Here's a talk I gave at an EA university group organizers’ retreat recently, which I've been strongly encouraged to share on the forum. I'd like to make it clear I don't recommend everything discussed in this talk (one example in particular which hopefully will be self-evident), but I do think serious shifts in how EA community members engage with ethics and effective altruism could be quite beneficial for the world.

My first big shift (deciding to take ethics much more seriously) resulted from reading Strangers Drowning, and the second (learning to enjoy the process much more) from getting introduced to Rob Burbea's talks on meditation and ethics. I cover my favorite excerpts from both in this talk.

Part 1: Taking ethics seriously

To set context for this talk, I want to go through an Our World in Data style birds-eye view of how things are trending across key issues often discussed in EA. This is to help get better intuitions for questions like “How well will the future go by default?” and “Is the world on track to eventually solve the most pressing problems?” - which can inform high-level strategy questions like “Should we generally be [...]

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Outline:

(00:51) Part 1: Taking ethics seriously

(03:32) Incentive shifts and moral progress

(04:13) What is incentivized by society?

(06:07) Heroic Responsibility

(10:29) Excerpts from Strangers drowning

(13:36) Opening our eyes to what is unbearable

(17:06) Increasing effectiveness vs. increasing altruism

(19:19) Cognitive dissonance

(20:26) Paragons of moral courage

(22:23) The monk who set himself on fire to protect Buddhism, and didn't flinch

(26:45) What do I most deeply want to honor in this life?

(28:42) Moral Courage and defending EA

(30:53) Acknowledging opportunity cost and grappling with guilt

(32:32) Part 2: Enjoying the process

(32:37) Celebrating what's really beautiful - what our hearts care about

(41:07) Enjoying effective altruism

(43:42) Training our minds to cultivate the qualities we endorse

(45:53) Meditation isn't a silver bullet

(51:33) The timeless words of MLK

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First published:

October 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gWyvAQztk75xQvRxD/taking-ethics-seriously-and-enjoying-the-process

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Here's a talk I gave at an EA university group organizers’ retreat recently, which I've been strongly encouraged to share on the forum. I'd like to make it clear I don't recommend or endorse everything discussed in this talk (one example in particular which hopefully will be self-evident), but do think serious shifts in how we engage with ethics and EA would be quite beneficial for the world.

Part 1: Taking ethics seriously

To set context for this talk, I want to go through an Our World in Data style birds-eye view of how things are trending across key issues often discussed in EA. This is to help get better intuitions for questions like “How well will the future go by default?” and “Is the world on track to eventually solve the most pressing problems?” - which can inform high-level strategy questions like “Should we generally be doing more [...]

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Outline:

(00:32) Part 1: Taking ethics seriously

(04:26) Incentive shifts and moral progress

(05:07) What is incentivized by society?

(07:08) Heroic Responsibility

(11:30) Excerpts from Strangers drowning

(14:37) Opening our eyes to what is unbearable

(18:07) Increasing effectiveness vs. increasing altruism

(20:20) Cognitive dissonance

(21:27) Paragons of moral courage

(23:15) The monk who set himself on fire to protect Buddhism, and didn't flinch an inch

(27:46) What do I most deeply want to honour in this life?

(29:43) Moral Courage and defending EA

(31:55) Acknowledging opportunity cost and grappling with guilt

(33:33) Part 2: Enjoying the process

(33:38) Celebrating what's really beautiful - what our hearts care about

(42:08) Enjoying effective altruism

(44:43) Training our minds to cultivate the qualities we endorse

(46:54) Meditation isnt a silver bullet

(52:35) The timeless words of MLK

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First published:

October 4th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gWyvAQztk75xQvRxD/taking-ethics-seriously-and-enjoying-the-process

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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TL;DR - AIM's applicants skew towards global health & development. We’ve recommended four new animal welfare charities, have the capacity to launch all four, but expect to struggle to find the talent to do so. If you’ve considered moving into animal welfare work, applying to Charity Entrepreneurship to launch a new charity in the space could be of huge counterfactual value.

Part 1: Why you should launch an animal welfare charity

Our existing animal charities have had a lot of impact—improving the lives of over 1 billion animals worldwide. - from Shrimp Welfare Project securing corporate commitments globally and featuring on the Daily Show, to FarmKind's recent success coordinating a $2 million dollar fundraiser for the animal movement on the Dwarkshesh podcast, not to mention the progress of the 40 person army at the Fish Welfare Initiative, Scale Welfare's direct hand-on work at fish farms, and Animal Policy [...]

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Outline:

(00:37) Part 1: Why you should launch an animal welfare charity

(02:07) A few notes on counterfactual founder value

(05:57) Part 2 - The Charity Entrepreneurship Program & Our Latest Animal Welfare Ideas

(06:04) What is the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program?

(06:47) Our recommended animal welfare ideas for 2026

(07:10) 1. Driving supermarket commitments to shift diets away from meat

(07:58) 2. Securing scale-up funding for the alternative protein industry

(08:51) 3. Cage-free farming in the Middle East

(09:30) 4. Preventing painful injuries in laying hens

(10:02) Applications close on October 5th: Apply here.

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First published:

September 29th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aeky2EWd32bjjPJqf/charity-entrepreneurship-is-bottlenecked-by-a-lack-of-great

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Summary: Consumers rejected genetically modified crops, and I expect they will do the same for cultivated meat. The meat lobby will fight to discredit the new technology, and as consumers are already primed to believe it's unnatural, it won’t be difficult to persuade them.

When I hear people talk about cultivated meat (i.e. lab-grown meat) and how it will replace traditional animal agriculture, I find it depressingly reminiscent of the techno-optimists of the 1980s and ‘90s speculating about how genetic modification will solve all our food problems. The optimism of the time was understandable: in 1994 the first GMO product was introduced to supermarkets, and the benefits of the technology promised incredible rewards. GMOs were predicted to bring about the end of world hunger, all while requiring less water, pesticides, and land.

Today, thirty years later, in the EU GM foods are so regulated that they are [...]

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Outline:

(01:56) Why did GMOs fail to be widely adopted?

(02:44) A Bad First Impression

(05:54) Unpopular Corporate Concentration

(07:22) Cultivated Meat IS GMO

(08:45) What timeline are we in?

(10:24) What can be done to prevent cultivated meat from becoming irrelevant?

(10:30) Expect incredible opposition

(11:46) Be ready to tell a clear story about the benefits.

(13:17) A proactive PR Effort

(15:01) First impressions matter

(17:16) Labeling

(19:35) Be ready to discuss concerns about unnaturalness

(21:56) Limitations of the comparison

(23:07) Conclusion

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First published:

September 22nd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rMQA9w7ZM7ioZpaN6/cultivated-meat-a-wakeup-call-for-optimists

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Note: I am the web programme director at 80,000 Hours and the view expressed here currently helps shape the web team's strategy. However, this shouldn't be taken to be expressing something on behalf of 80k as a whole, and writing and posting this memo was not undertaken as an 80k project.

80,000 Hours, where I work, has made helping people make AI go well [1]its focus. As part of this work, I think my team should continue to:

• Talk about / teach ideas and thinking styles that have historically been central to effective altruism (e.g. via our career guide, cause analysis content, and podcasts)
• Encourage people to get involved in the EA community explicitly and via linking to content.

I wrote this memo for the MCF (Meta Coordination Forum), because I wasn't sure this was intuitive to others. I think talking about EA ideas and encouraging people to get [...]

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Outline:

(01:21) 1. The effort to make AGI go well needs people who are flexible and equipped to to make their own good decisions

(02:10) Counterargument: Agendas are starting to take shape, so this is less true than it used to be.

(02:43) 2. Making AGI go well calls for a movement that thinks in explicitly moral terms

(03:59) Counterargument: movements can be morally good without being explicitly moral, and being morally good is whats important.

(04:41) 3. EA is (A) at least somewhat able to equip people to flexibly make good decisions, (B) explicitly morally focused.

(04:52) (A) EA is at least somewhat able to equip people to flexibly make good decisions

(06:04) (B) EA is explicitly morally focused

(06:49) Counterargument: A different flexible & explicitly moral movement could be better for trying to make AGI go well.

(07:49) Appendix: What are the relevant alternatives?

(12:13) Appendix 2: anon notes from others

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First published:

September 25th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oPue7R3outxZaTXzp/why-i-think-capacity-building-to-make-agi-go-well-should

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Intro and summary

“How many chickens spared from cages is worth not being with my parents as they get older?!” - Me, exasperated (September 18, 2021)

This post is about something I haven’t seen discussed on the EA forum but I often talk about with my friends in their mid 30s. It's about something I wish I'd understood better ten years ago: if you are ~25 and debating whether to move to an EA Hub, you are probably underestimating how much the calculus will change when you’re ~35, largely related to having kids and aging parents. Since this is underappreciated, moving to an EA Hub, and building a life there, can lead to tougher decisions later that can sneak up on you.

If you’re living in an EA hub, or thinking about moving, this post explores reasons you might want to head home as you get older, different ways [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Intro and summary

(01:49) Why move to an EA Hub in the first place?

(02:57) How things change as you get older

(05:33) Why YOU might be more likely to feel the pull to head home

(06:49) How did I decide? How should you decide?

(08:38) Consolation prize - moving to a Hub isn't all or nothing

(09:38) Conclusion

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First published:

September 23rd, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZEWE6K74dmzv7kXHP/moving-to-a-hub-getting-older-and-heading-home

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

It's been several years since I was an EA student group organiser, so please forgive any part of this post which feels out of touch (& correct me in comments!)

Wow, student group organising is hard.

A few structural things that make it hard to be an organiser:

1. You maybe haven’t had a job before, or have only had kind of informal jobs. So, you might not have learned a lot of stuff about how to accomplish things at work.
2. You’re probably trying to do a degree at the same time, which is hard enough on its own!
3. You don’t have the structure and benefits provided by a regular 9-5 job at an organisation, like:
   1. A manager
   2. An office
   3. Operational support
   4. People you can ask for help & advice
   5. A network
4. You have, at most, a year or so to skill up before you might be responsible [...]

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First published:

September 12th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMBFSesYeyfDp6Fj4/student-group-organising-is-hard-and-important

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Hi, have you been rejected from all the 80K listed EA jobs you’ve applied for? It sucks, right? Welcome to the club. What might be comforting is that you (and I) are not alone. EA Job listings are extremely competitive, and in the classic EA career path, you just get rejected over and over. Many others have written about their rejection experience, here, here, and here.

Even if it is quite normal for very smart, hardworking, proactive, and highly motivated EAs to get rejected from high-impact positions, it still sucks.

It sucks because we sincerely want to make the world a radically better place. We’ve read everything, planned accordingly, gone through fellowships, rejected other options, and worked very hard just to get the following message:

"Thank you for your interest in [Insert EA Org Name]... we have decided to move forward with other candidates for this role... we're unfortunately [...]

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Outline:

(06:13) A note on AI timelines

(08:51) Time to go forward

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First published:

September 5th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pzbtpZvL2bYfssdkr/rejected-from-all-the-ea-jobs-you-applied-for-what-to-do-now

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Early work on ”GiveWell for AI Safety”

Intro

EA was founded on the principle of cost-effectiveness. We should fund projects that do more with less, and more generally, spend resources as efficiently as possible. And yet, while much interest, funding, and resources in EA have shifted towards AI safety, it's rare to see any cost-effectiveness calculations. The focus on AI safety is based on vague philosophical arguments that the future could be very large and valuable, and thus whatever is done towards this end is worth orders of magnitude more than most short-term effects.

Even if AI safety is the most important problem, you should still strive to optimize how resources are spent to achieve maximum impact, since there are limited resources.

Global health organizations and animal welfare organizations work hard to measure cost-effectiveness, evaluate charities, make sure effects are counterfactual, run RCTs, estimate moral weights, scope out interventions [...]

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Outline:

(00:11) Early work on GiveWell for AI Safety

(00:16) Intro

(02:43) Step 1: Gathering data

(03:00) Viewer minutes

(03:35) Costs and revenue

(04:49) Results

(05:08) Step 2: Quality-adjusting

(05:40) Quality of Audience (Qa)

(06:58) Fidelity of Message (Qf)

(08:05) Alignment of Message (Qm)

(08:53) Results

(09:37) Observations

(12:37) How to help

(13:36) Appendix: Examples of Data Collection

(13:42) Rob Miles

(14:18) AI Species (Drew Spartz)

(14:56) Rational Animations

(15:32) AI in Context

(15:52) Cognitive Revolution

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First published:

September 12th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SBsGCwkoAemPawfJz/how-cost-effective-are-ai-safety-youtubers

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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There's a huge amount of energy spent on how to get the most QALYs/$. And a good amount of energy spent on how to increase total $. And you might think that across those efforts, we are succeeding in maximizing total QALYs.

I think a third avenue is under investigated: marginally improving the effectiveness of ineffective capital. That's to say, improving outcomes, only somewhat, for the pool of money that is not at all EA-aligned.

This cash is not being spent optimally, and likely never will be. But the sheer volume could make up for the lack of efficacy.

Say you have the option to work for the foundation of one of two donors:

• Donor A only has an annual giving budget of $100,000, but will do with that money whatever you suggest. If you say “bed nets” he says “how many”.
• Donor B has a much larger [...]

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Outline:

(01:34) Most money is not EA money

(04:32) How much money is there?

(05:49) Effective Everything?

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First published:

September 8th, 2025

Source:

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/o5LBbv9bfNjKxFeHm/marginally-more-effective-altruism

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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