EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

Introduction

The Giving What We Can research team is excited to share the results of our 2024 round of evaluations of charity evaluators and grantmakers!

In this round, we completed three evaluations that will inform our donation recommendations for the 2024 giving season. As with our 2023 round, there are substantial limitations to these evaluations, but we nevertheless think that they are a significant improvement to a landscape in which there were no independent evaluations of evaluators’ work.

In this post, we share the key takeaways from each of our 2024 evaluations and link to the full reports. We also include an update explaining our decision to remove The Humane League from our list of recommended programs. Our website has now been updated to reflect the new fund and charity recommendations that came out of these evaluations.

Please also see our website for more context on [...]

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Outline:

(00:10) Introduction

(01:13) Key takeaways from each of our 2024 evaluations

(01:36) Global health and wellbeing

(01:41) Founders Pledge Global Health and Development Fund (FP GHDF)

(04:07) Animal welfare

(04:10) Animal Charity Evaluators’ Movement Grants (ACE MG)

(06:08) Animal Charity Evaluators’ Charity Evaluation Program

(08:35) Additional recommendation updates

(08:39) The Humane League's corporate campaigns program

(11:29) Conclusion

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

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First published:

November 27th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/NhpAHDQq6iWhk7SEs/gwwc-s-2024-evaluations-of-evaluators-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Epistemic Status: 13 years working as a therapist for a wide variety of populations, 5 of them working with rationalists and EA clients. 7 years teaching and directing at over 20 rationality camps and workshops. This is an extremely short and colloquially written form of points that could be expanded on to fill a book, and there is plenty of nuance to practically everything here, but I am extremely confident of the core points in this frame, and have used it to help many people break out of or avoid manipulative practices.

TL;DR: Your wants and preferences are not invalidated by smarter or more “rational” people's preferences. What feels good or bad to someone is not a monocausal result of how smart or stupid they are.

Alternative titles to this post are "Two people are enough to form a cult" and "Red flags if dating rationalists," but this [...]

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Outline:

(02:53) 1) You are not too stupid to know what you want.

(07:35) 2) Feeling hurt is not a sign of irrationality.

(13:13) 3) Illegible preferences are not invalid.

(17:20) 4) Your preferences do not need to fully match your communitys.

(21:41) Final Thoughts

The original text contained 6 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

The original text contained 2 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

November 26th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/L8oqoskXpcvHPeukk/you-are-not-too-irrational-to-know-your-preferences

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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In this post, we’ll report on our activities in 2024, outline our plans for 2025, and show our room for funding.

Summary

EA Germany (EAD) acts as an umbrella organisation for the German EA community, the third largest national community and biggest in continental Europe, according to the 2022 EA survey.

The non-profit has a focus on talent development (e.g. with an EA intro program and a career program, organising an EAGxBerlin), community building support (e.g. with community building retreats), and general community support (e.g. with 1-1s and employer of record program). EAD tested several new programs in 2024, especially in the area of global catastrophic risks.

In 2025, we plan to focus on refining our target group and testing tailored programs, guided by current data indicating that some individuals are several times more likely to shift their career plans towards impactful paths.

CEA's funding decision in February will [...]

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Outline:

(00:20) Summary

(01:39) About EA Germany (EAD)

(03:41) Overview/Report 2024

(03:46) Our main programs

(08:35) Explorations

(08:57) Projects to reduce Global Catastrophic Risks

(09:58) Germany-wide online group

(10:42) Job recommendations

(11:06) Google ads

(11:21) Volunteer programs

(12:17) Media outreach

(12:59) Not started

(14:01) Planned changes for 2025

(14:27) Reaching a clear, more narrow target group

(15:31) Team

(16:06) Funding

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First published:

November 26th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/9a4a9gb7WwiqLJx7n/ea-germany-s-2024-report-2025-strategy-and-funding

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Note: Following this project, I am still extremely uncertain as to whether fishing is good or bad for animals on net.

Abstract

Fishing has both direct and indirect effects on populations, e.g. through the effects of fishing predators on their prey and trophic cascades. Whether fishing is — on the margin or on average — good or bad for wild animal welfare overall in the near term depends on potential tradeoffs between different groups of animals. In this piece, I narrow down which groups of animals are most affected by fishing, directly or indirectly. I also assess how the populations of some of these groups have been affected by fishing so far and have trended over time. Unfortunately, I’m not able to answer whether fishing has been or is good or bad on net, but I outline next steps.

Key takeaways

1. It seems copepods, macrozooplankton crustaceans (krill, and planktonic shrimp [...]

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Outline:

(00:14) Abstract

(00:57) Key takeaways

(03:42) Acknowledgements

(03:59) Full document

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First published:

November 25th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CbxLaiwCMc9hbaG96/which-animals-are-most-affected-by-fishing

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is my first post on the EA Forum. (Yeah, I'm nervous.)

Note: The Global Health Security Index (GHSI) is the first comprehensive assessment of health security capabilities across 195 countries. Created by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and The Economist Intelligence Unit, it evaluates each country's ability to prevent, detect, and respond to health emergencies using publicly available data across six categories: prevention, detection, rapid response, health system, compliance with international norms, and risk environment.

About me

I’m Vincent Niger—nurse, Europubhealth+ Erasmus Mundus double master's candidate in Public Health, currently based in Maastricht, where I’m enrolled in the master's in Governance and Leadership in European Public Health. I’m also a facilitator for BlueDot Impact's Pandemic course, which I cannot recommend warmly enough. Seriously, check it out! I’m exploring the possibility of shifting my career toward biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.

The [...]

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Outline:

(00:50) About me

(01:21) The research

(03:49) Reasons for sharing here

(04:22) Self-criticism and questions

(05:31) Key Findings

(06:21) Looking Ahead

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First published:

November 25th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/m7Hfjq5Jx7FhPqEXA/sharing-insights-from-my-master-s-work-on-the-ghsi-seeking

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

In theory, effective altruists are committed to using reason and evidence to identify the best interventions. In practice, much of the available funding is controlled by a small number of actors including prominent donors – most recently, Sam Bankman-Fried, and now Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz. What these donors consider worth funding has a sizable influence on what actually gets funded.

Today's post uses historical comparisons to the Christianization of Roman philanthropy as well as Gilded Age philanthropy in the United States to begin to think critically about the discretion afforded to wealthy donors in shaping philanthropic priorities. In particular, I suggest, philanthropists exhibit important conservative biases that may explain some of effective altruism's muted reaction towards institutional critiques of effective altruism. And more broadly, philanthropists tend to favor many of the same views and practices that brought them success in industries which differ importantly [...]

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First published:

November 25th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oR9uv54nE6yjzmc35/billionaire-philanthropy-part-7-donor-discretion

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The EA Infrastructure Fund doesn’t currently have a significant need for more funding and an increase in funding wouldn’t change our immediate grantmaking decisions. That said, additional funding now could increase our ability to increase the scope of our grantmaking in future.

EAIF currently has $3.3M in available funds. So far over 2024 EAIF has made grants worth $1.1M, and I expect this to be around $1.4M by the end of 2024.

Examples of grants we’ve made over 2024 include:

• The Centre for Enabling EA Research and Learning (CEEALAR) - $184,000
• EA Norway's Annual Weekend Conference for the Norwegian EA Community - $9,500
• Rethink Priorities Worldview Investigations Team, a 6 month project to enhance the cross-cause cost-effectiveness model - $168,867
• Michael Dello-Iacovo, a 6 month salary to build an EA-aligned YouTube channel - $23,660

• EA Brazil, a 12-month salary for a full-time and a part-time [...]

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First published:

November 25th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/PN4FEGt3fjHv8diGo/eaif-isn-t-currently-funding-constrained

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This post summarizes the main findings of a new meta-analysis from the Humane and Sustainable Food Lab. We analyze the most rigorous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that aim to reduce consumption of meat and animal products (MAP). We conclude that no theoretical approach, delivery mechanism, or persuasive message should be considered a well-validated means of reducing MAP consumption. By contrast, reducing consumption of red and processed meat (RPM) appears to be an easier target. However, if RPM reductions lead to more consumption of other MAP like chicken and fish, this is likely bad for animal welfare and doesn’t ameliorate zoonotic outbreak or land and water pollution. We also find that many promising approaches await rigorous evaluation.

This post updates a post from a year ago. We first summarize the current paper, and then describe how the project and its findings have evolved.

What is a rigorous RCT?

There is [...]

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Outline:

(01:09) What is a rigorous RCT?

(02:15) The main theoretical approaches:

(04:45) Results: consistently small effects

(07:22) Where do we go from here?

(09:00) How has this project changed over time?

The original text contained 2 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

November 25th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/i5wnzz4uAgeF3ZRc5/research-report-meaningfully-reducing-consumption-of-meat

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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This is a link post.

The New Atlantis (American religious conservative magazine about science and ethics) has an article out about Effective Altruism. It endorses some parts of EA, but is critical of EA as a whole. Main points (although the article is more nuanced than this summary can convey):

• EA charities, at least the global health and development ones, do good
• EA is closely linked to cultish elements of the rationalist community
• The "pencil problem": in complex systems, it's hard to centrally plan
• Emotional appeals are a functioning planning mechanism for the world of charity
• EA is opposed to emotional appeals
• EA doesn't include a role for friendship and personal relationships, but it should
• The "paper towel problem": EA  doesn't include a role for maintaing social norms
• EAs are more driven by wanting to show off their intellectual firepower than help others
• EAs don't follow through with their [...]

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First published:

November 23rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/K5kdgfjRGvNzbizkA/open-wallets-empty-hearts-linkpost

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

Gwern recently wrote a very interesting thread about Chinese AI strategy and the downsides of US AI racing. It's both quite short and hard to excerpt so here is almost the entire thing:

Hsu is a long-time China hawk and has been talking up the scientific & technological capabilities of the CCP for a long time, saying they were going to surpass the West any moment now, so I found this interesting when Hsu explains that:

1. the scientific culture of China is 'mafia' like (Hsu's term, not mine) and focused on legible easily-cited incremental research, and is against making any daring research leaps or controversial breakthroughs...

   but is capable of extremely high quality world-class followup and large scientific investments given a clear objective target and government marching orders

2. there is no interest or investment in an AI arms race, in part [...]

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First published:

November 25th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Kz8WpQkCckN9JNHCN/gwern-on-creating-your-own-ai-race-and-china-s-fast-follower

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.