs who are struggling with similar problems, where incoming people can perhaps discuss with people who have overcome similar issues or who are working on overcoming them. It'll also require setting up a referral network for people with severe issues, whom we (at first, just me) can't help, who could in turn be helped by volunteer psychologists and psychiatrists. We've got something somehow similar to all of this going on in the Effective Altruism Peer Support Group, which is really cool, but I don't think the majority of people in the community know about it, nor do I think it really suffices for the needs of most. I think there is a difference between writing in a group and actually talking one-on-one with someone, and that most people need the latter.

I'm guessing that the two major issues would be ensuring confidentiality for people who book a chat (confidentiality of what we talk about, of course), and, over time, managing the amount of people who need to talk so that there's not a long waiting time to have a call again if someone wants to. Maybe bringing other people on board? We'd have to see. In any case, I think that helping people in the EA community take care of themselves and express their emotions in a safe space, while offering someone who listens but can also talk, would directly have an impact on the safety and continued existence of the community itself, which in turn has an impact on the endurance of EA ideas, and, ultimately, on their impact in the world.

Anyways, there's more to be said about this and there's several problems I see with this idea that I didn't address here, because it's not the place. I've got solutions for some, but not yet for others. For the moment, I just wanted to introduce myself and explain what has driven a long-time lurker to speak up in the forum. Hope you're all having a beautiful day!

Hi all.

I'm also new here. My name is Ryan Bateman and I'm currently studying for a Masters degree in Systems Thinking in Practice at the Open University (UK). 

My thesis topic is around measurability in systems and how it can improve or degrade the goal of the system. An example of a research question in this area might be: how does a focus on standardised testing/grades affect the education system?

I've long been interested in Effective Altruism, and been a supporter of impact-driven causes, and it seems like a good fit for my research area, so I've decided to use EA as a case study. Specifically, I'm interested in how people involved in Effective Altruism's donation/cause funding system think about measurable results, and how it impacts their view of the system. 

If you're involved in funding - either as someone who runs an impact-driven cause or who has looked to get funding from some of the larger EA philanthropic trusts - or you have experience in trying to shift a charity toward impact/measurable-results-driven strategies, I'd love to have a short chat and give an overview of my thesis. If it went well and you were interested, I'd then look to conducting a short (90 minute), semi-structured interview as part of my research. Please do shout if it sounds like something you would like to know more about!

Anyway, excited to be here and hope to chat to more of you at a later date (research depending!)

Ryan

Hello~ I'm Charlotte.

I have a Bachelor of Science in Biology, and I've spent my post-university career working in a microbiology lab.

I'm currently not working because of a disability for which I am still coming to terms and figuring out how to get appropriate accommodations. This means that I have an opportunity to put some real research into my next career move, as life in a lab was not for me.

I'm currently working on the 8-week career plan on the 80 000 hours site. If anyone else sees this message and happens to also be working on their own career plan, maybe we could bounce ideas off of each other =) The path I am leaning towards is data science, but there are other topics I am interested in, such as hydroponic farming and plastic alternatives.

I'm very happy that this community exists, and I look forward to learning with you all 🌈

Hi everyone, I am Adebayo Mubarak, I am currently undertaking a law degree. I have taken the Intro to EA, In-Depth, The Precipice Reading and currently taking the Legal Topics in EA which will come to an end by next week. Also, I am the coordinator of my University reading group (Bayero University, Kano) and the Lead Facilitator for EA Kano Hub Nigeria. 

I am open to opportunities to further widen my knowledge of the core principles and cause area in EA. And lastly, I am a freelance Writer.

Does anyone have a copyediting service they recommend? Like for an EA organization that sometimes sends large newsletters, for example.

Hello everyone, I'm Drishty, a med student and an explorer. I have come across the idea of effective altruism through some websites and now i want to know more about it so that i can contribute to the society I'm living in. I also want to learn about effective altruism in biosecurity to implement this idea in my field. I would really appreciate it if you all would like to discuss the topic with me

Hello! I have, and am willing to offer to EA Forum members, the following generalist skills: 

• Facilitation. Organize and run a meeting, take notes, email follow-ups and reminders, whatever you need. I don't need to be an expert in the topic, I don't need to personally know the participants. I do need a clear picture of the meeting's purpose and what contributions you're hoping to elicit from the participants. 
• Technical writing. More specifically, editing and proofreading, which don't require I fully understand the subject matter. I am a human Hemingway Editor. I have been known to cut a third of the text out of a corporate document while retaining all relevant information to the owner's satisfaction. I viciously stamp out typos. 
• Presentation review and speech coaching. I used to be terrified of public speaking. I still am, but now I'm pretty good at it anyway. I have given prepared and impromptu talks to audiences of dozens-to-hundreds and I have coached speakers giving company TED talks to thousands. A friend who reached out to me for input said my feedback was "exceedingly helpful". If you plan to give a talk and want feedback on your content, slides, or technique, I would be delighted to advise. 

I am willing to take one-off or recurring requests. I reserve the right to start charging if this starts taking up more than a couple hours a week, but for now I'm volunteering my time and the first consult will always be free (so you can gauge my awesomeness for yourself). 

I'm here, I fear, apocalypse is near.

My hope is to give voice to other people like me - not professionals, or academics, with not much free time. People who just want to have something they can do, in the place they find themselves in.

Also my name is Kim.

I've been kinda following the 80,000 hours career guide, but I don't think it's what I'm looking for. Ultimately, it clarified that what I really want is to work for an org with a good mission. I'm a software developer, and I'm very motivated, signed the Giving What We Can pledge and everything.

I checked out their profile on software engineering, but surely there are more orgs out there that need software devs no?

I've also been thinking I could be good at an operations role, but it's very unclear how to get on that ladder.

Greetings. I'm Samson Tombs, a science enthusiast and author. I came across this site through Yudkowsky's youtube channel, which was shared to me by a friend. I've long been interested in philosophy and how we can improve people's lives with science and knowledge, and how we can avoid doing the opposite.

Thank you for reading.

Hello everyone, I am Kelvin Muchiri, a graduate in Information Technology from the Jomo Kenyatta university of agriculture and technology (JKUAT) in Kenya. I am also a member of the E.A JKUAT 2nd cohort, currently starting the in-depth program in the course of the month. 

I am honestly really happy that I the E.A community because I am a person who values kindness (helping everyone in any way I can and always spreading a smile). I am also empathetic and it always pains me when I cannot help people in any type of need. I am trying to make an impact in the world by helping make the world a better place for us and future generations. I am unemployed, currently looking for internship and employment opportunities especially in areas where my work will also help people in my community or around the world. 

Meanwhile I am focusing my path as an article writer, my interest in cybersecurity and in research. I would say I am mostly interested in research because I love backing up any claim using data and learning new things really makes me excited. 

I am also in a phase where I am exploring on the best way to use my career and personal skills to help others, such as in the E.A community. So far I am thinking of writing about the different things I have learned in this community, sharing my understanding and perspective of this in hopes that it will be helpful to everyone who might come across my post to understand the content, and motivate them to contribute their time and resources in the most effective way to help others.

Hi! I have some basic questions that I believe there are well-documented resources I could be linked to. As far as I know, there are currently four EA-aligned meta-charities, i.e., charities that evaluate and recommend other charities based on EA's core values: GiveWell, Animal Charity Evaluators, Giving What We Can, and The Life You Can Save. I have the following questions:
       (1) Did I miss any other EA-aligned meta-charity?
       (2) What are the differences in their evaluation process? I get that GiveWell deals mainly with global health in developing countries, and Animal Charity Evaluators works in the Animal Welfare domain. Apart from that, what are the other differences? Maybe another way to put the question is: Why don't they have a single list of recommendations?
       (3) A simple Google Search returns some meta-charities that are not EA-aligned, like Charity Navigator and Charity Watch. How exactly do these meta-charities differ from the EA-aligned ones?

Hi folks,
I'm My Le from Vietnam, an independent journalist and a forester-to-be (I'm taking a 2nd degree). I'm also passionate about youth empowerment. As a lifelong writer, my goal is to foster ‘explanatory journalism’ in my country to help people, especially the young, make well-informed decisions.

To support my community amid climate change, I am looking for opportunities to create more jobs in the Mekong Delta and introduce our fresh produce to the world.

Reach out to me if you have questions about Vietnam, particularly about our forests and deltas. If you plan to implement any projects here, I am happy to give a hand :)

What are best resources on what to expect during and after the development of Transformative AI, especially in optimistic scenarios where we have a future? There are of course a lot of resources on risk scenarios and how to prepare for them. I'm more curious about what other cause areas and individuals should expect and how they should best prepare for the future. For example, a paper that would fit that description would be "Economic Growth under Transformative AI" by Trammell and Korinek.

Hi, my name is Sean. I discovered the EA community a few months back via an interview I heard with Will MacAskill on Sam Harriss' podcast. I subsequently read two of his books and have listened to around 20 interviews on 80k hrs pod to come up to speed on the EA philosophy. I also wound up randomly on a hike with Steve Thompson (employee of EA) here in Portugal. 

I've spent my past year building up a passion project called Problemattic, one that I believe will be of interest to this community. My thesis is that we have all the people and resources necessary to solve most major world issues via grassroots, citizen-led initiatives and that it's purely a coordination challenge at this point. 

I would invite anyone interested to check out what we're doing: https://problemattic.app/problems At this point my take is that EA represents the best compass out there for allocating resources effectively. The platform I'm building is coordination fabric that enables strangers to work together on projects which chip away at these societal issues. I'm excited to join here and get involved in this community. cheers 

Hello everyone,

Does anyone know if the 'Campus PA' program to hire Personal Assistants for EA Organizations is still running? The application link is down since their website is expired. 

I've read an interview with Gregory Lewis on 80000 hours. He argued that due to counterfactual, doctors don't make a big difference because doctors are already highly competitive, so you don't make big impact especially if you work in rich countries. There's a problem: You can still make a difference by being a better and more patient doctor. I don't know the doctors in America, but in East Asia, not every doctors are good. Some just want to make money and they treat the patient poorly, making them suffer more.(such as misdiagnosis) So, if you can be a good doctor, the counterfactual case would be" You replace a worse doctor than you". I don't know how valuable would it be, but this shows doctors in rich countries may be more altruistic than normal careers. Being a biology researcher may be more valuable than just being a clinical doctor in the long run, but, I think we may underestimate a doctor's impact. How do you think? (This was a front page post, but someone suggested me that posting it here would be better)