EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

I'd like to thank Derek Shiller from Rethink priorities for extensive discussions and looking over this post. Introduction I've been following the "animal welfare" debate this week on the EA forum, and noticed that a key crux for a lot of people was that calculations showed that animal welfare campaigns (specifically the "caged chicken corporate campaign") was much more cost effective than a human global health development project like the against malaria foundation. But while most estimates agreed that AW was more effective than GHD, I noticed there was a wide discrepancy in how much more effective it was. Vasco Grilo claimed it was 1500 times better. This report by Laura Duffy of rethink priorities (when you convert from order of magnitude to real numbers in table 1) claimed it was about 60 times better. Whereas if you go the Cross cause comparison website, also by RP, and [...] The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: October 14th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qARKFgYhCqmKB2YpF/explaining-the-discrepancies-in-cost-effectiveness-ratings-a --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

EA Nigeria Summit was the first EA-related conference in Nigeria, and it took place from September 6th to 7th, 2024. The event saw a higher level of interest than we (the organisers) expected. We received applications from individuals across Nigeria and the international community, especially Africans. We accepted 170 applicants for the summit, and a total of 136 participants attended the event. The summit provided an opportunity for the attendees to connect, network, and share ideas and practices, paving the way for potential collaboration and impactful actions at the cost of USD 179.6 per attendee. Some Key Specifics  Location - Chida Event Centre, Utako, Abuja, Nigeria. Applications received - 472, (18 applications were duplicates) Admitted applicants - 170 Confirmed attendees - 137 Number of speakers - 14 Total Expenses - USD 24,611 Cost per attendee - 179.6 USD The first EA-aligned conference in Nigeria!  We [...] ---Outline:(01:03) Some Key Specifics(01:39) The first EA-aligned conference in Nigeria!(02:37) Summit Goal and Strategy(04:19) Attendees and Experience(07:18) Budgeting and Finances(10:14) Content(11:40) Production and Logistics(12:02) Dealing with Vendors:(12:28) Securing the Summit Venue:(13:26) Video Production and Photography(14:00) Printing(14:31) Logistics (Summit Day 1 and 2)(15:19) Communication and Event Tech(16:26) Some Additional Brief(17:12) Core Team and VolunteersThe original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: October 11th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xyGYuoP8EfXmirdZg/retrospective-on-ea-nigeria-summit-our-successes-and --- 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.

Foreword Sadly, it looks like the debate week will end without many of the stronger[1] arguments for Global Health being raised, at least at the post level. I don't have time to write them all up, and in many cases they would be better written by someone with more expertise, but one issue is firmly in my comfort zone: the maths! The point I raise here is closely related to the Two Envelopes Problem, which has been discussed before. I think some of this discussion can come across as 'too technical', which is unfortunate since I think a qualitative understanding of the issue is critical to making good decisions when under substantial uncertainty. In this post I want to try and demystify it. This post was written quickly, and has a correspondingly high chance of error, for which I apologise. I am confident in the core point, and [...] ---Outline:(00:05) Foreword(00:59) Two envelopes: the EA version(02:59) What just happened?(04:17) Some implications(05:27) Global Health vs. Animal Welfare(07:28) ConclusionThe original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: October 13th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/atdmkTAnoPMfmHJsX/multiplier-arguments-are-often-flawed --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

I really loved this quick take from Lizka, especially this part: At the same time, trying to actually do anything is really hard.[4] Appreciation for doers is often undersupplied. Being in leadership positions or engaging in public discussions is a valuable service, but opens you up to a lot of (often stressful) criticism, which acts as a disincentive for being public. Psychological safety is important in teams (and communities), so it's unfortunate that critical environments lead more people to feel like they would be judged harshly for potential mistakes. Not all criticism is useful enough to be worth engaging with (or sharing). Responding to criticism can be time-consuming or otherwise costly and isn’t always worth it.[5] Sometimes people who are sharing “criticism” hate the project for reasons that aren’t what's explicitly stated, or just want to vent or build themselves up.[6] A lot of communities I've been part of-- [...] The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: October 11th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tuSQBGgnoxvsXwXJ3/criticism-is-sanctified-in-ea-but-like-any-intervention --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

For many years, I devoted myself to improving human health and wellbeing. But then I shifted to working to prevent suffering for animals. In this post, I will briefly share some considerations that pushed me to make this change. Violence The phrase ‘animal welfare’ can sound pretty calm and gentle. But when we talk about ‘animal welfare’, we are usually talking about preventing direct, brutal, physical *violence* against sentient beings. Animals in the food system are brutalised, beaten, confined, stabbed, castrated, cut, boiled alive, dragged, gassed, asphyxiated, separated from their mothers/children, violated, skinned. Imagine being castrated, with no anaesthetic. Having your throat slit while you are still conscious. Violated, and forcibly inseminated. Being crammed into a tiny, tiny space for days on end, where you can’t stretch your limbs, or turn around. Skinned alive. There is something so…brutal, maximalist, harsh, extreme about the intense physical violence that we [...] --- First published: October 10th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RZEvk6cBtBg2mpgwS/trigger-warning-violence-animal-vs-human-welfare-sharing --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

In summary, there are two important reasons why I believe it's more important to direct additional resources towards animal welfare over global health: Global health and human welfare are generally improving whilst animal suffering is getting worse at a worrying (and potentially accelerating) rate. For factory farming, the default is it gets worse and worse over the next 50 years. In my view, it's still unclear if we’ll end factory farming and we’re competing with a very powerful incumbent industry to make it happen. I don’t believe the same trajectory is true for global health. Animal welfare is orders of magnitude more neglected on most important metrics: Philanthropic funding, government funding or great people working on the issue. These reasons aren’t necessarily all that is required to think it would be better to spend an additional $100M on animal welfare relative to global health (see the 80,000 Hours [...] --- First published: October 11th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/QbRFwPks5nFLK8i2W/the-default-trajectory-for-animal-welfare-means-vastly-more --- 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.

Intro Suppose you have $100M to give away. You are drawn to the many important opportunities to reduce animal suffering or address pressing issues in global health and development. Your choice about how to allocate the funds could depend on considerations like these: Moral values: How much moral weight do you assign to various non-human species? Are you focused exclusively on hedonic considerations, like reducing suffering? Or do you have other relevant values, such as autonomy? Cost-effectiveness estimates: Species-discounting aside, how many DALYs/$ do the best projects in the area achieve? How fast do returns diminish in these areas? Decision-theoretic values: How do you feel about risk-taking? Are you willing to tolerate a substantial probability that projects will fail? What about non-trivial chances of projects backfiring? Second-order effects: Will giving to one cause set benefit any of your other values? Are there speculative benefits that might flow from [...] ---Outline:(00:09) Intro(02:47) Cross-Cause Cost-Effectiveness Model(02:51) How it works(04:25) What it says(06:53) Portfolio Builder Tool(06:57) How it works(08:12) What it says(10:32) Moral Parliament Tool(10:36) How it works(11:48) What it says(12:02) Parliament composition matters(14:10) Allocation strategy matters(17:27) ConclusionsThe original text contained 5 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: October 7th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/vEwGx9RXnHaMyKhZM/what-do-rp-s-tools-tell-us-about-giving-usd100m-to-aw-or-ghd --- 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.

TLDR: I’ve recently started as a “Research Fellow” at Forethought (focusing on how we should prepare for a potential period of explosive growth and related questions). I left my role on the CEA Online Team, but I still love the Forum (and the Forum/CEA/mod teams) and plan on continuing to be quite active here. I’m also staying on the moderation team as an advisor. ➡️ If you were planning on reaching out to me about something Forum- or Online-related, you should probably reach out to Toby Tremlett or email forum@effectivealtruism.org. What's in this post? I had some trouble writing this announcement; I felt like I should post something, but didn’t know what to include or how to organize the post. In the end, I decided to write down and share assorted reflections on my time at CEA, and not really worry about putting everything into a cohesive frame or [...] ---Outline:(00:44) What's in this post?(02:17) Briefly: more context on the change(03:45) A note on EA and CEA(04:32) Assorted notes from my time at CEA(04:37) Some things about working at CEA that I probably wouldn’t have predicted(04:44) 1. Working with a manager and working in a team have been some of the best ways for me to grow.(05:33) 2. I like CEA's team values and principles a lot more than I expected to. (And I want to import many of them wherever I go.)(08:39) 3. A huge number of people I worked and interacted with are incredibly generous and compassionate, and this makes a big difference.(10:40) Some things about my work at CEA that were difficult for me(10:46) 1. My work was pretty public. This has some benefits, and also some real downsides.(12:31) 2. Many people seem confused about what CEA does, and seemed to assume incorrect things about me because I was a CEA staff member.(14:58) 3. My job involved working on or maintaining many different projects, which made it difficult for me to focus on any single thing or make progress on proactive projects.(16:03) 4. Despite taking little of my time, moderation was quite draining for me.(18:26) Looking back on my work(23:08) Thank you!The original text contained 11 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: October 3rd, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SPZv8ygwSPtkzo7ta/announcing-my-departure-from-cea-and-sharing-assorted-notes --- 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 recently had a conversation with a teammate that made me reflect on a possible cultural issue within the EA community. This teammate had expressed in a few meetings that they wanted to take on various new projects and expand their scope of responsibility. As their manager, I wanted to have Alliance Mentality to support them where possible. However, from my perspective, a slightly more tightly scoped role was probably a bit better for the team: their core responsibilities are vital for the team (and for what it's worth, when I try to do them, I'm much worse at them!). During our recent one-on-one, realized that we both preferred the more tightly scoped role. More importantly, we uncovered that they had internalized a cultural norm from EA that people needed to be constantly changing or expanding their roles to be doing a good job. I wanted to write a [...] ---Outline:(00:58) The Pressure to Change Roles(01:42) The Value of Steady Hands(02:38) Shifting the Narrative--- First published: September 30th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Q3DbyrFjqED9Y5Rz3/appreciating-stable-support-roles-at-ea-orgs --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

TLDR: Sign up here to join a six-month experiment to democratize effective giving. The experiment establishes a community who agree to allocate charitable gifts proportionally to member votes. You’ll help make EA donations more representative of the community's cause prioritization. Sign up and pledge by October 15th to participate in our first round. Equal Hands is a 6-month trial in democratizing charitable giving among EA cause areas. Here's how it works: You pledge to give a certain amount each month. Each month that you pledge, vote on the optimal distribution of the donated money across causes (1 vote per person, no matter how much you give). The total amount of money pledged is split out proportionally to the total of the votes, so that no matter how much you gave, your voice equally influences the final allocation. To actually make the gifts, you will be assigned a particular [...] ---Outline:(02:42) Effective giving overly weighs the views of a few decision makers.(06:13) How will Equal Hands work exactly? An example funding round(08:58) The Details(09:01) The process(10:16) Transparency(10:36) Improvements(10:51) FAQ(10:54) Why would individual people participate?(11:31) What causes can I vote on?(13:15) Why not just establish some kind of fund people can donate to and then vote on the allocation of its grants?(13:42) Why cause areas and not individual charities?(15:33) Why these specific charities to represent these cause areas and not \[my preferred charity\]?(16:00) Why do I have to donate a minimum amount to participate?(16:22) Can I give via another entity to one of the listed charities?(16:52) Why not quadratic funding / some other hip mechanism?(17:11) Will I have to donate to causes I don’t care about?(17:44) What happens if this goes well?(17:54) How is this governed/funded/run?--- First published: September 28th, 2024 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/eDJfRrMveExXmmEpX/announcing-equal-hands-an-experiment-in-democratizing --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.