EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

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TLDR: Menstrual cups cost a few dollars and have great potential to improve lives in low-income settings. High quality Wellbeing research might tell us if they’re a big bet worth making.

The Monthly Struggle

Periods are a challenge to manage anywhere, but in low income rural areas, women must overcome huge physical, social and financial barriers. Every month. Most women in this tricky situation manage their periods in one of two ways.1

1. Reused cloths/rags, not made for purpose
2. Pads - Disposable or reusable

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These aren’t great options, and in low income countries women are split between them about 50/502. The worst of the two is reusable cloths which are unsanitary, reduce productivity and contribute to a monthly cycle of worry. On the other hand disposable pads cost between $20 and $50 dollars a year3, too expensive for those living on dollars a day. Reusable pads are cheaper, but carry similar hygiene problems of cloths.

And the scale of period poverty is massive. My best guess is that between 500 million and 1 billion women don’t buy any [...]

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Outline:

(00:24) The Monthly Struggle

(01:35) The Period Poverty Burden

(02:23) The Menstrual cup

(03:18) Cups as a Leapfrog Tech?

(03:50) Asan Cups

(05:09) Challenges

(06:09) Are Cups Cost-Effective? - A rough estimate

(10:44) Great potential - Lets do Wellbeing research

The original text contained 26 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

April 7th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jh5A2NXr5Lf9oXLSX/menstrual-cups-a-cost-effective-gem

Linkpost URL:
https://spicydev.substack.com/p/menstrual-cups-a-cost-effective-gem

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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This is a link post.

Intro

We think that near-term AI could make it much easier for groups to coordinate, find positive-sum deals, navigate tricky disagreements, and hold each other to account.

Partly, this is because AI will be able to process huge amounts of data quickly, making complex multi-party negotiations and discussions much more tractable. And partly it's because secure enough AI systems would allow people to share sensitive information with trusted intermediaries without fear of broader disclosure, making it possible to coordinate around information that's currently too sensitive to bring to the table, and to greatly improve our capacity for monitoring and transparency.

We want to help people imagine what this could look like. In this piece, we sketch six potential near-term technologies, ordered roughly by how achievable we think they are with present tech:[1]

• Fast facilitation — Groups quickly surface key points of consensus views and disagreement, and make decisions everyone can live with.
• Automated negotiation — Complicated bargains are discovered quickly via automated negotiation on behalf of each party, mediated by trusted neutral systems which can find agreements.
• Arbitrarily easy arbitration — Disputes are resolved cheaply and quickly by verifiably neutral AI adjudicators.
• Background networking [...]

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Outline:

(00:15) Intro

(03:33) Why coordination tech matters

(05:31) Why defense-favoured coordination tech

(06:22) Fast facilitation

(07:05) Design sketch

(08:16) Feasibility

(09:32) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(11:02) Automated negotiation

(11:36) Design sketch

(13:42) Feasibility

(14:29) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(15:49) Arbitrarily easy arbitration

(16:13) Design sketch

(19:18) Feasibility

(21:32) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(22:50) Background networking

(23:37) Design sketch

(25:28) Feasibility

(28:02) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(28:52) Structured transparency for democratic oversight

(30:08) Design sketch

(32:37) Feasibility

(34:52) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(36:32) Confidential monitoring and verification

(36:58) Design sketch

(38:32) Feasibility

(39:28) Possible starting points // concrete projects

(40:10) Cross-cutting thoughts

(40:14) Some cross-cutting technologies

(40:33) AI delegates and preference elicitation

(41:51) Charter tech

(45:29) Adoption pathways

(47:31) Other challenges

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First published:

April 6th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LEekbCBhsMfhL6chp/defense-favoured-coordination-design-sketches

Linkpost URL:
https://www.forethought.org/research/design-sketches-defense-favoured-coordination-tech

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Coefficient Giving's Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness team is launching a new Request for Proposals to support work aimed at preventing engineered biological threats from emerging and improving our response to these threats should prevention fail.

Applications start with a simple expression of interest form (≤500 words), with a submission deadline of May 11 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

Click here to learn more and apply

More details

We expect that the coming years will see unprecedented progress in AI and biotechnology. While the ability of AI systems to improve human health could be transformative, these same advances may increase existential risk via multiple pathways: AI could lower barriers for bad actors pursuing novel biological weapons, and increasingly capable AI systems may themselves leverage biotechnology in harmful ways. Separately, biotech advances could also introduce catastrophic risks from even well-intentioned actors—for example, through the creation of mirror bacteria.

We feel these problems are increasingly urgent, and our team is looking to spend more and spend faster as a result. (We expect to direct >$100 million in grants this year.)

To that end, we’re interested in funding ambitious projects in the following categories:

• Transmission suppression: Enhance society's capacity to respond to global [...]

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First published:

April 1st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RvK9sEGoe46co8H4L/coefficient-giving-is-seeking-proposals-for-biosecurity

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Baking has traditionally made extensive use of egg whites, especially the way they can be beaten into a foam and then set with heat. While I eat eggs, I have a lot of people in my life who avoid them for ethical reasons, and this often limits what I can bake for them. I was very excited to learn, though, that you can now buy extremely realistic vegan egg whites!

EVERY engineered yeast to convert sugar into ovalbumin, the main protein in egg whites and the one responsible for most of its culinary function. This kind of fermentation was pioneered for insulin and microbial rennet in the 1980s, but many companies are now applying it to producing all kinds of vitamins, proteins, dyes, and enzymes.

EVERY has been working with commercial customers for several years, but you can now buy it as a shelf stable powder. At $24 for the equivalent of 45 egg whites ($0.53 each) it's more expensive than buying conventional ($0.21 each) or organic ($0.33) egg whites, but not massively so.

I learned about them from a coworker who made an angel food cake, and I've since made flourless chocolate cake and swiss buttercream frosting. It [...]

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First published:

April 4th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EALt4uYBpjop5fcsk/chicken-free-egg-whites

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In the early days of EA, people often tracked their giving on personal websites, or at least wrote about each year's donations. I read about it and felt inspired (and a bit competitive).

This is less popular now. I want to see more.

How to track donations

Here's a list of examples. Some people write long posts with all their reasoning, others just share numbers. More info is nice, but anything beats nothing.

My approach is minimal — a page explaining why I give in general, and a spreadsheet with names, numbers, and brief notes. It takes me like 20 minutes a year.

Why track?

The classic EA pitch is "you can improve the world".

Another pitch, which many people find more compelling, is "join a community of kind, interesting people who are trying to improve the world".

The more of us talk about our giving, the stronger the "community" pitch becomes. Writing out the details is even better. People like it when you live by your values, and the nerds in our core audience like it when claims are backed by data.

Also, if someone hears about EA, it makes a big difference if they know even a [...]

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Outline:

(00:25) How to track donations

(00:51) Why track?

(03:15) Why not track?

(05:57) But actually, track your donations

(06:27) Appendix: Who tracks?

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First published:

April 4th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yYkgGH9kbbQQp5iCp/you-should-write-about-your-giving

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Crosspost of a blog article.

Andrew Sullivan's most impactful work came in the shadow of death.

Tyler Cowen declared Sullivan the generation's most impactful public intellectual. Sullivan was hugely influential in the fight for gay marriage, as a thoughtful conservative advocate of gay marriage who was himself gay. He also pioneered the early art of blogging, with his early work leaving an indelible mark on how the craft developed. I’ve been grateful to have Sullivan occasionally link to my blog and I consider him one of the foremost public intellectuals of today.

A lot of Sullivan's most influential work came when he believed he would soon die. He was diagnosed with HIV in the days when it was a death sentence. He thought he would die young, in his 30s, and wanted to leave some mark on the world before he was taken from it. He wanted to make the case for people like him being afforded equal rights in the few years he had left. It is an amazing miracle that treatment for HIV was developed, so that millions of people like Andrew didn’t have to die.

There's an expression “live every day as if it's your last.” [...]

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First published:

April 4th, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMxPmqFRDnEZrc8uo/if-you-re-to-die

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Summary

• I estimate the Holocaust increased the living time of (wild) soil nematodes, mites, and springtails.
• My best guess is that those soil invertebrates have negative lives, so I think that indirectly increasing their animal-years by mass murdering millions of people was harmful on net.
• I have been estimating the cost-effectiveness of various interventions accounting for effects on soil nematodes, mites, and springtails. Any event which causes a large and sustained change in human population affects agricultural land use, and therefore soil invertebrate welfare. The Holocaust killed 1.1*10^7 people and prevented an estimated 2.7*10^7 people from existing by 2026. I am not aware of any previous analysis of the Holocaust's impact on soil invertebrates. In this post, I estimate the direct effects from land use for camps, graves, and memorials, and the indirect effects from the human population deficit and reduced agricultural land use.
• I calculate that the naive case of the Holocaust being beneficial to soil invertebrates due to increased land use is overshadowed by the indirect impacts to soil land use caused by preventing 2.7*10^7 human lives.
  • Direct land use effect of concentration camps, mass graves, and memorials constitute -8.88*10^9 QALYs or -807 QALYs per Holocaust-affected-person (HAP)
  • [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Summary

(02:47) The direct impacts on soil invertebrate populations and welfare from land use and infrastructure for the Holocaust

(07:50) The indirect impacts on soil invertebrate populations and welfare from changes to human population and associated agricultural land use

(11:04) The indirect impact of the Holocaust on the population of people of Jewish descent in Effective Altruism

(12:31) My recommendations

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First published:

April 1st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aHG3Fc8emuWnZdFPp/impact-of-holocaust-on-soil-nematodes-mites-and-springtails-1

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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James Herbert, Co-Director, Effectief Altruïsme Nederland and EAGxAmsterdam Team Lead

EAGxAmsterdam 2025 took place on 12–14 December at B.Amsterdam, bringing together 517 attendees from across Europe. This is a brief write-up of what went well, what didn't, and what I think other EAGx organisers can learn from it.

The headline numbers:

• 517 attendees (up 36% from 380 at EAGxUtrecht 2024) — one of the largest EAGx events in recent years, behind only EAGxBerlin 2025
• €387 cost per attendee (target was €520; 2024 was €586)
• 10 reported new connections per attendee (target was 10, 2024 was 10)
• 906 applications (34% above target)
• 57 GWWC pledges (26 full 10% Pledges + 31 Trial Pledges) — the strongest pledge outcome of any EAGx to date, and ahead of every EAG and EAGx event until that point except EAG NYC 2025. GWWC estimated this represents ~$2.9M in expected lifetime giving ($436K counterfactually adjusted).
• NPS of 63 (mean recommendation: 8.86/10)

Budget

Cost per attendee came in at €387, down from €586 at EAGxUtrecht 2024 — a 34% improvement while serving 36% more people.

The budget is dominated by venue and catering (~70%), with contractors (~23%) the next largest line. Compared to 2024 [...]

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Outline:

(01:49) Budget

(02:35) The case for investing in marketing

(03:54) Content highlights

(05:10) What didnt work

(06:10) What Id tell other EAGx organisers

(08:14) Looking ahead

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First published:

April 2nd, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hgmEvDu25uDCcrLGx/eagxamsterdam-2025-what-we-learned

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I'm humbled (and slightly Bayesianly uncertain) to announce that after years of carefully optimizing my personal brand on LinkedIn, I've decided to pivot to a higher-impact platform: the EA Forum. LinkedIn let me share updates about clients, networking events, and my "journey." The EA Forum offers something better: 3,000-word posts, detailed cost-effectiveness analyses, and occasional updates about my shifting credences on shrimp welfare.

(Quick tip: always add shrimp. They inflate every number.)

Why bother?

Let's be honest. We all know it's basically impossible to get a job through the 80,000 Hours job board.

Sure, they say they hire the most talented candidates. But you can go through a three-month hiring process, complete several work tests, write thoughtful answers, speak with half the organization, and they'll hire someone they already knew. While still saying they ran a careful, meritocratic process and did their due diligence.

So the real question: why not be that someone?

A visible presence on the EA Forum means that when an opportunity appears, you're not just another applicant. You're someone whose posts people have read. Maybe even upvoted.

Step 1: Announce your belief updates

On LinkedIn, people post about promotions. On the EA Forum, you post [...]

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First published:

April 1st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/v5pfNnHntrwFXecFo/the-ea-forum-is-the-new-linkedin-a-guide-to-personal

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Last year, I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop Caffe Strada, sipping on a matcha latte and writing a self-insert fanfic about how our plucky protagonist escapes the mind-controlling clutches of an evil anti-animal welfare company, when I came across an interesting article on AI character. The core argument is that when you train an AI to be helpful, honest, and ethical, the AI model doesn’t just learn those rules as abstract instructions. Instead, it infers an entire persona from cultural signals in the training data:

Why are [AI Model Claude's] favorite books The Feynman Lectures; Gödel, Escher, Bach; The Remains of the Day; Invisible Cities; and A Pattern Language?[...]

A good heuristic for predicting Claude's tastes is to think of it as playing the character of an idealized liberal knowledge worker from Berkeley. Claude can’t decide if it's a software engineer or a philosophy professor, but it's definitely college educated, well-traveled, and emotionally intelligent. Claude values introspection, is wary almost to the point of paranoia about “codependency” in relationships, and is physically affected by others’ distress.

Claude even has a favorite cafe in Berkeley. When I discussed a story set in Berkeley with it, it kept suggesting [...]

The original text contained 4 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:

April 1st, 2026

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zrQCfJ8E56vefiFSi/i-m-suing-anthropic-for-unauthorized-use-of-my-personality

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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