EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

Until recently I thought Julia and I were digging a bit into savings to donate more. With the tighter funding climate for effective altruism we thought it was worth spending down a bit, especially considering that our expenses should decrease significantly in 1.5y when our youngest starts kindergarten. I was surprised, then, when I ran the numbers and realized that despite donating 50% of a reduced income, we were $9k (0.5%) [1] richer than when I left Google two years earlier. This is a good problem to have! After thinking it over for the last month, however, I've decided to start earning less: I've asked for a voluntary salary reduction of $15k/y (10%). [2] This is something I've been thinking about off and on since I started working at a non-profit: it's much more efficient to reduce your salary than it is to make a donation. [...] --- First published: January 15th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3TLTrJS2DZJ5mcrkc/voluntary-salary-reduction --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

It's time once again for EA Forum Wrapped 🎁, a summary of how you used the Forum in 2024 [1].Open your EA Forum Wrapped Thank you for being a part of our community this year! :)^ You can also view your stats from 2023 and 2022. The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: January 3rd, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Xem5o4iRHMSduNcPu/your-2024-ea-forum-wrapped --- 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.

Cross-posted from Otherwise. Most EAs won't find these arguments new. Last month, Emma Goldberg wrote a NYT piece contrasting effective altruism with approaches that refuse to quantify meaningful experiences. The piece indicates that effective altruism is creepily numbers-focused. Goldberg asks “what if charity shouldn’t be optimized?” The egalitarian answer Dylan Matthews gives a try at answering a question in the piece: “How can anyone put a numerical value on a holy space” like Notre Dame cathedral? For the $760 million spent restoring the cathedral, he estimates you could prevent 47,500 deaths from malaria. “47,500 people is about five times the population of the town I grew up in. . . . It's useful to imagine walking down Main Street, stopping at each table at the diner Lou's, shaking hands with as many people as you can, and telling them, ‘I think you need to die to make a cathedral [...] ---Outline:(00:29) The egalitarian answer(01:16) Who prefers magnificence?(03:10) Inequality has its benefits(04:34) Is there enough for everybody to have access to the finer things?(05:37) The balance of good and bad(06:33) Both sides have ugly aspects(07:04) These aren't the only choices(08:58) Related:The original text contained 1 footnote which was omitted from this narration. --- First published: January 13th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/TiFeCBxKj79bohoDY/the-ugly-sides-of-two-approaches-to-charity --- 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.

Poker pro, art collector, photographer, investor, AI researcher, chronic website creator, endless traveller, and omnipresent volunteer in nascent things. An independent and an invariant. I briefly worked with him on an accountability partner service. We had funding but he never invoiced me. Every time I called him he was somewhere else on Earth. Senegal, Israel, Nepal, Egypt. He spent 13 straight months travelling in 2017-8. He wasn't much of a writer - you won't find him on here - but he had started. What suddenly turned out to be his final projects were Poker Camp, Hold'LLM, and Bet Mitzvah, an unwritten book on probability and instrumental reason. Here are some pieces about him from people who knew him much better than me. I expect there to be more. https://andrew.gr/stories/chisness/ https://x.com/chisness https://blog.rossry.net/chisness/ https://redeniusfuneralhomes.com/obituary/max-chiswick/ https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/remembering-life-max-chiswick-aka-chisness-legacy-far-beyond-poker-tables-1844405/ https://oldjewishmen.substack.com/p/bhif-old-jewish-men-loses-a-friend  His last commit was on the 22nd December. He died of malaria on [...] --- First published: January 13th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/r9fJ26ca5cneY3hA8/max-chiswick-1985-2025 --- 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.

I can’t recall the last time I read a book in one sitting, but that's what happened with Moral Ambition by bestselling author Rutger Bregman. I read the German edition, though it's also available in Dutch. An English release is slated for May. The book opens with the statement: “The greatest waste of our times is the waste of talent.” From there, Bregman builds a compelling case for privileged individuals to leave their “bullshit jobs” and tackle the world's most pressing challenges. He weaves together narratives spanning historical movements like abolitionism, suffrage, and civil rights through to contemporary initiatives such as Against Malaria Foundation, Charity Entrepreneurship, LEEP, and the Shrimp Welfare Project. If you’ve been engaged with EA ideas, much of this will sound familiar, but I initially didn’t expect to enjoy the book as much as I did. However, Bregman's skill as a storyteller and his knack for [...] --- First published: January 9th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ooK2FABokexBbXifJ/thoughts-on-moral-ambition-by-rutger-bregman --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Does a food carbon tax increase animal deaths and/or the total time of suffering of cows, pigs, chickens, and fish? Theoretically, this is possible, as a carbon tax could lead consumers to substitute, for example, beef with chicken. However, this is not per se the case, as animal products are not perfect substitutes. I'm presenting the results of my master's thesis in Environmental Economics, which I re-worked and published on SSRN as a pre-print. My thesis develops a model of animal product substitution after a carbon tax, slaughter tax, and a meat tax. When I calibrate this model for the U.S., there is a decrease in animal deaths and duration of suffering following a carbon tax. This suggests that a carbon tax can reduce animal suffering. Key points Some animal products are carbon-intensive, like beef, but causes relatively few animal deaths or total time of suffering because [...] ---Outline:(00:57) Key points(03:07) The Small Animal Replacement Problem(05:46) The model(05:49) Input data and market model(08:14) Measuring animal welfare impacts(09:39) Results(09:42) Carbon taxes(11:31) Slaughter taxes(12:10) Is a carbon tax or a slaughter tax better?(13:41) Cant we just put a simple tax on meat and fish instead?(14:06) Limitations(15:54) Full thesis--- First published: January 3rd, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KbREamTda2sZhKtTz/will-a-food-carbon-tax-lead-to-more-animals-being --- 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.

TL;DR Screwworm Free Future is a new group seeking support to advance work on eradicating the New World Screwworm in South America. The New World Screwworm (C. hominivorax - literally "man-eater") causes extreme suffering to hundreds of millions of wild and domestic animals every year. To date we’ve held private meetings with government officials, experts from the private sector, academics, and animal advocates. We believe that work on the NWS is valuable and we want to continue our research and begin lobbying. Our analysis suggests we could prevent about 100 animals from experiencing an excruciating death per dollar donated, though this estimate has extreme uncertainty. The screwworm “wall” in Panama has recently been breached, creating both an urgent need and an opportunity to address this problem. We are seeking $15,000 to fund a part-time lead and could absorb up to $100,000 to build a full-time team, which would include a [...] ---Outline:(00:07) TL;DR(02:13) What's the deal with the New World Screwworm?(06:01) What we've learnt so far(08:46) Future plans(12:14) Relevant EA discussions on Screwworms:The original text contained 16 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: December 30th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/d2HJ3eysBdPoiZBnJ/launching-screwworm-free-future-funding-and-support-request --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Summary There's a near consensus that EA needs funding diversification but with Open Phil accounting for ~90% of EA funding, that's just not possible due to some pretty basic math. Organizations and the community would need to make large tradeoffs and this simply isn’t possible/worth it at this time. Lots of people want funding diversification It has been two years since the FTX collapse and one thing everyone seems to agree on is that we need more funding diversification. These takes range from off-hand wishes “it sure would be great if funding in EA were more diversified”, to organizations trying to get a certain percentage of their budgets from non-OP sources/saying they want to diversify their funding base[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] to Open Philanthropy/Good Ventures themselves wanting to see more funding diversification[9]. Everyone seems to agree; other people should be giving more money to the EA projects. The Math  Of course, I [...] ---Outline:(00:34) Lots of people want funding diversification(01:11) The Math(03:47) Weighted Average(05:03) Making a lot of money to donate is difficult(09:18) Solutions(09:21) 1. Get more funders(10:35) 2. Spend Less(12:49) 3. Splitting up Open Philanthropy into Several Organizations(13:52) 4. More For-Profit EA Work/EA Organizations Charging for Their Work(16:23) 5. Acceptance(16:59) My Personal Solution(17:26) Conclusion(17:59) Further ReadingsThe original text contained 10 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: December 27th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/x8JrwokZTNzgCgYts/funding-diversification-for-mid-large-ea-organizations-is --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy 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. Progress for factory-farmed animals is far too slow. But it is happening. Practices that once seemed permanent — like battery cages and the killing of male chicks — are now on a slow path to extinction. Animals who were once ignored — like fish and even shrimp — are now finally seeing reforms, by the billions. It's easy to gloss over such numbers. So, as you read the wins below, I encourage you to consider each of these animals as an individual. A hen no longer confined to a cage, a chick no longer macerated alive, a fish no longer dying a prolonged death. I also encourage you to reflect on the role you and [...] --- First published: December 18th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/okEwGpNJnE5Ed9bnW/ten-big-wins-in-2024-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.

Benjamin Todd, a recommender in the SFF grant round, dives into the dynamic funding landscape for AI safety. He discusses the rapid growth of the AI safety community post-ChatGPT and highlights the challenges in funding that haven't quite kept up. Todd reveals recent trends, notably that Good Ventures has changed its funding priorities, leaving gaps in support for various groups. He suggests promising philanthropic investment opportunities and emphasizes careful research for potential donors. His insights are a must-listen for anyone interested in making an impact in AI safety.