EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

Our room for more funding is bigger and more urgent than ever before. Our organizational strategy will be responsive both to the total amount raised and to how many people donate, so smaller donors will have an especially high impact this year. Good Ventures recently decided to phase out funding for several areas (GV blog, EA Forum post), including wild animal welfare. That's a pretty big shock to our movement. We don’t know what exactly the impact will be, except that it's complicated. The purpose of this post is to share what we know and how we’re thinking about things — primarily to encourage people to donate to Wild Animal Initiative this year, but also for anyone else who might be interested in the state of the wild animal welfare movement more broadly. Summary Track record Our primary goal is to support the growth of a [...] ---Outline:(00:53) Summary(03:44) What we’ve accomplished so far(03:48) Background(04:12) Strategy(05:39) Progress(11:56) Why we need more funding, especially from smaller donors(12:02) We always have room to grow, but now we need to make sure we don’t shrink.(13:11) We raised less last year than we did the year before.(13:59) We’re losing our biggest donor.(16:37) Another donor could make up the funds, but not the security.(18:25) Smaller donors have a bigger role to play.(20:04) What we’ll do with your donation(24:15) ConclusionThe original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 6th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/idhTjyNTsyxobijyJ/wild-animal-initiative-has-urgent-need-for-more-funding-and --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Someone suggested I name this post "What We Owe The Community": I think it's a great title, but I didn't dare use it... Views and mistakes my own. What I believe I think owning our EA affiliation—how we are inspired by the movement and the community—is net positive for the world and our careers. If more people were more outspoken about their alignment with EA principles and proximity to the EA community, we would all be better off. While there may be legitimate reasons for some individuals to not publicly identify as part of the EA movement, this can create a “free-rider problem”. If too many people choose to passively benefit from EA without openly supporting it, the overall movement and community may suffer from it. Why I think more people should own their EA affiliation publicly I understand why one doesn’t, but I’d probably not support it in [...] ---Outline:(00:15) What I believe(00:51) Why I think more people should own their EA affiliation publicly(01:11) The risks(01:40) A prisoner's dilemma(02:22) Tipping points(03:26) On transparency(05:18) Where I come from(05:22) Event branding(06:01) Getting hiredThe original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 5th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TLKFfXJ4gPeXDkBC9/on-owning-our-ea-affiliation --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TL;DR FarmKind is a new effective giving platform dedicated to tackling factory farming We’ve just launched - www.farmkind.giving There are many ways you can help us if you’re interested - details below FarmKind's aim Factory farming is one of the most neglected cause areas relative to the amount of suffering it causes. Globally, Farmed Animal Funders estimates that just $200 million is channeled specifically to this issue,[1] while more than 10 billion land animals (excluding insects) are factory farmed annually in the US alone.[2] Even when it comes to effective altruism, factory farming is a minority within a minority. We estimate that less than 10% of the funds raised by effective giving organizations go to factory farming.[3] All this despite the fact that proven interventions in the lives of factory-farmed animals remain arguably some of the most cost-effective ways to prevent suffering that we have yet [...] ---Outline:(00:08) TL;DR(00:26) FarmKind's aim(02:39) Our story so far(03:29) DON’T donate though us (please)(04:58) How you can helpThe original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: August 2nd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/D3Gqv9oiDkbmRgGJe/farmkind-a-new-animal-fundraising-platform-is-live-please --- 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.

Prepared by James Fodor and Miles Tidmarsh EAGxAustralia 2023 Committee Abstract EAGx conferences are an important component of the effective altruism community, and have proven a popular method for engaging EAs and spreading EA ideas around the world. However, to date relatively little publicly available empirical evidence has been collected regarding the long term impact of such conferences on attendees. In this observational study we aimed to assess the extent to which EAGx conferences bring about change by altering EA attitudes or behaviours. To this end, we collected survey responses from attendees of the EAGxAustralia 2023 conference both before and six months after the conference, providing a measure of changes in EA-related attitudes and behaviours over this time. As a control, we also collected responses to the same survey questions from individuals on the EA Australia mailing list who did not attend the 2023 conference. Across 20 numerical measures [...] ---Outline:(00:17) Abstract(01:48) Background(05:40) Methods(12:39) Results(12:42) Conference attendees differ from non-attendees(14:58) EA attitudes and behaviours are highly stable over time(16:38) Discussion(24:18) Recommendations--- First published: July 27th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fGAnywCekpgHoaLc5/case-control-survey-of-eagx-attendees-finds-no-behavioural --- 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.

Summary Rebecca Kagan believes “EA needs an investigation, done externally and shared publicly, on mistakes made in the EA community's relationship with FTX.” She is far from the only person who has called for an independent investigation, but Kagan's experience and knowledge as a former board member of Effective Ventures makes her perspective particularly relevant. Explaining her decision to resign from EV's board, Kagan wrote: “I want to make it clear that I resigned last year due to significant disagreements with the board of EV and EA leadership, particularly concerning their actions leading up to and after the FTX crisis… I believe there were extensive and significant mistakes made which have not been addressed. (In particular, some EA leaders had warning signs about SBF that they ignored, and instead promoted him as a good person, tied the EA community to FTX, and then were uninterested in reforms or investigations [...] ---Outline:(00:08) Summary(06:11) Communications from EA leaders have not been forthcoming about important factual matters.(06:45) Circa ~2017, SBF was one of 80k and CEA's largest donors.(08:30) SBF served on CEA's board.(09:00) SBF worked for CEA.(09:20) Multiple EA leaders and organizations were aware about allegations stemming from the Alameda dispute.(10:24) Open questions:(11:37) There are worrisome discrepancies between comments from EA leaders and credible media reports.(12:01) Will's professed ignorance about inappropriate romantic relationships SBF had while at Alameda directly conflicts with Time's reporting on the subject.(12:57) Will's characterization of what complaints he heard about SBF related to the Alameda dispute, and when he heard them, conflicts with Time's reporting(14:52) Nobody in EA leadership has publicly acknowledged the New Yorker's report that many leaders received warnings that SBF was being investigated for criminal behavior four months before FTX's collapse (other than to deny personally having seen said warnings)(16:27) EA leadership has not acknowledged an internal CEA investigation and/or board assessment conducted relating to Alameda, which both Time and Semafor have reported(18:00) Open questions:(20:49) EA leaders have made public claims about post-FTX reforms that could easily be construed as misleading(22:49) Open questionsThe original text contained 14 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 24th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/P9phn7uhjiCvaCPDZ/we-need-an-independent-investigation-into-how-ea-leadership --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

This is a link post. Folks in philanthropy and development definitely know that the Gates Foundation is the largest private player in that realm by far. Until recently it was likely to get even larger, as Warren Buffet had stated that the Foundation would receive the bulk of his assets when he died. A few weeks ago, Buffet announced that he had changed his mind, and was instead going to create a new trust for his assets, to be jointly managed by his children. It's a huge change, but I don't think very many people took note of what it means ("A billionaire is going to create his own foundation rather than giving to an existing one; seems unsurprising."). So I created this chart: The new Buffet-funded trust is going to be nearly twice as large as the Gates Foundation, and nearly 150% larger than most of the other brand [...] --- First published: July 15th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/bqi2M8oayRDvuGQg9/warren-buffett-changes-giving-plans-for-the-worse --- 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.

Link to tool: https://parliament.rethinkpriorities.org (1 min) Introductory Video (6 min) Basic Features Video Executive Summary This post introduces Rethink Priorities’ Moral Parliament Tool, which models ways an agent can make decisions about how to allocate goods in light of normative uncertainty. We treat normative uncertainty as uncertainty over worldviews. A worldview encompasses a set of normative commitments, including first-order moral theories, values, and attitudes toward risk. We represent worldviews as delegates in a moral parliament who decide on an allocation of funds to a diverse array of charitable projects. Users can configure the parliament to represent their own credences in different worldviews and choose among several procedures for finding their best all-things-considered philanthropic allocation. The relevant procedures are metanormative methods. These methods take worldviews and our credences in them as inputs and produce some action guidance as an output. Some proposed methods have taken inspiration from political or market processes involving agents [...] ---Outline:(00:24) Executive Summary(02:18) Introduction(03:47) How does it work?(04:21) Worldviews(08:07) Projects(10:45) Metanormative parliament(12:11) The Moral Parliament Tool at work(12:16) (How) do empirical assumptions matter?(12:20) Uncertainties about scale(14:13) How much does scale matter?(16:10) An example project: The Cassandra Fund(19:15) What would an EA parliament do?(19:21) Normative uncertainty among EAs(21:17) Results(24:12) Takeaways(26:40) Getting Started(27:04) AcknowledgmentsThe original text contained 9 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 17th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HxphJhSiXBQ74uxJX/rethink-priorities-moral-parliament-tool --- 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.

Highlights Destabilization could be the biggest setback for great power conflict, AI, bio-risk, and climate disruption. Polarization plays a role in nearly every causal pathway leading to destabilization of the United States, and there is no indication polarization will decrease. The United States fits the pattern of past democracies that have descended into authoritarian regimes in many key aspects. The most recent empirical research on civil conflicts suggests the United States is in a category that has a 4% annual risk of falling into a civil conflict. In 2022 (when this was originally written), Mike Berkowitz, ED of Democracy Funders Network and 80,000 Hours guest, believes there is 50% chance American democracy fails in the next 6 years. For every dollar spent on depolarization efforts, there are probably at least a hundred dollars spent aggravating the culture war. Destabilization of the United States could wipe out billions of dollars of pledged EA funds. Note following the [...] ---Outline:(00:07) Highlights(01:16) Note following the assassination attempt of former President Trump(02:45) Preface(06:10) Acknowledgements(06:24) Summary(09:08) Possibility(10:02) Big picture(10:06) Authoritarianism(12:57) Civil conflict(16:50) Polarization(20:40) How close we already came (January 6th)(26:42) A note on the military counter argument(28:18) Top reasons why the United States wouldn’t destabilize(29:14) What I would have included in a longer version(29:51) Conclusion(31:36) Importance(31:59) Global ramifications and great power conflict(33:17) Artificial Intelligence and bio-risk(33:22) Applicable to both(34:27) Artificial Intelligence(34:48) Accelerating climate disruption(34:52) Authoritarianism(35:25) Civil conflict(36:08) Significance(37:02) Effects on the Effective Altruism movement(37:06) Talent(37:29) Funds(38:15) Plausible scenario(39:01) Neglectedness(40:36) Through the lens of polarization(42:03) Tractability(44:15) What is needed(44:18) The broad needs(44:46) Structural-reform needs\[80\](46:03) Needs for stopping polarizing forces(46:38) Needs for Depolarizing the population(46:58) Why it's difficult(47:02) Structural reform(47:36) Stopping polarizing forces(49:01) Depolarize the population(50:36) Where there is traction(50:40) Ballot initiatives(51:29) Robust federalism(51:48) Prescription (what OP/EA could do)(53:04) Funding and scaling existing efforts(53:09) Create an operation focused on recruiting more funders and key non-funder partners to this effort(54:00) Fund ballot initiative efforts and organizations(56:15) Fund existing depolarization efforts and organizations(56:51) Fund new organizations to fill gaps through an approach similar to the arrangement between CE and FTX for biosecurity(57:54) Fund experiments/projects that will give us actionable information(58:30) Miscellaneous interventions(58:34) Preempting accelerationist events(01:00:19) Invest in local journalism(01:00:51) Promote sincere populist leadership in the Republican apparatus to replace culture warriors(01:03:49) Invest in mutual aid networks(01:04:17) Strengthening unions and preparing for a general strike(01:05:32) My personal favorite(01:05:36) Left-Right coalitions to run a slate of ballot-initiatives for structural reform(01:06:49) Uncertainties (why OP/EA should do a medium-level investigation)(01:08:21) Conclusion/call to action--- First published: July 15th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kmx3rKh2K4ANwMqpW/destabilization-of-the-united-states-the-top-x-factor-ea --- 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.

Summary/Introduction Aschenbrenner's ‘Situational Awareness’ (Aschenbrenner, 2024) promotes a dangerous narrative of national securitisation. This narrative is not, despite what Aschenbrenner suggests, descriptive, but rather, it is performative, constructing a particular notion of security that makes the dangerous world Aschenbrenner describes more likely to happen. This piece draws on the work of Nathan A. Sears (2023), who argues that the failure to sufficiently eliminate plausible existential threats throughout the 20th century emerges from a ‘national securitisation’ narrative winning out over a ‘humanity macrosecuritization narrative’. National securitisation privileges extraordinary measures to defend the nation, often centred around military force and logics of deterrence/balance of power and defence. Humanity macrosecuritization suggests the object of security is to defend all of humanity, not just the nation, and often invokes logics of collaboration, mutual restraint and constraints on sovereignty. Sears uses a number of examples to show that when issues are constructed as issues [...] ---Outline:(03:08) Section 1- What is securitisation(07:45) Section 2: Sears 2023 - The macrosecuritization of Existential Threats to humanity(16:30) Section 3 - How does this relate to Aschenbrenner's 'Situational Awareness'?(19:54) Section 4 - Why Aschenbrenners narrative is dangerous and the role of expert communities(29:40) Section 5- The possibility of a moratorium, military conflict and collaboration(36:56) Conclusion--- First published: July 15th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/H6xEhur9Lbbv9dhBC/against-aschenbrenner-how-situational-awareness-constructs-a --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I'm often asked about how the existential risk landscape has changed in the years since I wrote The Precipice. Earlier this year, I gave a talk on exactly that, and I want to share it here. Here's a video of the talk and a full transcript. In the years since I wrote The Precipice, the question I’m asked most is how the risks have changed. It's now almost four years since the book came out, but the text has to be locked down a long time earlier, so we are really coming up on about five years of changes to the risk landscape. I’m going to dive into four of the biggest risks — climate change, nuclear, pandemics, and AI — to show how they’ve changed. Now a lot has happened over those years, and I don’t want this to just be recapping the news in fast-forward. But [...] ---Outline:(01:30) Climate Change(01:58) Carbon Emissions(03:18) Climate Sensitivity(06:43) Nuclear(06:46) Heightened Chance of Onset(08:16) Likely New Arms Race(09:54) Funding Collapse(10:53) Pandemics(10:56) Covid(16:03) Protective technologies(18:59) AI in Biotech(20:32) AI(20:50) RL agents ⇒ language models(24:59) Racing(27:05) Governance(30:14) Conclusions--- First published: July 12th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iKLLSYHvnhgcpoBxH/the-precipice-revisited --- 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.