Context: I’m a senior fellow at Conservation X Labs (CXL), and I’m seeking support as I attempt to establish a program on humane rodent fertility control in partnership with the Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) and the Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control (BIWFC). CXL is a biodiversity conservation organization working in sustainable technologies, not an animal welfare organization. However, CXL leadership is interested in simultaneously promoting biodiversity conservation and animal welfare, and they are excited about the possibility of advancing applied research that make it possible to ethically limit rodent populations to protect biodiversity. I think this represents the wild animal welfare community's first realistic opportunity to bring conservation organizations into wild animal welfare work while securing substantial non-EA funding for welfare-improving interventions.

Background

Rodenticides cause immense suffering to (likely) hundreds of millions of rats and mice annually through anticoagulation-induced death over several days, while causing significant non-target [...]

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Outline:

(01:08) Background

(02:20) Why this approach?

(03:49) Why CXL?

(06:03) Why now, and why me?

(06:59) Budget

(07:52) Next steps

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First published:

August 27th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EcBjr4Q2AtoTLcKXp/high-impact-and-urgent-funding-opportunity-rodent-fertility

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

[Study authors: Adam Elga, Jian-Qiao Zhu, Thomas L. Griffiths]

Summary: When asked to divide a fixed budget to fight several independent existential risks, experimental participants did not allocate enough resources to the risks with lowest probability of survival.

Excerpts:

if we face catastrophes with survival probabilities of 4% and 40%, it is more valuable to increase the probability of surviving the first catastrophe from 4% to 9% than it is to increase the probability of surviving the second catastrophe from 40% to 80% (since we care about the product of the survival probabilities and 9% ⋅ 40% > 4% ⋅ 80%). This dependence of optimal allocations on baseline chances of survival is a distinctive and somewhat counterintuitive feature of situations in which incentives are multiplicative (Lewis et al., 2023; Lewis & Simmons, 2020). [Reference added 2025-08-24: Ord 2020, Appendix D]

But

on average people allocated [...]

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First published:

August 25th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/nwS7CyjziwxM76MrE/research-people-do-not-allocate-enough-resources-to-risks

Linkpost URL:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106216

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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On Tuesday, 21st October, a coalition of UK animal advocacy organisations (UK Voters for Animals, Animal Equality UK, The Humane League UK, Animal Rising, and Open Cages UK) is hosting a mass lobby day in Westminster to advocate for banning cages for farmed animals in UK.

The opportunity: We're aiming to bring 100+ UK residents[1] and voters to Parliament for meetings with their MPs about legislating to ban cages for farmed animals. The UK still confines millions of animals to cages each year: egg-laying hens, farrowing crates for sows (mother pigs), individual calf pens, and cages for other birds.

This is a critical time in the UK, with the Government currently drafting their animal welfare strategy, a recent debate in Parliament about banning cages, high public support for our ask, and our closest trading partner, the EU, has signalled their intention to ban cages.

Event details [...]

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First published:

August 27th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EajDyGEmzLR2DQWGZ/uk-mass-lobby-day-to-end-cages-on-the-21st-october

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post.

In our work so far, the Nucleic Acid Observatory has focused on the technical core of a pathogen-agnostic early warning system: how do you go from sample to detection? This has included developing new sample processing protocols, designing and implementing computational algorithms, and efficacy modeling. We’ve recently received funding from Open Philanthropy to expand our scope: we’re now aiming to take on the problem of early warning from end to end. This means ensuring systems are in place to detect novel threats, and that detection leads to effective response. To support this expanded mission, we’re hiring for four roles, with referral bonuses of up to $6k per role:

• A Head of Partnerships to help us deploy our technology by securing funding and collaborations to build a comprehensive biosurveillance network. This role will focus on winning governmental and commercial contracts while expanding our sample collection [...]

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First published:

August 25th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7zMZ7S3enPXurrc4x/the-nao-is-hiring-for-partnerships-response-virology-and-wet

Linkpost URL:
https://naobservatory.org/blog/hiring-q2-2025

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I told someone recently I would respect them if they only worked 40 hours a week, instead of their current 50-60.

What I really meant was stronger than that.

I respect people who do the most impactful work they can — whether they work 70 hours a week because they can, 30 hours so they can be home with their kid, or 15 hours because of illness or burnout.

I admire those who go above and beyond. But I don’t expect that of everyone. Working long hours isn’t required to earn my respect, nor do I think it should be the standard that we hold as a community. I want it to be okay to say "that doesn't work for me".

It feels like donations: I admire people who give away 50%, but I don’t expect it. I still deeply respect someone who gives 10% to the [...]

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First published:

August 26th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qFsqawmgRjxXkA7eF/you-re-enough

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Tl;dr

I argue that maintaining nonpartisan norms on the EA Forum, in public communications by influential community members, and in funding decisions may be more costly than people realize. Lack of discussion in public means that people don’t take political issues as seriously as they should, research which depends on understanding the political situation doesn’t get done, and the community moves forward with a poor model of probably the most consequential actor in the world for any given cause area - the US government. Importantly, I don’t mean to say most community members shouldn’t maintain studious nonpartisanship! I merely want to argue that we should be aware of the downsides and do what we can to mitigate them.

Why nonpartisan norms in EA are a big deal

Individual politicians (not naming names) are likely the most important single actors affecting the governance of AI. The same goes [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Tl;dr

(00:55) Why nonpartisan norms in EA are a big deal

(05:28) Why EAs tend not to engage much with politics

(06:41) Many should remain nonpartisan but improvements can be made

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First published:

August 25th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/whKQe3WtXfMHEg3T9/nonpartisanship-is-also-the-mindkiller-albeit-a-useful-one

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

A not entirely inaccurate gloss on the effective altruist approach to politics is that it's absurdly progressive:

Source: 2022 Effective Altruism Survey.

But I think the overwhelmingly left and center-left nature of effective altruism hides a number of ways that effective altruists differ from many (but not all) people on the left.

Liberalism

Effective altruists are liberals in the political philosophy sense. “Liberalism” is a loose term that refers to a wide variety of beliefs, many of which disagree with each other. Common themes in liberal political thought include:

• Economic freedom (markets, private property).
• Political freedom (civil liberties, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, bodily autonomy, privacy).
• Rule of law (equality under the law, clear and consistently applied legal rules).
• Consent of the governed (democracy).

Liberalism is the dominant political ideology in the developed world, so much so that even quite illiberal viewpoints feel the need [...]

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Outline:

(00:44) Liberalism

(03:13) Economics

(08:00) Positive-Sum

(10:35) Technocratic

(14:05) Incrementalist

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First published:

August 22nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iWijgEnYPExRAAJrR/the-effective-altruist-approach-to-politics-effective

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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(This is the rough transcript/summary of a session I am delivering this weekend at EA in the Lakes, and I will be referring people to this post from it.)

As a long-time (non-EA) community events organiser, I have a lot of skills and connections in the provision of budget-friendly community events around and near my town. Some young adult approached me at one of them and said they were an "Effective Altruist" and would I please help them learn to organise events for their young adult philosophy group? They would like to do one weekend a year with the uni students and one weekend a year with people from other cities. Well, I can fairly easy bump my 4 weekend residentials a year at the local scout camp, converted church, or YHA up to 6, particularly if it's for a good cause (they say they do lots of learning [...]

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First published:

August 20th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zcDCAkcziWeKKZGE7/constructing-scalable-funding-neutral-ea-communities-in-the

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Today I'd encountered a question while filling up CEA's group support fund form for basic group running requirements like Zoom subscription, etc. [For community builders who aren't aware of this- linking about it here]. The question was-

Describe your current plan for your group.

Although I was unsure about this then and ended up writing that I'm willing to discuss it with my OSP mentor. I've now ran a check through my current capacity and have inferred that EA Kolkata is almost ready to launch the first Bengali language EA Introductory Online program.

Around 3.5% of the world's population is Bengali. Some other facts that seems relevant to be stated are:

a) India's national anthem and songs were both written and composed by Bengali patriots.

b) The first Asian to receive a Nobel prize was a Bengali- Rabindranath Tagore.

These facts possibly show that having a Bengali [...]

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First published:

August 20th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ft8KXLtGJAeBZ9Roy/effective-altruism-kolkata-will-launch-the-first-ever

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This report is the first in a sequence reporting the results of Wave 2 of the Pulse project by Rethink Priorities (RP). Pulse is a large-scale survey of US adults aimed at tracking and understanding public attitudes towards effective giving and multiple impactful cause areas over time. Wave 2 of Pulse was fielded between February and April of 2025 with ~5600 respondents[1]. Results from our first wave of Pulse, fielded from July-August of 2024, can be found here, with the forum sequence version here.

This part of the Wave 2 sequence focuses on awareness of Effective Altruism (EA) and a range of related public figures and organizations, as well as attitudes towards EA.

Findings at a glance

Survey features:

• Wave 2 of Rethink Priorities’ Pulse project surveyed ~5,600 US adults between February–April 2025, following up on Wave 1 (July–August 2024).
• Results were poststratified to be representative of [...]

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Outline:

(00:58) Findings at a glance

(04:25) Awareness of Effective Altruism

(04:29) Population-level estimation

(06:56) Demographic subgroup estimates

(09:45) Attitudes towards Effective Altruism

(09:49) Attitudes among those who have already heard of EA

(11:25) Attitudes among those who have not heard of EA

(16:10) Awareness of EA-related terms, organizations, and people

(16:16) Terms

(18:08) Organizations

(21:11) People

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First published:

August 22nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ypb6s6zwFiEKBiL3G/wave-2-of-pulse-awareness-and-perceptions-of-effective

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

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