Hello!
I posted this in a short form, but I guess it's also good to post it here.

I am a startup founder. My company is starting to work well by itself - I have about one full free day per week. My skills are team building, start-up building, remote team building, and software development.

How can I help? Is there a list of open projects that one could take on?  🤔

And for a bit of background, I came upon EA a couple of months ago and found it very meaningful. I attended my first meetup last week and also start the Giving What We Can pledge in September.

Nice to meet you all!

I'm Rob, new around here. 

I read Doing Good Better a few years ago, got interested in EA and started channeling >50% of my charity donations through EA. But wasn't very active in the EA community. This year I decided to take the EA online intro course. And with the course - plus all the reading and podcasts around it - I've been gravitationally sucked into the EA universe (in a good way).

My specific intention right now is to work on Improving Institutional Decision-Making as that is pretty close to what I do for living at the moment.

My background is in psychology (undergrad) & then marketing (17 years professional career) & now coaching leadership teams (inc. around their strategy and key decisions).

If anyone is based in Australia and especially Sydney, let me know - I have checked out EA Sydney on facebook and meetup and haven't seen many upcoming events.

Hello everyone.

I have been following the 80000hours podcast and Peter Singers work for years. So naturally I had considered creating an account here as well, but what ultimately pushed me over the edge was that I wanted to point out a typo xD

My philosophy can mostly be described as utilitarian to the extent that this doesn't interfere with truthfulness, which fits well with EA to a point (I also value certain virtues and principles, but that shouldn't be too relevant). The main reason why I decided against joining this forum for the longest time is its pol... (read more)

Hey Y'all, I'm Mar! I'm an undergraduate student studying Arts and Humanities with a focus in community engagement and a minor in Sustainable Natural Resource Recreation Management.

Learning about EA was entirely a coincidence. I started seeing more and more recommended tweets that interested and/or inspired me. I like the emphasis on reason and rationality, the acceptance of people of diverse world views, and that everyone seems genuinely kind. I followed more accounts, and saw "EA" in many of the bios. I had literally no idea what that meant, and didn't think much about it until I noticed the majority of people I followed were identifying as Effective Altruists. I started to read more about it, and I like many of the ideas and values. 

I feel lucky to have found EA. I've been frustrated with my college and degree path. I'm in a small liberal arts program that produces and encourages unrealistic, unproductive, echo-chamber ideas and culture. Some examples are: a non-acceptance of political or economic ideas other than communism or socialism, valuing identity politics over factual information, none of my community engagement classes involving doing community engagement,  an... (read more)

Hey everybody!

One of my friends is interested in learning more about EA and I am trying to find good resources to recommend to her. The thing is, her English is only so-so; her preferred language is Spanish. I found a couple websites that give brief overviews of some EA ideas, but I am having a hard time finding comprehensive EA texts in Spanish.

Does anyone know of any EA resources in Spanish that could be helpful?

Thanks!

Hi everyone, 

In this recent critique of EA, Erik Hoel claims that EA is sympathetic towards letting AGI develop because of the potential for billions of happy AIs (~35 mins) . He claims that this influences EA funding to go more towards alignment rather than trying to prevent/delay AGI (such as through regulation). 

Is this true, or is it a misrepresentation of why EA funding goes towards alignment? For example, perhaps it is because EAs think AGI is inevitable or it is too difficult to delay/prevent? 

Thanks very much! 

Lucas 

Hi everyone!

About me

I'm a new PhD student in Computer Science (specifically Cloud-Edge computing). Interested in most CS technology and have a decent understanding of related subjects like AI, HPC, and math. Hobby interest in philosophy and psychology. I live in a small city in northern Sweden called Umeå.

Experience with EA

I'm completely new to the community. I have Will MacASkill's and his book "What We Owe the Future" to thank for finding this community Long time ago I read Yuval Noah Harari's books, specifically the "21 questions for the 21st cen

Hi all! I'm a 40 year old mom who just (re)discovered 80,000 Hours, and through it this forum. I am look at a career change (though I don't know if I really have had a "career" up to this point), and I have the luxury of taking some time to figure out where I could be most useful and enjoy what I'm working on.

I really like the concept of using my time/skills/money to do the most good, though I find that (I think like many people), I place slightly different value on some parts of EA vs. some of the introductory posts I have read. So far, I am interested in social justice issues, promoting/preserving democracy, what future government might look like, and the general preservation of human life through access to preventative medicine and stable food and water supply.

I have background/some skills in many areas, including electronics repair and manufacturing, inventory management, web design, copy writing, video editing, photography and photo editing, box office/front-of-house, retail customer service, shipping coordination, planning and facilitating children's programming. I don't really see how this might get me a job at a very EA-centric company, but who knows.

For now my goal is to learn and connect, so if you have any recommendations for things I should read or just want to say hi, please send me a message.

Hi, Folks! I'm Wahhab Baldwin, a 78-year-old retired software developer and manager and minister. I have donated at least 10% of my income for decades, strongly favoring effectiveness. I ran into EA through the Podcast interview with William MacAskill on "People I (Mostly) Admire." 

I strongly affirm much of EA, but I disagree with certain elements, and hope I am able to have some enlightening conversations here. I hope tomorrow to write a post on longtermism. As a preview, I will argue that we must discount a future good compared to a present good. It is better to save a life this year than to save a life next year. If we discount at the conservative rate of 2% per year, then a life 1000 years from now should be valued at 1/600,000,000 of a life today, meaning (imo) that we should really focus only on the next century. But before you argue, read my more detailed post! I look forward to our conversation. (Now at https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xvsmRLS998PpHffHE/concerns-with-longtermism).

Hi everyone! I have a question for moral philosophers here! People in animal advocacy sometimes debate about some type of "contrary to duty imperatives" in which an advocate makes a demand that might "countenance" some constraint violation. For example: "Please do not consume any animal products, but if you are going to eat some at all, at least leave fish, chicken and eggs off your plates" or "Stop using cage-eggs".  I found it surprisingly difficult to find academic discussion around the morality of uttering these sentences, so if you are aware of anything useful, please share!

Is there a good resource on moral views? I'm reading moral uncertainty at the moment, and Will touches on utilitarianism, consequentialism, etc. I thought to myself that it would be helpful to find a resource that lists most mainstream views and maybe help people navigate through them to understand them better and add credence to them. I could not find such a website. 

If anyone can point me to a good resource that can help me better understand these moral views, that would be awesome. Merci!

As Ukrainian woman who was forced to leave the country with two kids, I wonder how I can help Ukrainians to donate more efficiently. Ukrainians become more and more conscious and altruistic nation, but I am sure that most volunteers and donors are not efficient enough. I appreciate any information links on this cause. Thank you.

Anyone interested in an EA unconference on gather dot town during EA global? Seems like an easy way to open up the event to those who weren't selected by the annointed and/or can't make it logistically. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dsCTSCbfHWxmAr2ZT/open-ea-global 

I'm seeing that two posts are now starred. If I recall correctly, LW mods used to leave a comment explaining why when they did that, which I thought was a neat thing to do. I'd also appreciate a way to turn it off.

Hi everyone.
I'm Riccardo working on a mobile game with a group of activists.

I decided to look into the EA forums again after listening to an interview with Will MacAskill on Ali Abdaal's YouTube channel, if you haven't seen it, it's one of the best interviews I have seen with Will.

I checked out the forums years ago, so I thought I'd give it another try and look a bit through the most popular posts and see what people here are up to.

Looking forward to see how things have developed since the last time

Hi all,

I am new to the forum, but not new to the ideas behind EA. I read Will's book back in 2015 when I met him in the US, and have been inspired to do the most good with my career. I have lurked on the forum for a while, but would like to meet more in the community so finally introducing myself. :)

I currently work on digital at the UNDP,  but also potentially open to new opportunities. 

I am curious to learn more about organisations working on longtermism policy research and advisory,  if there are any? 

I would love to connect with oth... (read more)

Hi everyone! I'm trying to learn more about Land Use Reform (YIMBY) Advocacy as a cause area. Are there any cost-effectiveness estimates of the work on this?

Hello All, 

I have been giving through Givewell to a charity for years (on and off) since hearing William MacKaskill on Sam Harris's podcast in 2016. 

I would absolutely love to get any feedback from the EA community on a movement / platform, called Value Life, that I would like to conceptualise. Or even where I could or should potentially post?  

A high-level overview is provided in my first Substack newsletter here (which contains a short (<4min) video about what the Value Life community and platform is, or is striving to be). 

https:/... (read more)

Hi folks,

newcomer here.

I am looking for advice on what to do when i have -finally, at long last- finished my masters degree in bioprocess engineering at a major university in southern germany (KIT, Karlsruhe).

There is a lot of cool research going on here and staying at my cozy environment, working on a doctorate degree seems tempting. But staying in academia until i am fourty (which isn't too long anymore) could hamper my ability to find a job later.

I could most likely find a well-paying job in a major Pharma company, but working as a small gear in a big c... (read more)

As a brand new newcomer to EA, only a day or two, my fairly ignorant first impression is to wonder whether EA culture is too intellectual.  

It could be argued that the most successful effective altruism effort in the history of Western civilization has been Christianity.  (FYI, I'm not Christian)  As example, in the United States Catholic Charities is the second leading provider of services to the needy, topped only by the federal government.   And that's not counting the very many Protestant charity projects.

Certainly there is an intel... (read more)

[FOUNDING ENGINEER JOB OPPORTUNITY]

Dear all,

My name is Drew Schneider and I am the co-founder and CPO at Chariot. Chariot is a payment network for the $420B+ in charitable donations. We build the financial infrastructure that connects nonprofits to complex charitable assets. Chariot is a mission-driven organization aiming to get more dollars into the hands of nonprofits around the world.

We are currently backed by Y Combinator (backed Airbnb, Stripe, Instacart, Coinbase), Spark Capital (backed Twitter, Snapchat, Plaid, Slack, Oculus), SV Angel (backed Googl... (read more)

Dear all,

My name is Arturo Macias. I am a 45 years old economist working at Banco de España, the Spanish Central Bank. I have recently finished my Ph.D (see my ORCID account for my published papers: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1623-0957) and consequently I have recovered a substantial amount of free time. 

While I have a great deal of simpathy to the whole Effective Altruism movement my main interest is related to intitutional desing and economic estabilization.  In my view among the main existential risk bottlenecks for this Dangerous Century, a ... (read more)

Hey everyone! My name is Stew, and I'm a 22 year old recent college graduate. I first heard of effective altruism through the media I consume (podcasts, written media, etc.) and became further interested in the topic after taking a philosophy class at my university. I've lurked on this forum before and browsed sites such as 80,000 hours, but the recent momentum EA has gained in the mainstream has prompted me to create an account. Looking forward to interacting with all of y'all! Cheers. 

Hi 👋 my name is Sarah, I’m 42 and I live in Calgary Canada.

I first heard about ‘doing good better’ from Sam Bankman-Fried, it was a very new and interesting topic to me and finally got me into EA.

Since I was 22 I’ve started donating a small portion of my income through sponsorship, the first family I sponsored was a mom with two very young kids who lost their dad in an accident. Today I have 4 families which introduced to me through a trustable friend and all are living in a middle eastern country. I believe in the world as a whole and I know a few dolla... (read more)

"Hello World!" 
My name's Fazle. 
I'm an 11th grader(2nd grade senior high) student in Indonesia.

I first came across EA from the book 'Impact' by Christen Brandt and Tammy Tibbetts.
I bought this book alongside 2 other books, 'Immune' & 'Kingdom of Speech'
Forgot the specific reason why I choose Impact & Kingdom of Speech out of all available books I could choose, but one thing for sure is 'to broaden my horizons.'
Immune coz its Kurzgesagt's.
At the time, when 'Impact' mentioned Effective Altruism, I have no idea what is it. 
Is this some ... (read more)

Hi all!  My name's Tom. I'm an A level student in the UK, currently studying Politics, Philosophy and Environmental Science. My main forays into the world of altruism include volunteering at Oxfam for a period and donating to the odd charity here or there. Admittedly though, Oxfam isn't a very effectively targeted organisation, and the charities I have previously donated to have been more based on superficial measures such as my respect for people who endorse them or have been motivated by disaster responses.

The issue I'm most concerned about is Climate Change, which I notice doesn't seem to be as big an issue for many members of the EA community. My subject A level choices were largely influenced by my aspirations to help tackle Climate Change, and ideally I'd like to move into an effective career in this area ASAP. However, some of the stuff I've read in the EA community, particularly some of the advice of 80000hours.org has made me contemplate this plan, but I think it is something I'll have to contemplate further.

I seem to remember that I initially found Effective Altruism through the reddit page after I google search on some adjacent topic that I can no longer remember. I... (read more)

Hi. I'm based in the UK, and run a sizeable reuse/regifting movement called Freegle (www.ilovefreegle.org).

After reading too much Peter Singer, I donated a kidney and am involved in the Give A Kidney charity, which promotes non-directed (aka "altruistic") kidney donation.

None of this is effective as cataract operations, of course.

Have any prominent EA philosophers engaged with critiques of consequentialism? Are there canoncial examples of those that people might point to? I don't really have a desire to write a several thousand word essay though would be curious what more philosophically inclined EA's think of works like "Beyond Consequentialism" by my old prof Paul Hurley. ( https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Consequentialism-Paul-Hurley/dp/0199698430 ) 

Hey, I'm Jeffrey Arana. Raised and reside in Hudson County, NJ. I live right across Manhattan so you might have seen me in EA NYC events.

I first heard about EA through the Peter Singer TED Talk and then went down that rabbit hole. I kind of fell off and would donate 10% of my paychecks here and there until Sam Harris interviewed Toby Ord a year ago and got me thinking about having a career in EA.

Some personal non-EA things about me: I love to play and watch football (I'm sorry, soccer),  penny board around NYC and my neighborhood, try cooking some new... (read more)

Hi! My name is Liza Munk, and I found out about EA through an ad on the podcast, Dear Hank and John. I'm working on making a career pivot away from academia but not yet had luck finding a new job, so I found it really refreshing to stumble upon a more optimistic message about my ability to find a high impact career. My MA and PhD are in ethnomusicology, the cultural anthropology of music, and I did my research as a Fulbright Fellow in Amman Jordan. It was never boring! But I grew increasingly frustrated with academia and am so looking forward to finding work that is collaborative at its core, respectful of work-life boundaries, economically secure, and remote (if not local) so that I can stay close to my family. I have a lot more reading, thinking, and brainstorming to do before I can narrow down which high impact area(s) exactly I'm most passionate about, but I can tell you how nice it was to hear a reference to cultural anthro on the podcast - having a high impact on the Ebola epidemic. I would love to connect and talk more! You'll find my contact info on my profile. 

I/Leo have now incorporated the new elements from Big List of Cause Candidates: January 2021–March 2022 update into  Big List of Cause Candidates.

Reflecting a bit on the EA call for criticisms, one obvious challenge to the movement is cities like San Francisco. That's a city with tons of EA aligned folks and yet spending a lot of philanthropic dollars to alleviate hunger in Africa or address AGI risk in the future while there's massive human immiseration all around the city just seems extremely dystopian. Here's a good Atlantic article on the issues in SF for those that are curious: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/how-san-francisco-became-failed-city/661199/

Could we have a higher karma discount for community posts? Almost every post on the frontpage for the past few weeks has been a community post, and I think karma inflation has outpaced the effect of the current discount. It would be nice for the EA forum frontpage to not be an endless pit of meta...

Hey all! 😊

My intuition leads me to think that focusing on improving life quality and eradicating poverty in all forms (not just extreme) would be highly impactful. This is because lifting more people out of poverty means that they have more free time to pursue self actualization, and therefore more likely to pursue EA and an impactful career. It's essentially the idea behind egoistic altruism (cute video below).

Essentially, I feel that egoistic altruism would be a highly effective purpose to orient my career around. However, my search results haven't turn... (read more)

Im curious, why do you think EA has not taken off into the main stream ? Rationally it should be the #1 charitable cause in the world but its not. Why do you think this is ? 

Are we already past the precipice? Would we know if that was the case? I really wonder. Things seem to be spiraling. Many of todays conditions mirror the malaise and misery of the 1930s but the capacity for destruction is orders of magnitude higher. I wonder if we need to act with much greater urgency and boldness to be more proactive about XR..... 

Hello everyone,

My name is Bary, I'm currently recovering from a 2-year-long anxiety and depression episode, which I partly attribute to me joining EA around that time. I am really thankful for this community, and for the amazing people here that helped me recover.

I'm writing a piece for the red teaming contest about community mental health. If since joining or learning about EA, you suffered from a mental health problem, even a minor one, or felt less satisfied with your job or life, I would like to have a 1:1 with you. Feel free to ping me here, on barylevi@gmail.com, or on Discord Bary#6478

Of course, if you feel like talking about your experience can cause you distress, please pass this opportunity. I am not a mental health professional and I will not be able to help.

Hi! New here. I had a question about donations and the processing fees. Is there a specific rate or fee that Stripe charges for credit/debit donations? I'm trying to gauge which route to go given the fee structure + admin overhead. 

I believe I read somewhere that manual transfers + wires have more admin overhead such that they may only be beneficial if the donation exceeds $1000.  Is that true? 

I believe my options to donate are only a Wire Transfer with my bank. It only offers Zelle, Bill Pay, and Wire Transfers. The wire transfer comes with a reasonably high fee. So I'm trying to assess which is more beneficial for the o

Is there a way to search for sequences in this forum? There are some sequences that seem really good, like “Winners of the First Decade Review”, but I’m struggling to find sequences other than happening to find a post that’s part of a sequence, and then clicking on the sequence banner at the top. Any help would be great! :)

(Perhaps this has been talked about before, and I’d be grateful for being pointed in the right direction if so - though when I quickly searched just now, I wasn’t able to find an answer.)