Despite the setbacks, I'm hopeful about the technology's future

It wasn’t meant to go like this. Alternative protein startups that were once soaring are now struggling. Impact investors who were once everywhere are now absent. Banks that confidently predicted 31% annual growth (UBS) and a 2030 global market worth $88-263B (Credit Suisse) have quietly taken down their predictions.

This sucks. For many founders and staff this wasn’t just a job, but a calling — an opportunity to work toward a world free of factory farming. For many investors, it wasn’t just an investment, but a bet on a better future. It's easy to feel frustrated, disillusioned, and even hopeless.

It's also wrong. There's still plenty of hope for alternative proteins — just on a longer timeline than the unrealistic ones that were once touted. Here are three trends I’m particularly excited about.

Better products

People are eating less plant-based [...]

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Outline:

(01:10) Better products

(03:41) Better merchandising

(05:52) More research

(08:01) A marathon, not a sprint

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First published:

September 5th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/GTrekKkZnG5TQPeQh/positive-trends-on-alternative-proteins

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TL;DR: generate a referral link to our advising application form here and share the link you generate with potential 80k advisees. If we speak to just two people who applied through your link, you’ll have a good chance to win a $5,000 career grant. The more advisees you refer, the better your chances are.

Updates

This is an update on my earlier announcement of our referral program. The important new points are:

• The “conference travel” grant is now a general career grant.[1] If there's anything money can do to help advance your impactful career goals, winners can request a grant and I expect we’ll be able to do it. Ideas include:

  • Conference travel + attendance

  • A skills development course or service

  • Tuition support

  • Productivity tools

  • Paid career coaching

  • Whatever else you can think of (likely)

• Only 11 people have [...]

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Outline:

(00:26) Updates

(01:36) Reminders

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:

September 5th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iH6RnE5qp2FXBmR9t/one-month-left-to-win-usd5-000-career-grants-from-80k

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Epistemic status: Motivated and biased as a Christian, gazing in awe through rose-tinted glasses at inspiring humans of days gone by. Written primarily for Christians, with hopefully something of use for everyone.
 

Benjamin Lay—The Protester

Benjamin Lay, only 4½ feet tall, stood outside the Quaker meeting house in the heart of Pennsylvania winter, his right leg exposed and thrust deep into the snow. One shocked churchgoer after another urged him to protect his life and limb—but he only replied
“Ah, you pretend compassion for me but you do not feel for the poor slaves in your fields, who go all winter half clad.”[1]

In 1700 Lay's moral stances were more than radical._ _[2] He thought women equal to men, was anti-death penalty, pro animal rights and an early campaigner for the abolition of slavery. In the Caribbean he made friends with indentured people while he boycotted [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) Epistemic status: Motivated and biased as a Christian, gazing in awe through rose-tinted glasses at inspiring humans of days gone by. Written primarily for Christians, with hopefully something of use for everyone.

(00:23) Benjamin Lay—The Protester

(03:01) John Wesley—The Priest

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

The original text contained 3 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

September 5th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Fj44ihSD3eK4b4iW5/the-protester-priest-and-politician-effective-altruists

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This is a link post.

Editorial note

This report is a “shallow” investigation, as described here, and was commissioned by Open Philanthropy and produced by Rethink Priorities from January to February 2023. We revised the report for publication. Open Philanthropy does not necessarily endorse our conclusions, nor do the organizations represented by those who were interviewed.

Our report focuses on exploring fungal diseases as a potential new cause area for Open Philanthropy. We assessed the current and future health burden of fungal diseases, provided an overview of current interventions and the main gaps and barriers to address the burden, and discussed some plausible options for philanthropic spending. We reviewed the scientific and gray literature and spoke with five experts.

While revising the report for publication, we learned of a new global burden study (Denning et al., 2024) whose results show an annual incidence of 6.5 million invasive fungal infections, and [...]

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Outline:

(00:13) Editorial note

(01:47) Executive summary

(06:52) Read more

(07:05) Acknowledgments

The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration.

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First published:

September 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QwYABYreipfuhwWmF/fungal-diseases-health-burden-neglectedness-and-potential

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On August 31st, Giving What We Can (GWWC) completed the “spin-out” we announced in December. As a result, we are no longer a legal project of the Effective Ventures Foundation UK and US (collectively referred to as “EV”), and have instead set up our own independent charitable entities in both the US and the UK, with Canada coming soon!

We’re super excited to take this important step as an organisation. While our core mission, commitments, and focus on effective giving remain unchanged, we’ve already begun to feel some of the benefits of being fully in charge of our own operations, including:

• Aligning our organisational structure and governance more closely with our mission
• Facilitating greater internal clarity and transparency around our core processes
• Having greater control over our operational costs
• Processing donations made via bank transfer, DAF, stock, or crypto more quickly than before
   

[...]

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First published:

September 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/g4hPrvXgceyDsxzei/giving-what-we-can-is-now-its-own-legal-entity

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This is a link post.

Summary

• During the last four years, our work for animals in Anima International faced several big challenges.
• I took on the role of Executive Director to help cement the foundations of the organization.
• Now that we want to build on these foundations to achieve even more impact for animals, we need different skills at the helm.
• Anima International leadership has appointed Jakub Stencel as the new Interim Executive Director.
• I have moved from the role of Executive Director to that of President.

After four years as Executive Director of Anima International, I pushed for my colleague Jakub Stencel to take over the role at the beginning of July. No, I’m not off chasing new opportunities or planning a quiet retreat. I’m not taking time off to be with my family (possibly my family are breathing a sigh of relief right now) And no [...]

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First published:

September 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/M9XCb4qExjceFGkXx/i-have-stepped-aside-from-my-role-as-executive-director

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The Centre for Exploratory Altruism Research (CEARCH) works on cause prioritization research as well as grantmaking and donor advisory. This project is an external evaluation of Giving What We Can (GWWC) – specifically, its giving multiplier.

We are grateful to the GWWC team for all the advice and data they have provided to us, and for their outstanding transparency and cooperation; we are also grateful to the various effective giving organizations and meta grantmakers we consulted during the research process. To avoid any conflict of interest, we have explicitly declined to be evaluated by GWWC in 2024 for its evaluate-the-evaluators project.

Outline

This is an estimate of GWWC's giving multiplier. This evaluation differs from GWWC's previous impact evaluation in two important ways:

• This is a prospective analysis aimed at estimating the marginal value of funding GWWC going forward (particularly, in 2025); in contrast, GWWC's previous evaluation was a retrospective [...]

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Outline:

(00:49) Outline

(01:49) Results

(02:10) Key Model Parameters

(05:35) Actionable Implications

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First published:

September 3rd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/c7hXyiySQoTjumDur/gwwc-s-giving-multiplier

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Sentience - famously known for its initiative to abolish factory farming - just launched a new petition targeting two major Swiss retailers, Coop and Migros.

Together, Coop and Migros hold a market share close to 80% in Switzerland. They bear a critical responsibility for the development of the poultry industry in the country.

The Swiss poultry industry in two key figures:

• 85 million farmed animals are slaughtered annually in Switzerland. In 2023, chickens accounted for 83 million of these animals.
• 92% of these chickens come from fast-growing breeds (which are genetically preprogrammed to suffer)

In practice, Sentience is asking retailers to:

• 1) Adopt slower-growing chicken breeds, which show greater health and welfare outcomes (and cease using fast-growing strains by 2026).
• 2) Stop promoting problematic products by the end of 2024, this includes advertising and campaigns for products from intensive chicken farming.
• 3) Provide transparent reporting on the selection [...]

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First published:

September 2nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TxuohZuvpsGpLuGFp/launching-a-petition-to-end-preprogrammed-suffering-in

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Introduction

In April 2024, my colleague and I (both affiliated with Peking University) conducted a survey involving 510 students from Tsinghua University and 518 students from Peking University—China's two top academic institutions. Our focus was on their perspectives regarding the frontier risks of artificial intelligence.

In the People's Republic of China (PRC), publicly accessible survey data on AI is relatively rare, so we hope this report provides some valuable insights into how people in the PRC are thinking about AI (especially the risks). Throughout this post, I’ll do my best to weave in other data reflecting the broader Chinese sentiment toward AI.

For similar research, check out The Center for Long-Term Artificial Intelligence, YouGov, Monmouth University, The Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute, and notably, a poll conducted by Rethink Priorities, which closely informed our survey design.

You can read the full report published in the Jamestown Foundation's China Brief [...]

The original text contained 11 images which were described by AI.

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First published:

September 2nd, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zCyC4YcYmZkMhfyWG/survey-how-do-elite-chinese-students-feel-about-the-risks-of

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TL;DR 

• We are interested in supporting and promoting good governance of EA organisations. Currently, we host a directory of candidates looking for board positions at high-impact nonprofits
• Measuring the impact of this work is hard (and we could do better) but we’ve got good reason to believe this is worth maintaining and expanding on
• If you haven’t signed up for the directory, then you should! 
• If you’re thinking about how you can improve the governance of your organisation and/or looking for board members then we would love to speak with you

About us

The Good Governance Project launched in October 2022, with an objective of helping EA organisations create strong boards and governance processes. The project's initial focus was on setting up and maintaining a directory of candidates interested in governance roles within EA organisations, and connecting EA organisations to these candidates.

We first provided an update [...]

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Outline:

(00:06) TL;DR

(00:40) About us

(01:38) Our work so far

(02:32) Measuring impact

(03:33) Beyond the Candidate Directory

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First published:

August 29th, 2024

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/P3tbKSRL5HGns9uqh/update-from-the-ea-good-governance-project-1

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