EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Georgie Purcell is a Member of Parliament in the Australian state of Victoria. She's one of the few elected members of the Animal Justice Party.

She's just posted on instagram about shrimp eyestalk ablation. This is the first time I’ve seen this mentioned outside of the Effective Altruism context and it suggests to me that the idea is gaining attention.

The context is that shrimps (“prawns”, we usually call them) are often eaten at Christmas/New Years in Australia.

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First published:

January 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9pM6rpQ4oNZhLT8fZ/australian-politician-posts-about-shrimp-welfare

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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The deadline for FTX to file clawback claims against grantees was November 2024. The bankruptcy estate could have filed a plan to extend the two-year statute of limitations, but it appears that they did not do so.

Any recipient of FTX or FTX FF funding who has not had a complaint filed against them in bankruptcy court, and who has not signed a tolling agreement with the bankruptcy estate, should be safe from clawback actions going forward. I encourage you to check with counsel about individual situations.[1] A demand letter is not a court action, and negotiations in response to a demand letter would not toll the statute of limitations.

As always, before you comment in response to this post, I would urge you to assume that lawyers for the FTX Group will see your comments.

1. ^

   [...]

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

January 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vCSLfG3fjciXHQgnb/the-ftx-bankruptcy-statute-of-limitations-has-expired

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

As 2024 draws to a close, Convergence Animaux Politique (CAP) reflects on a year of resilience and impactful advocacy in the face of political instability. From historic legislative victories to recent strategic initiatives, we have made significant strides in advancing animal topics in the French political landscape. However, as we turn our focus to 2025, we also face the critical challenge of securing the funding necessary to drive further change. This article highlights our key achievements in 2024, outlines our strategic opportunities for 2025, and reveals how your support can help us continue to push for meaningful progress for animals.

Filling a critical gap in the French animal movement

Convergence Animaux Politique (CAP) is a non-profit charity founded in 2017 to fill a critical gap in the French animal movement by coordinating and empowering effective lobbying for animal welfare. By strategically coordinating and supporting the work of our [...]

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First published:

December 30th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/z6dSmNdaymGxcgtFw/advancing-animal-welfare-in-2024-cap-s-impact-in-france-and

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Does a food carbon tax increase animal deaths and/or the total time of suffering of cows, pigs, chickens, and fish? Theoretically, this is possible, as a carbon tax could lead consumers to substitute, for example, beef with chicken. However, this is not per se the case, as animal products are not perfect substitutes.

I'm presenting the results of my master's thesis in Environmental Economics, which I re-worked and published on SSRN as a pre-print. My thesis develops a model of animal product substitution after a carbon tax, slaughter tax, and a meat tax. When I calibrate this model for the U.S., there is a decrease in animal deaths and duration of suffering following a carbon tax. This suggests that a carbon tax can reduce animal suffering.

Key points

• Some animal products are carbon-intensive, like beef, but causes relatively few animal deaths or total time of suffering because [...]

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Outline:

(00:57) Key points

(03:07) The Small Animal Replacement Problem

(05:46) The model

(05:49) Input data and market model

(08:14) Measuring animal welfare impacts

(09:39) Results

(09:42) Carbon taxes

(11:31) Slaughter taxes

(12:10) Is a carbon tax or a slaughter tax better?

(13:41) Cant we just put a simple tax on meat and fish instead?

(14:06) Limitations

(15:54) Full thesis

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First published:

January 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KbREamTda2sZhKtTz/will-a-food-carbon-tax-lead-to-more-animals-being

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We’re releasing Squiggle AI, a tool that generates probabilistic models using the Squiggle language. This can provide early cost-effectiveness models and other kinds of probabilistic programs.

No prior Squiggle knowledge is required to use Squiggle AI. Simply ask for whatever you want to estimate, and the results should be fairly understandable. The Squiggle programming language acts as an adjustable backend, but isn’t mandatory to learn.

Beyond being directly useful, we’re interested in Squiggle AI as an experiment in epistemic reasoning with LLMs. We hope it will help highlight potential strengths, weaknesses, and directions for the field.

Screenshots

The “Playground” view after it finishes a successful workflow. Form on the left, code in the middle, code output on the right.The “Steps” page. Shows all of the steps that the workflow went through, next to the form on the left. For each, shows a simplified view of recent messages to and from [...]

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Outline:

(00:44) Screenshots

(01:13) Motivation

(02:51) Description

(04:04) Example Outputs

(07:07) How Good Is It?

(08:52) Alternatives

(09:43) Using Squiggle AI

(11:24) Recommended Tips for Better Results

(13:00) Complementary Tools

(14:11) Privacy

(14:34) Technical Details

(14:37) Performance and Costs

(15:42) State Machine Details

(17:26) Conclusion

(17:54) Appendix: Lessons Learned During Development

(17:59) LLM cost-effective estimates seem tractable

(18:53) LLMs are willing to estimate more than you might expect, with some prompting

(19:41) Specialized Steps Improve Results

(20:25) It's difficult to make complex models understandable

(21:39) Prompt engineering can be a lot of work

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First published:

January 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jJ4pn3qvBopkEvGXb/introducing-squiggle-ai

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It's time once again for EA Forum Wrapped 🎁, a summary of how you used the Forum in 2024 [1].

Open your EA Forum Wrapped

Thank you for being a part of our community this year! :)

1. ^

   You can also view your stats from 2023 and 2022.

The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

January 3rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Xem5o4iRHMSduNcPu/your-2024-ea-forum-wrapped

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Summary

Christianity is the world's largest religion, and Christians are statistically more generous than the general population, which makes them a worthwhile group to appeal to. While conflicts exist between predominant EA secular philosophy and Biblical philosophy, the marginal actions recommended by EA are largely in accord with Christian ethics.

Christians are statistically generous and have lots to give

Religious generosity is a well-established phenomenon. A report released in 2017 indicated that in the US, 62 percent of religiously affiliated households gave to charity, relative to 46 percent of non-religiously affiliated households. Excluding donations to religious organizations, religiously affiliated households still donated the same amount or more relative to non-religiously affiliated households.[1] EA is not foreign to attempts to harness this generosity: see GiveDirectly's zakat-compliant fund, oriented towards Muslims. When it comes to Christians, they make up the largest religious group worldwide, and Christians are the dominant group in [...]

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Outline:

(00:04) Summary

(00:28) Christians are statistically generous and have lots to give

(02:16) The appeal goes both ways

(02:56) Three apparent philosophical conflicts between EA and Christianity which arent actually a big deal

(03:36) Factory farming isnt any more biblical than animal rights

(04:46) Working on AI, existential risks, and biosecurity is not averting the end times

(05:55) Spiritual charity is relevant to doing good

(07:25) Conclusion

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

January 2nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JutNbXBDrisoyuQsa/why-ea-can-and-should-appeal-to-christians

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Should you donate to animal welfare nonprofits or invest in alt proteins? It's a difficult question to answer because there are so many assumptions that go into any head-to-head comparison. But like all ancient philosophers, I turned to Excel for moral enlightenment. Specifically, I built a model and found that under most assumptions, you’re probably better off donating to animal welfare nonprofits. I need to give a fair bit of context, and then I’ll dive into the model, which can be found here

PF vs CC Impact US.xlsx

The first bit of context is a crash course in precision fermentation. If you like beer, you’re already familiar with fermentation, but scientifically this is what's happening. Yeast eat grains and “digest” them into alcohol, basically by rearranging the old atoms into new molecules. Yogurt, kombucha, and tempeh are produced in the same way- microbes eat one food and process them [...]

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First published:

January 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CA8a9JS3fYb63YWoh/ea-forum-post

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A TALE OF TWO MOVEMENTS

Imagine you are a student only starting to learn history, and you are presented with a case study. Two intellectual movements emerge around the same historical period, each committed to improving society and making people's lives better. Both set ambitious, seemingly radical goals that, at first, appear unlikely to succeed.

Fast-forward several decades. One movement grows to impressive proportions, establishing political parties across multiple countries, with tens of millions of disciplined members unified under a powerful international organization. One of these parties seizes control of a vast former empire rich in human and natural resources, while others subsequently govern a range of nations across different continents. The largest of these countries adopts a state emblem featuring a globe without borders, overlaid with symbols of labour and accompanied by the rallying cry for the proletariat of all nations to unite. In this bloc of countries [...]

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Outline:

(00:07) A TALE OF TWO MOVEMENTS

(10:10) MAJOR SUCCESS FACTORS

(10:38) People.

(15:00) Ideas Backed by Evidence-Based Research.

(17:28) Making Ideas a Material Force.

(23:55) LESSONS FOR EA

The original text contained 14 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

January 1st, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qi4ryqTCzCeXM8ATs/how-to-increase-the-impact-of-the-ea-community-ii-drawing

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If you:

1. Pay the higher (40%) rate of tax in the UK (earn over £50,271)
2. Don’t fill in a Self Assessment tax return (you pay tax automatically via PAYE)
3. Made donations that you claimed Gift Aid on in this or any of the previous 4 tax years

You can claim back 25% of the before-Gift-Aid amount by calling HMRC[1], or writing to them by post[2]. You can also apparently[3] do it via online chat although I haven’t tried this myself.

I have personally called twice to report donations, once last year to claim for the previous 3 years, and once for the current tax year. Both times it was surprisingly easy. They just asked for my national insurance number, and the amount donated (before-Gift-Aid). They didn’t even ask for details of the individual donations, although obviously you should keep records of your donations in case you get [...]

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

December 31st, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ScorPECCr9R4Qb6Rz/uk-claiming-tax-back-on-donations-as-a-higher-rate-tax-payer

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