Found in the Struce

First of maybe 3 episodes with some audio giving you a flavor of (my experience of) the EA Mexico Fellowship. Most of this episode surrounds my conversations with Agustin Covarrubias.

Some people might find the "Branches of AI Safety" (jump to that section) the most interesting part.

27 May 2023 -- Sorry, I see the audio ordering was wrong — my 30 second comment on Columbus should not have been at the beginning. I moved it.

Practicing what I preach = reading what I wrote... Seeing the effects of your donation and making incremental choices in EA Forum

FITS "The Economics of the Gift" reading

I read and blather about "The Economics of the Gift", an essay I wrote for an interdisciplinary conference and book on "Gift Giving and the 'Embedded Economy' in the ancient world". 

Part of a planned multi-part series on "reading old stuff I wrote and seeing how much I cringe". 

Full essay is HERE

- Profusion data podcast Christmassy special

- EA forum post: seeing the effects of your donation

From the essay abstract:

1. Commercial transactions sustained by reputation are not easily distinguishable from gift exchange economies;

2. Gift-giving allows the giver to accumulate goods that cannot be purchased commercially;

3. When the giver retains some use, experience, or control over the gift, she shares in the consumption of it;

4. Considering behavioural issues such as regret aversion, gift-giving may offer overlooked efficiencies that may balance out the deadweight losses from ‘inadequate gifts’;

5. Aggregate (anonymous) giving can be an important signal of overall group identity and character;

6. Historical modes of ‘giving under pressure’ offer insights for modern public policy and philanthropy

Finally answering the burning question!

... with only a few comments and explainers.

I finished the post, but I hope to make a part III with the footnotes and EA Forum comments on the Post

Reading EA Forum post, "Differences in the Intensity of Valenced Experience across Species" by Jason Schukraft ... with only a few comments and explainers

Oversimply perhaps, do some animals 'feel more pain' (and more pleasure) than others ... so which ones do we need to worry about (the most)?

I mainly made this for myself and people I'm discussing these issues with.

Would it be better for

This is a really tough choice, but one organizations like GiveDirectly need to think about.   How can we consider it? 

I read and discuss Toby Ord's EA Forum post and linked CEA article. And I interject, explain, and comment. A lot.

(By the way, I leave some hypothes.is comments on the latter page, if you want to engage.)

This ties into longstanding a major theoretical and empirical questions in Economics (Welfare economics, Public Choice, Development, Risk preference elicitation, Happiness). But I think it's thorny unresolved. 

But practical choices must be made that rely crucially on how we value (e.g.) the above A versus B. And I really don't know how major orgs (like the World Bank, the UN, USAID, DFiD, WHO, Gates Foundation) and think tanks/research groups (like JPAL, IPA, CGDEV) consider these tradeoffs.

I read  "Cultured meat: A comparison of techno-economic analyses"

I added some comments including a few 'what does this mean?'  cries for help. 

Note, I mentioned stray content in one place when it was actually a link to a google doc -- I was reading this on a black and white e-reader that didn't show this as a link. 

Some highlights: Laugh at my mispronunciation of biological terms, and mixing up the Greek letters upsilon and mu.