EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

This year's Donation Election Winners are… no suspense needed… Rethink Priorities, the EA Animal Welfare Fund and the Shrimp Welfare Project!

The prize money will be split on the basis of final vote share, like so:

Thanks again to everyone who voted in the election (all 485 of you), donated to the fund, or took part in the discussion. And a massive thank you to all of the organisations who posted for marginal funding week. You can read about them all here, or listen to many of their posts on this spotify playlist.

Some more stats

Below is a table listing the winners and the top three runners up. I’ve listed each candidate's total votes, i.e. the amount of final votes[1] which rank the candidate anywhere in their list, and the number of votes which ranked them first place.

Winners

Total votes. [2]

Number of 1st place votes.Rethink [...]

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Outline:

(00:48) Some more stats

(02:32) Runners up

(03:43) A reminder — where this money will go.

(03:47) Rethink Priorities — $7896

(04:44) Shrimp Welfare Project — $6530

(05:32) EA Animal Welfare Fund — $6887

(06:42) Before you go:

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First published:

December 4th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/k8NLM6QoEjMkEGEmG/2024-donation-election-winners

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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You can read the full job description here.

Application deadline: December 29th. Applications will be processed on a rolling basis, so early applications are encouraged.

Expected hours: Full-time (40 hours per week) or part-time (at least 6 hours per week)

Location: Remote, ability to co-work with other EA organizations in the Trojan House in Oxford

Compensation: $60 per hour for part-time staff, between $60,000 and $100,000 (based on experience) for full-time staff. For full-time employees, we offer generous benefits, described below.

Start date: As soon as possible, ideally February or early March 2025

Apply now

If you know of anyone who might be a good fit for this role, please forward this to them and encourage them to apply.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to the fund chair, Karolina, at [email protected]

We are also seeking expressions of interest in the [...]

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Outline:

(01:20) About EA AWF

(02:25) Why join us?

(04:22) Responsibilities

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First published:

December 4th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sbLaCdguxZPhZkEon/awf-is-looking-for-full-time-or-part-time-fund-managers

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What to expect

In 2025, we're planning to host four events:

1. EA Global: Bay Area, February 21-23
2. EA Global: London, June 6-8
3. EA Global: East Coast USA (location and date TBA, tentatively October/November)
4. EA Global: Virtual (date TBA)

Applications are now open!

Apply now

There's just one application form for all 2025 in-person EAGs. This means:

• Approval to EA Global 2025 allows you to register for all EA Globals that year.
• If you’d like to request travel support to attend an EA Global, you will need to submit an event-specific request form (you can do this for as many EA Globals as you’d like).
• If you are not approved for EA Global 2025, you can re-apply once applications for the next upcoming conference have closed. 

We'll also be supporting a variety of EAGx events for those newer to EA, and those looking to support newer people; you can [...]

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Outline:

(00:04) What to expect

(01:28) We want you to apply

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First published:

December 4th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AduDJMv8nuLFYTeHp/announcing-ea-global-2025-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Crossposted from Otherwise

My husband and I were donating about 50% of our income until two years ago, when he took a significant pay cut to work at a nonprofit. We planned to cut our donation percentage at that time, but then FTX collapsed. In the time since, we’ve decided to keep donating half, although the absolute amount is a lot smaller.

In a sense this is nothing special, because it was remarkably good luck that we were ever able to afford to donate at this rate at all. But I’ll spell out our process over time, in case it helps others realize they can also afford to donate more than they thought.

How we got here

Getting interested in donation

In my teens and early twenties, I thought it was really unfair that my family had plenty of stuff while other people (especially in low-income countries) [...]

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Outline:

(00:41) How we got here

(00:45) Getting interested in donation

(01:09) Early years with Jeff

(02:18) When we earned less

(03:17) Earning to give

(04:15) Both at nonprofits

(04:55) EA funding declines

(05:33) Currently

(05:51) Avoiding spending creep

(07:19) Becoming older and more boring

(08:44) Habits and commitment mechanisms

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First published:

December 4th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mEQTxDGp4MxMSZA74/still-donating-half

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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TL;DR

If H5N1 flu gains the ability to spread between people, it could readily become a pandemic. Thus, it is very important to know whether it is spreading between people, but no one is currently testing for person-person spread. We are asking for funding to do this testing in the highest risk areas.

Short summary 

We are a group of researchers at Stanford University, led by Dr. Benjamin Pinsky, seeking funding to screen Influenza A-positive samples from hospitals and clinics near infected dairy herds in the California Central Valley for H5N1 influenza. Currently, public health labs are only testing people with known exposure to infected animals for H5N1, so cases of human-to-human transmission would go undiagnosed. We seek to expand surveillance to people from high-risk areas with influenza A infection but without known animal exposure.

Summary 

There is an ongoing outbreak of H5N1 influenza in dairy cows with [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) TL;DR

(00:29) Short summary

(01:05) Summary

(02:29) Impact

(04:23) Methods

(05:33) About the team

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First published:

December 2nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jtw2iqReYDQ7Ep7jW/funding-needed-to-screen-for-human-h5n1-flu-transmission

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Summary

This post reviews Animal Advocacy Africa's work in 2024 and plans for 2025. We detail our work to foster knowledge sharing and ensure transparency, allowing stakeholders and funders to understand our achievements, setbacks, and strategic decisions.

For casual readers and those interested in specific aspects of our work, we provide key information and links to the relevant sections in this summary.

• Our purpose: We aim to reduce and prevent the suffering of farmed animals by building the animal advocacy movement in Africa before animal farming practices become more intensive.
• Our work in 2024: We completed our strategic pivot from organisational capacity-building to a training programme (TP) for individual advocates, which we expect to be more impactful.
  • Training programme: The first cohort was a success. We incubated three new projects in 2024. Beyond our launched projects, other participants have pursued other promising paths to help farmed animals [...]

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Outline:

(00:07) Summary

(03:45) Our purpose

(04:18) Our work in 2024

(04:52) Training programme

(04:55) Overview

(06:53) Outcomes

(14:34) Impact

(17:38) Further support

(20:50) Contributing to the wider movement

(23:26) Our organisation

(23:29) Budget and financial information

(25:17) Our staff and operations

(25:48) Our plans for 2025

(25:52) Continuing our training programme and alumni support

(26:30) Enhancing recruitment for our training programme

(27:30) Increasing staff capacity

(28:41) Our mistakes and key areas for improvement

(30:40) How you can help

(30:44) Support our mission

(31:57) Give us feedback

(32:14) Connect with us

(32:33) Appendix

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First published:

December 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8GmDyQSM3hKziPFbF/animal-advocacy-africa-s-2024-review-and-plans-for-2025

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TL;DR

• In 2024, 84% of applicants were accepted to EA Global.
• We evaluate applications by considering several factors. Our two primary considerations are an applicant's EA context and their potential to advance professionally in ways that contribute to EA-related goals or support others in doing so. If you’d like to better understand our admissions bar, you can skip ahead to An overview of the admissions bar.
• Currently, we suspect that many people who reach the admissions bar are not applying. We want to encourage you to apply!
• Events are expensive and this prevents some people from applying. We don’t think it should—if you’ve been accepted, we think your attendance is a good use of our funding. 

Introduction 

The two goals of this post are:

1. Provide greater transparency on the current admissions bar for EA Global (EAG)
2. Encourage more people to apply to EAG

We aim [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) TL;DR

(00:57) Introduction

(02:10) What is EA Global?

(02:44) Acceptance rate

(03:55) You should apply to EA Global

(03:59) We suspect there are many people who clearly meet the admissions bar who are not applying

(05:11) Events are expensive; we don’t want this to deter applications

(06:20) Why have an admissions process?

(08:46) An overview of the admissions bar

(15:04) Common questions

(16:30) Recommendations for writing a strong application

(18:03) Apply now

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First published:

December 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/S6GMTQf2ryKbykpiW/ea-global-admissions-bar

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This is a link post.

80,000 Hours recently updated our problem profile on factory farming, and we now rank it among the most pressing problems in the world. We're sharing the summary of the article here, and there's much more detail at the link. The author, Benjamin Hilton, published the article with us before moving on to a new role outside of 80k back in July, so he may have limited ability to engage with comments. But we welcome feedback and may incorporate it into future updates.

Summary

History is littered with moral mistakes — things that once were common, but we now consider clearly morally wrong, for example: human sacrifice, gladiatorial combat, public executions, witch hunts, and slavery.

In my opinion, there's one clear candidate for the biggest moral mistake that humanity is currently making: factory farming.

The rough argument is:

• There are trillions of farmed animals, making [...]

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First published:

October 29th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/goTRwb49riDvXGdy8/factory-farming-as-a-pressing-world-problem

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This is a link post.

We have released the 2024 Report for our Emerging Challenges Fund, detailing its latest grants, past grants' outcomes, and strategic direction.

Donate to the ECF today.

Your contribution would help diversify our funding base and enable rapid support for highly impactful organizations that benefit from broad-based backing. The Emerging Challenges Fund aims to identify funding gaps that other donors cannot or will not fill. Our flexibility allows us to move swiftly across diverse areas—from diplomatic dialogues with China to legislative support for the EU.

2024 Report: Emerging Challenges Fund

About the ECF

Our Grants

New Grants (2024 Grants)

For summaries of the project funded, its theory of change, and the track record of the host organisation, please read our 2024 Report.

RecipientAmountSummarySix EU civil society organisations $733kEU AI Act: Emergency SupportHorizon Institute for Public Service$150kPlacing technical expertise in governmentCentre for Long-Term Resilience$150kAdvising on biosecurity & AI policyPacific Forum$50k*Convening [...]

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Outline:

(00:54) About the ECF

(00:58) Our Grants

(01:01) New Grants (2024 Grants)

(01:34) Grant Updates (2023 Grants)

(02:06) Looking Ahead (2025 Grants)

(02:30) Our Strategy

(04:47) About Longview Philanthropy

(05:37) Our Services

(05:40) Funds (Public and Private)

(06:02) Grant Recommendations for Major Gifts

(06:19) End-to-End Effective Giving Service

(06:42) Get in Touch

(06:56) Our Focus Areas

(07:43) Beneficial AI

(08:12) Biosecurity

(08:41) Nuclear Weapons Policy

(09:15) Support organisations that Longview recommends

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First published:

December 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PBonnCzpMjij4X3Mr/announcing-the-emerging-challenges-fund-s-2024-report

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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MIRI is a nonprofit research organization with a mission of addressing the most serious hazards posed by smarter-than-human artificial intelligence. In our general strategy update and communications strategy update earlier this year, we announced a new strategy that we’re executing on at MIRI, and several new teams we’re spinning up as a result. This post serves as a status update on where things stand at MIRI today.

We originally planned to run a formal fundraiser this year, our first one since 2019. However, we find ourselves with just over two years of reserves, which is more than we’ve typically had in our past fundraisers.

Instead, we’ve written this brief update post, discussing recent developments at MIRI, projects that are in the works, and our basic funding status. In short: We aren’t in urgent need of more funds, but we do have a fair amount of uncertainty about what the [...]

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Outline:

(01:22) About MIRI

(02:55) Funding Status

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First published:

December 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zBizzn2BT6pjbqS8n/miri-s-2024-end-of-year-update

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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