This is a special post for quick takes by SofiiaF. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
In my eyes, I have not made an effective impact yet in any cause area, especially biosecurity or public health, and yet I think compared to most 18 year olds I have started making choices that will set me up to have an effective career and mindset, plus I have been gaining comm building skills throughout my work.
Next year @Jian Xin Lim🔹 kindly offered for me to take over EABath (when I start uni) and I also help out a bit at Leaf. And it got me thinking
What is the ideal outcome of a HEA? Are all HEAs on the same path? Say someone took on all reasoning, and chose earn to give and donated millions to GiveWell (think similar to FTX without any integrity issues in terms of involvement), if all EAs did that we'd get diminishing returns on the top charities, we'd lose the community, other cause areas may suffer and also it just would feel a bit of an afterthought. And yet would we consider that individual a HEA if his reasoning for all the earning and donation aligned with the 4 tenets and had that idea of helping others effectively?
Compared to someone who maybe is against animal welfare issues. If that person earned to give as a head of factories with poor conditions, they may lower costs and conditions to donate more (let's say purely to donate more) whilst the person concerned with animal welfare who is also an EA may try to do the opposite. So are they both HEAs? Do we have a metric?
Just some rough thoughts swirling around, nothing concrete or important but would love to hear
It means highly-engaged EA. I think that the term isn't used as much as it was a few years ago, but it can be helping in a movement-building/strategic context for folks that are very central to effective altruism, and it still serves as a convenient label to differentiate different stages in the 'funnel.' But I think that it isn't terribly common these days, and I expect that plenty of people who are quite involved in EA wouldn't recognize "HEA" it or know what it means.
Yep, I personally meant it less in the semantics sence and more in a "what is an ideal outcome of someone heavily involved in EA either as a community or as a premise/question). It's a rough question rather than a topic I know lots about
Commented on an article but expanding to a (very) quick take:
the absolute rabbit holes I've gotten into from "hmm, I should check about diseases in dogs to keep an eye on" to "wow, mosquito borne diseases are very high" to " oh my goodness, why do I have so many papers saved on impeding the ventral nerves in mosquitos to test blood hunting mechanism inhibitions..." have nearly all converted to genetically engineered mosquitos with Ago2 gene disactivation or susceptibility to infection symptoms. The fears of genetic engineering to evade diseases by almost the flip side of making the vector susceptible strikes me with the same ethical, biological and genetic risks, plus the huge issues with bioweaponory and double use tech.
Seems as if the media stories of non technical nature of 30 mainstream sources (e.g. BBC news, Times, Guardian) from all sides of the spectrum are favourable of genetic engineering to prevent spread but make no mention of the information hazards or dual use. Wonder if that's just journalism doesn't favour nuance but also perhaps maybe some intentional silence....
HEAs
In my eyes, I have not made an effective impact yet in any cause area, especially biosecurity or public health, and yet I think compared to most 18 year olds I have started making choices that will set me up to have an effective career and mindset, plus I have been gaining comm building skills throughout my work.
Next year @Jian Xin Lim🔹 kindly offered for me to take over EABath (when I start uni) and I also help out a bit at Leaf. And it got me thinking
What is the ideal outcome of a HEA? Are all HEAs on the same path? Say someone took on all reasoning, and chose earn to give and donated millions to GiveWell (think similar to FTX without any integrity issues in terms of involvement), if all EAs did that we'd get diminishing returns on the top charities, we'd lose the community, other cause areas may suffer and also it just would feel a bit of an afterthought. And yet would we consider that individual a HEA if his reasoning for all the earning and donation aligned with the 4 tenets and had that idea of helping others effectively?
Compared to someone who maybe is against animal welfare issues. If that person earned to give as a head of factories with poor conditions, they may lower costs and conditions to donate more (let's say purely to donate more) whilst the person concerned with animal welfare who is also an EA may try to do the opposite. So are they both HEAs? Do we have a metric?
Just some rough thoughts swirling around, nothing concrete or important but would love to hear
What is an HEA?
It means highly-engaged EA. I think that the term isn't used as much as it was a few years ago, but it can be helping in a movement-building/strategic context for folks that are very central to effective altruism, and it still serves as a convenient label to differentiate different stages in the 'funnel.' But I think that it isn't terribly common these days, and I expect that plenty of people who are quite involved in EA wouldn't recognize "HEA" it or know what it means.
Yep, I personally meant it less in the semantics sence and more in a "what is an ideal outcome of someone heavily involved in EA either as a community or as a premise/question). It's a rough question rather than a topic I know lots about
Commented on an article but expanding to a (very) quick take:
the absolute rabbit holes I've gotten into from "hmm, I should check about diseases in dogs to keep an eye on" to "wow, mosquito borne diseases are very high" to " oh my goodness, why do I have so many papers saved on impeding the ventral nerves in mosquitos to test blood hunting mechanism inhibitions..." have nearly all converted to genetically engineered mosquitos with Ago2 gene disactivation or susceptibility to infection symptoms. The fears of genetic engineering to evade diseases by almost the flip side of making the vector susceptible strikes me with the same ethical, biological and genetic risks, plus the huge issues with bioweaponory and double use tech.
Seems as if the media stories of non technical nature of 30 mainstream sources (e.g. BBC news, Times, Guardian) from all sides of the spectrum are favourable of genetic engineering to prevent spread but make no mention of the information hazards or dual use. Wonder if that's just journalism doesn't favour nuance but also perhaps maybe some intentional silence....
New podcast episode S1E2 releases soon
on
WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, (S)WHY(NE FLU)
THE 5 W'S OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
We look at the basics of what it is, why we use it, and how a case study of H1N1 reveals so many questions yet to be answered
Get Vincent Rachaniello on that podcast, maybe some other contributors from MicrobeTV as well.
Ooh thank you 💜❤️ I'll look into them