EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

This is a summary of the new paper “No Easy Eutopia”, here.

How easy is it to get to a future that's pretty close to ideal?

You could think of reaching eutopia as like an expedition to sail to an uninhabited island. The expedition is more likely to reach the island to the extent that:

1. The island is bigger, more visible, and closer to the point of departure;
2. The ship's navigation systems work well, and are aimed toward the island;
3. The ship's crew can send out smaller reconnaissance boats, and not everyone onboard the ship needs to reach the island for the expedition to succeed.

Similarly, we could be on track for a near-best future for a few different reasons.

First, eutopian futures could present a big target: that is, society would end up reaching a near-best outcome across a wide variety of possible futures, even without [...]

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Outline:

(03:49) Future moral catastrophe

(07:56) How maximum achievable value varies with total resources

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First published:

August 6th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rv5DAeDLsJ27xsQNB/how-hard-to-achieve-is-eutopia

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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It's time once again for our annual EA Forum user survey! :) Thank you to everyone who filled it in last year — those results were especially helpful for developing our current Forum strategy.

From today through August 20[1], we’re running an updated version of the survey for 2025. All questions are optional, as is a section at the end about other CEA programs.

We estimate the survey will take you 10-20 minutes to complete[2] (less if you skip questions, longer if you write particularly detailed answers). Your answers will be saved in your browser, so you can pause and return to it later.

Take the survey

We appreciate you taking the time to fill out the survey, and we read every response.

If you haven’t used the Forum in the past 12 months, you’ll see a significantly shorter survey, and your input on other CEA programs is still useful.

[...]

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First published:

August 6th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mYzKGg69GRdncxGGb/take-the-2025-ea-forum-user-survey

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“The Antichrist probably presents as a great humanitarian, it's redistributive, it's an extremely great philanthropist, as an effective altruist, all of those kinds of things.” - Peter Thiel

Effective altruism has more than its share of critics. But Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, is unusual in that, when he describes us as the “Antichrist,” he does not mean this as a generic slur but rather as a specific claim that we oppose Jesus Christ in the Second Coming.

This document is intended just as an explication of his views, I neither endorse nor critique them. My attempted summary of his argument:

1. The Antichrist will claim to bring peace and safety while actually creating a stagnant global state.
2. The only promising technology for avoiding stagnation is AI.
3. So the Antichrist will try to slow down and regulate AI in the name of peace and safety.
4. [...]

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Outline:

(02:44) Background: Girardian Mimetic Desires and Scapegoating

(03:05) Scott Alexander's Summary

(09:50) Key Points

(10:40) Background on the Antichrist

(11:51) Thiel's Views

(11:54) Stagnation

(14:20) Totalitarianism

(15:57) The Antichrist

(17:27) Summary

(17:57) FAQs

(18:09) Is Thiel unaware of the dangers of AI?

(19:31) How would his opinions change if he thought AI was more powerful?

(20:42) Why doesn't Thiel think AI will be that transformative?

(21:40) If Thiel is worried about totalitarianism, is he also worried that AI could enable totalitarianism?

(22:42) I work in AI safety. What does Thiel think I should do?

(23:01) Im not Christian. Is there anything that I should be learning from Thiels views?

(24:26) How mainstream is Peter Thiels interpretation of the Bible?

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First published:

August 6th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hGwAohPbwCrDT5ynY/ea-as-antichrist-understanding-peter-thiel

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This is a link post.

TL;DR

Calibrating your ambition is a skill. Overshooting can lead to burnout; undershooting can mean missed opportunities. The sweet spot lies in setting goals that stretch you and suit your current context. Use tools like assessing your starting point, clarifying your “why,” zooming out on your timeline, and recalibrating with curiosity. You probably won’t get it exactly right—but that's the point. Calibration is practice, not a one-time decision.

Acknowledgements: Thanks a lot to Kevin Xia for providing valuable structural feedback and my husband, Chris Balderson, for helping me review and publish this post.

Why I wrote this post

Have you or someone you know burnt out after spending a year chasing a dream impact-focused job?

Or maybe you or your friend is someone brilliant—capable of so much—but who seems to be playing it small?

Many of us swing between overambition and underambition. Neither is great. [...]

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Outline:

(00:56) Why I wrote this post

(02:03) My story

(02:06) Overshooting

(04:21) Undershooting

(07:19) Why we get ambition wrong (in both directions)

(08:57) Tool #1: The Where Am I Really? Inventory

(12:01) Tool #2: The Why Do I Want This? Filter

(12:46) Tool #3: Zooming Out on Your Timeline

(14:19) Tool #4: Keep Calibrating with Curiosity

(15:14) Tool #5: When In Doubt, Overshoot (Mindfully)

(17:22) Putting It Together: An Example Using All 5 Tools

(20:46) How to manage the day-to-day

(22:02) Conclusion

(22:44) Id love to hear from you

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First published:

August 5th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/n9qJZnH3JNCNCfHxb/calibrating-your-ambition-knowing-when-to-dream-big-and-when

Linkpost URL:
https://notingthemargin.substack.com/p/calibrating-your-ambition-knowing

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

The Open Wing Alliance 2025 cage-free fulfillment report shows that 92% of cage-free egg commitments with deadlines of 2024 or earlier have been fulfilled, up from 89% last year. The report details a regional breakdown of progress around the world.

Thanks to OWA groups and others for continuing to hold companies around the world accountable for their commitments.

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First published:

August 5th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HwXBSEgaXvyhLixxL/as-of-july-2025-92-of-cage-free-egg-commitments-with

Linkpost URL:
https://openwingalliance.org/2025-cage-free-fulfillment-report

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This morning I was looking into Switzerland's new animal welfare labelling law. I was going through the list of abuses that are now required to be documented on labels, and one of them made me do a double-take: "Frogs: Leg removal without anaesthesia."

This confused me. Why are we talking about anaesthesia? Shouldn't the frogs be dead before having their legs removed? It turns out the answer is no; standard industry practice is to cut their legs off while they are fully conscious. They remain alive and responsive for up to 15 minutes afterward. As far as I can tell, there are zero welfare regulations in any major producing country.

The scientific evidence for frog sentience is robust - they have nociceptors, opioid receptors, demonstrate pain avoidance learning, and show cognitive abilities including spatial mapping and rule-based learning.

It's hard to find data on the scale of [...]

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First published:

August 5th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wCcWyqyvYgF3ozNnS/frog-welfare

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

We’re excited to announce that we’ve reopened applications for the following Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program Cohorts:

• February 9th - April 5th 2026
• August - September 2026 (exact dates TBD)

This post summarises the six new charity ideas recommended for the February 2026 Cohort (which can also be read and shared as a standalone post here).

Applications close on September 21st. For the full application timeline and program details, visit our website.

Apply now

Why should you apply to the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program?

If you’re an ambitious, impact-driven individual looking to start a high-impact nonprofit, the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program is your best launchpad.

Since 2018, we have incubated over 50 field-leading, benchmark-setting charities across different cause areas who have raised $68+ million and are supported by actors like GiveWell, Founders Pledge, Mulago, Open Philanthropy, Animal Charity Evaluators. We disbursed $3.6M in seed grants, and many of [...]

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Outline:

(01:00) Why should you apply to the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program?

(02:10) Introducing our newest recommended ideas

(04:01) Air quality monitoring & transparency meta-charity

(05:03) Training to improve the energy efficiency of brick kilns

(06:00) Boosting access to asset-collateralized loans for small-scale farms

(06:54) Targeted Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Mobile Health Interventions

(07:46) Working with large food retailers to achieve plant-based-protein sale commitments

(08:24) Securing scale-up funding for the alternative protein industry

(09:14) Cage-free Farming in the Middle East

(10:30) Reducing Keel Bone Fractures

(11:40) Apply to our program to help launch these organizations

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First published:

August 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4uTpbdaTGLpwTpmpR/application-for-the-2026-charity-entrepreneurship-programs

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Hi all!

The Spring 2025 round of the Mental Health Funding Circle went well, and we're thrilled to be supporting seven organisations we believe are doing evidence-informed and deeply impactful work across global mental health and wellbeing. This round saw $731,000 committed by participating funders.

We had many more strong applications than we were able to fund. The shortlist reflects tricky decisions among a pool of fantastic candidates, many of whom we hope to support in future rounds.

Here's who received grants this round:

• Action for Happiness – $64,000 to expand their digital programme, public campaigns and educational content promoting mental wellbeing in the UK.
• ACTRA – $105,000 to scale cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)‑based group programmes and empower at‑risk youth in Colombia.
• Finemind – $100,000 to deliver community-led therapy in Uganda using trained lay health workers.
• Happier Lives Institute – $200,000 to continue their work to [...]

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First published:

August 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/h6iRWEXBw5ymuTHvu/mhfc-spring-update

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Today, Forethought and I are releasing an essay series called Better Futures, here.[1] It's been something like eight years in the making, so I’m pretty happy it's finally out! It asks: when looking to the future, should we focus on surviving, or on flourishing?

In practice at least, future-oriented altruists tend to focus on ensuring we survive (or are not permanently disempowered by some valueless AIs). But maybe we should focus on future flourishing, instead.

Why?

Well, even if we survive, we probably just get a future that's a small fraction as good as it could have been. We could, instead, try to help guide society to be on track to a truly wonderful future.

That is, I think there's more at stake when it comes to flourishing than when it comes to survival. So maybe that should be our main focus.

The whole essay series [...]

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First published:

August 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mzT2ZQGNce8AywAx3/should-we-aim-for-flourishing-over-mere-survival-the-better

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Summary

• Countries
  • The USA (34.4%) and the UK (13.5%) remain the countries with the largest proportions of EA respondents. We observed that 32% of respondents came from Europe (excluding the UK), while 20% came from the rest of the world. In previous years, we observed a decline in the percentage of respondents from these countries. This trend seems like it might have decreased or plateaued since 2022.
  • This year, for the first time, we looked at EAs’ countries of origin as well as their current countries of residence. In absolute terms, we see large flows into the USA and UK, but Switzerland shows by far the highest relative level of in-flows, with 62% of respondents having a different country of origin.
• Cities
  • This year, London was the city with the most respondents (6.7%), followed by the SF Bay Area (5.7%), DC (3.8%) and NYC (3.3%). Interestingly [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(02:59) Totals per country

(04:22) Changes over time

(04:48) Movement between countries

(06:18) Totals per city

(08:15) Gender

(09:19) Race

(12:07) Age and time in the EA community

(15:15) Student status

(16:18) Engagement

(18:02) Satisfaction

(19:22) Cause Prioritization

(21:37) EA Group Membership

(23:49) Further research

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First published:

August 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fpn6MZTShaGLZqopo/ea-survey-2024-geography

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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