EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

Thank you At EAGx Amsterdam, I shared most of this as a talk. I was afraid I'd run out of time, so I decided to do things backwards and start with the thank you. I did not want to miss the most important thing. Since I might lose you halfway reading this long and personal piece, I decided to keep this order. The EA community creates a space that makes it easier to donate and to live my values—and to be okay with living in this world. It normalizes caring about effectiveness and spreadsheets, provides frameworks and research and feedback. This community makes me feel less alone in trying to navigate the absurdity and burden of existence. My Story, Not Yours I am assuming that anything I do is determined by luck and circumstance, nature and nurture. Therefore, one way to explain why I donate is to show you some of those things. This is personal; my story might not be applicable or relatable to you. I’m not sure there's anything practical you can learn from it. But maybe my experience raises questions that help you in your giving journey. First I’ll tell you about my life [...] ---Outline:(00:10) Thank you(00:53) My Story, Not Yours(01:39) My life(08:01) I donate because it helps others(08:17) It's my responsibility to do something(09:23) I should do good responsibly(10:20) I donate because it helps me(10:30) Retail Therapy Donation Therapy Effective Giving(12:39) Convenience of effective giving(14:06) This is how I can live the lives I wont get to live(15:16) How I Donate --- First published: December 31st, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bRMQB85KXz6uzqXkf/why-i-donate-a-personal-story --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

An all too common reason I’ve seen to “quit EA” is disliking aspects of the community. Maybe “they’re” too focused on the “wrong cause area” or are skeptical of yours. Maybe “they” annoy you. Maybe “they” publicly attacked you. I’m putting quotation marks around “they” to highlight an important thing: EA is composed of individuals. Some EAs may annoy you / focus on the "wrong cause area" / publicly attack you / [insert your reason here]. But you don’t have to hang out with them! Imagine you decided you didn’t like science because you didn’t like some scientists. Or even most scientists! That might affect the frequency you go to science conferences. But that shouldn’t affect your appreciation of science itself. Yes, science is a community, but it's also a practice, a goal, a method, an idea, results. EA is too. Not to mention - you don’t have to interact with most scientists! Or EAs! You can just be picky. I only interact with “most EAs” when I post on the EA Forum or the EA subreddit. Otherwise I’ve found my favorite EAs and hangout with them regularly. I treat them as [...] --- First published: December 28th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QPtimJrGBRyqiYzip/don-t-stop-being-an-ea-because-you-dislike-eas-you-don-t --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Explore the fascinating metrics behind two high-performing AI-focused videos that surpassed all expectations. Discover how strategic choices in topic selection and cinematic presentation contributed to their success. Delve into the intriguing differences in audience engagement between the two videos. Learn valuable lessons for future productions, from effective launch strategies to the importance of storytelling. Hear about the positive feedback from creators and researchers, highlighting the content's impact in the AI discourse.

I really enjoyed reading the "why I donate" posts in the past week, so much so that I felt compelled to add my reflections, in case someone finds my reasons as interesting as I found theirs. 1. My money needs to be spent on something, might as well spend it on the most efficient things The core reason I give is something that I think is under-represented in the other posts: the money I have and earn will need to be spent on something, and it feels extremely inefficient and irrational to spend it on my future self when it can provide >100x as much to others. To me, it doesn't seem important whether I'm in the global top 10% or bottom 10%, or whether the money I have is due to my efforts or to the place I was born. If it can provide others 100x as much, it just seems inefficient/irrational to allocate it to myself. Honestly, the post could end here, but there are other secondary reasons/perspectives on why I personally donate that I haven't seen commonly discussed. 2. Spending money is voting on how the global economy allocates its resources In 2017, I read Wealth [...] ---Outline:(00:22) 1. My money needs to be spent on something, might as well spend it on the most efficient things(01:09) 2. Spending money is voting on how the global economy allocates its resources(04:11) 3. I dont think its as bad as some make it out to be(07:35) 4. I donate because Im an atheist (/s) --- First published: December 15th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/CSKob9hGmWM7f7yv8/i-give-because-it-s-the-most-rational-way-to-spend-my-money --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This year, I have given money to a range of EA cause areas. Most of it has either been towards global health and development, or EA infrastructure I believe does or could lead to effective fundraising for global health and development. The following are a list of very selfish personal reasons why I like to do this. I feel the selfless reasons have been adequately covered elsewhere, so I'm intentionally leaving them off. I get to ignore ineffective charity adverts. In order to genuinely convince myself that I am helping, I want to see things like well-regarded cost-effectiveness metrics. I do not like heartstring-tugging advertising or vague statements of "should", particularly to do with orphanages. They make me feel a bit ill. So I am glad that donating effectively gives me a very good justification to ignore them. It is a marker of my politics. I don't believe that poor people I don't know in rich countries are 100× more worthy of my help [i.e. worthy of help that's 100× less cost-efficient] than poor people in poor countries. This is because I don't believe anyone is 100× more worthy than anyone. Choosing to donate based on the cost-effectiveness of [...] ---Outline:(00:36) I get to ignore ineffective charity adverts.(01:02) It is a marker of my politics.(01:36) Giving expresses abundance.(02:32) Ive stopped valuing things by how expensive they are.(03:17) People have stopped (openly) judging me about some of my life choices.(03:56) I get to hang out with cool people and be in the cool kids club.(04:16) It helps me genuinely care about helping people.(04:37) It motivates me at my job.(05:01) By giving effectively, I can do great things. --- First published: December 12th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/84PYRzFCeqZGfgv3N/why-i-donate-some-selfish-reasons --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Note: This post was crossposted from the Coefficient Giving Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. It can feel hard to help factory-farmed animals. We’re up against a trillion-dollar global industry and its army of lobbyists, marketeers, and apologists. This industry wields vast political influence in nearly every nation and sells its products to most people on earth. Against that, we are a movement of a few thousand full-time advocates operating on a shoestring. Our entire global movement — hundreds of groups combined — brings in less funds in a year than one meat company, JBS, makes in two days. And we have the bigger task. The meat industry just wants to preserve the status quo: virtually no regulation and ever-growing demand for factory farming. We want to upend it — and place humanity on a more humane path. Yet, somehow, we’re winning. After decades of installing battery cages, gestation crates, and chick macerators, the industry is now removing them. Once-dominant industries, like fur farming, are collapsing. And advocates are building momentum toward bigger reforms for all farmed animals. Here are [...] --- First published: December 16th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qTnsqYrmSTHawTNa6/ten-big-wins-in-2025-for-farmed-animals --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

George Bridgewater, author of 'The Further Pledge: Voluntary Simplicity', delves into the meaning found in every conscious moment, challenging listeners to recognize their moral responsibilities amidst an unpredictable world. He discusses the concept of the 'Ovarian Lottery', highlighting how luck and circumstances shape our lives. Bridgewater advocates for voluntary simplicity and shares his commitment to live on a salary proportional to the world average, balancing personal joy with altruistic giving, while emphasizing the importance of understanding diverse individual experiences.

The Giving What We Can research team is excited to share the results of our 2025 round of evaluations of charity evaluators and grantmakers! In this round, we completed two evaluations that will inform our donation recommendations for the 2025 giving season. As with our previous rounds, there are substantial limitations to these evaluations, but we nevertheless think that they are a significant improvement to a landscape in which there were previously no independent evaluations of evaluators’ work. In this post, we share the key takeaways from our two 2025 evaluations and link to the full reports. In our conclusion, we explain our plans for future evaluations. Please also see our website for more context on why and how we evaluate evaluators. We look forward to your questions and comments! (Note: we will respond when we return from leave on the 8th of December) Key takeaways from each of our 2025 evaluations The two evaluators included in our 2025 round of evaluating evaluators were: GiveWell (full report) Happier Lives Institute (full report) GiveWell Based on our evaluation, we have decided to continue including GiveWell's Top Charities, Top Charities Fund and All Grants Fund in GWWC's [...] ---Outline:(01:08) Key takeaways from each of our 2025 evaluations(01:25) GiveWell(03:18) Happier Lives Institute (HLI)(06:29) Conclusion and future plans --- First published: December 1st, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sAiHYuuGGT7qvne5P/gwwc-s-2025-evaluations-of-evaluators --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

And Effective Altruism has put my faith community to shame The BeginningWhen I became a Christian age 15 my life began to transform, but sadly my first external play was proclaiming no sex before marriage and saying F#$% a bit less (I’ve since resumed). Two years later at premed, Tuesday was my only night with no tutorial so I joined a church group, which was weirdly labelled “Social Justice”. I had zero clue what this was aboutt, maybe preventing bullying at school?. Our leader Jo opened with a question I’ll never forget. “I’m fundraising for World Vision and I told my chain-smoking friend I’ll buy him a pack of cigs if he joins the fundraising effort. Do you guys think that's OK?” As we discussed the conundrum for the next hour my heart jumped a little. Perhaps my time, skills and money could be useful for something more than just a comfortable life in the ‘burbs…Why do I Give?“When you give….” Jesus Christian motivations for giving vary wildly. Some mostly give to keep their church club solvent, others to save face, but most have deeper motivations. Here are mine. [...] ---Outline:(01:06) Why do I Give?(01:24) Gratitude and Joy(02:24) Utilitarian(03:14) More to come?(03:49) Christians aren't great at Giving(04:04) Father of Earning to Give?(05:07) We're not much better(06:08) Effective Altruist Giving Impresses me --- First published: December 10th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QrQ9jwFSNoEdd373f/i-donate-because-i-am-christian --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

The discussion dives into the challenges of veganism, arguing its ambitious standards may alienate potential supporters. Emre Kaplan highlights the problems in a movement that enforces extreme purity, leading to conflicts and infighting. He emphasizes the need for clearer guidelines to strengthen community bonds. Additionally, the lack of forgiveness for moral missteps discourages retention among followers. Kaplan critiques the focus on behavior over broader political objectives, suggesting a more inclusive approach could benefit the animal advocacy movement.