DavidNash
Bio
How others can help me
I'm happy talking to anyone, don't hesitate to reach out. Specific things we may want to chat about include;
- How fast/slow and where should EA grow as a movement?
- What lessons can we learn from other movements?
- How much should we focus on people in the core of EA vs on the fringe?
- Do you have a new idea for a cause or project related to EA?
Topics I have been thinking about for a while but still enjoy chatting about:-
- Movement building & strategy
- Meta EA
- Networks vs connections
- New cause areas/interventions
How I can help others
If you're thinking about being a community organiser or are currently organising an EA related group then I'd be happy to share ideas on strategy and community building. Especially for people working on cause specific work or in neglected regions of the world.
I've been an organiser with EA UK since 2015, working part time since 2017 and full time since 2019. I've also had conversations with people setting up groups around the world and also career, cause, interest and workplace related groups.
I have also had quite a few career conversations with people and could be a good sounding board if you had career/project questions.
Posts 77
Comments312
Topic contributions1
There has been quite a bit written about democracy, I'm not sure if it fits your description but some of those posts might be related.
Effektiv Spenden also has a 'Defending Democracy' fund.
Quite a few development and EA adjacent organisations think AI will be quite important, if not the most important factor for future development. It is already being used by many companies, charities and governments around the world.
- IDInsight - Ask-a-Metric: Your AI data analyst on WhatsApp
- The Agency Fund - AI for Global Development Accelerator: Introducing our cohort
- How AI is driving India’s next agricultural revolution
- How Neil King and David Baker are using AI to create more effective vaccines
- Kenyan farmers deploying AI to increase productivity
- How the farmers without smartphones are using AI
Another thing to look at would be how donations in general changed in 2020-2024. From what I've read, there have been decreases in US giving (of around 2%).
I have heard anecdotally that there is the opposite problem in Uganda and Burkina Faso.
In Burkina Faso the issue was that GDP per capita numbers were calculated from industrial output divided by population estimates so in order to look good, local government had an incentive to underestimate population so they seemed richer.
I'm not sure having a "bigger EA tent" leads to more funding/interest, if anything, people may be less likely to fund/support/be interested in a group that supports many different areas rather than the cause they mainly care about. At least it seems like cause specific orgs get much more funding than multi-cause/EA orgs.
I think EA and Nazism are quite different (in many ways). EA doesn't have a membership policy, and EA has a very wide range of philosophies, including opposing views, that people can believe in whilst still doing EA related work (positive vs negative utilitarianism, virtue ethics, deontology, consequentialism, some people care about animals some don't, a very large range of time discounts, etc).
As in the original article about EA as a question, it makes less sense philosophically and practically to have EA as an identity.
Maybe what you're noticing is people who haven't been asked about their 'EA' status before, giving the answer they would have always given.