What are some reasons to remain optimistic about the world from an EA perspective? Or how can we keep up with the most important news (ex. USAID / PEPFAR) without drowning in it? 

The news is just incredibly depressing. The optimism I once had before the pandemic is just gone. Yeah, global health and development may still continue to improve. And that's not insignificant. But moral circle expansion? Animal welfare? AI risks? 

Same, I love it as well. Though my Facebook connection is broken and will likely never be fully repaired. I can remain logged in until I send a picture, then the connection breaks. And I keep forgetting. I've talked with the support team about it and it seems quite hopeless.

Yeah, and even when finding a classic EA "high impact job" doesn't work, finding a good E2G job may not work either. And you may not find the time to volunteer. It sucks, but you just try with what you have and what you can. This will be different for everybody. It may require a lot of self-forgiveness. I sure struggle(d) with it. But this is different from completely giving up on having an impact! 

My guess is, but I could be wrong, EA forum content is often just difficult to share with a broader audience as it's usually not the target audience? And even when it's ideas worth sharing with a broader audience, it may still be filled with EA jargon / way of speaking that's difficult to follow for a lot of people. I am saying this assuming most people's followers aren't EAs but friends, colleagues and family. Even within EA, people are focused on different cause areas and many may not priorize reading stuff outside their cause area. I am not saying all of this is bad, I haven't thought that through, but it does make sense to me. It's similar to academic papers in a way, you generally wouldn't share those on your social media platforms. But you do send them to people you think could be interested, just like how in EA I feel like posts are shared in messages with each other all the time. 

I do think encouraging to share and add a picture can help and is a good idea!

Thanks for the write-up! This is a very useful post. 

I have been wondering though, since the shift in strategy, is EA outreach still a priority? Such as YouTube channels, podcasts, other online media,... targeting a broader audience. And if not, why? 

Even though I have a personal vested interest in this topic (running a YouTube channel previously funded by EAIF), I do believe that projects like these could be highly effective and worth funding, regardless of my own involvement.

My main point of criticism, that I didn't see anyone else mention in the top-level comments, is that the pledge just seems too vague and broad. A 10 percent pledge is very concrete and measurable. Of course there is a difference in opinion in terms of what charities count as impactful, just like with careers. But with careers the difference in opinion is too broad for this pledge to be useful. Some could just interpret this pledge as "I'll become a doctor or work for an ngo" without giving much extra thought. While with the 10% pledge there is a clear significant minimum commitment. I don't think it solves the issue of value drift either. I imagine that in reality, when value drift happens, the individual won't be quick to admit their values have drifted even if they aren't actively looking for the most impactful career opportunities anymore. And there is also a higher chance people will just forget about the pledge and ignore any reminders. You could try and make the pledge more measurable, but then I think you'll quickly run into Goodhart's Law. I'm skeptical there is a way to have a career pledge and avoid these issues. I could be wrong, and I do welcome trying out new things like this!

I'm finishing up a video covering NAO and wastewater monitoring, though not based on this specific talk.

Thanks for pointing this out! I wasn't really sure where my question fell on the axis of "general EA animal welfare knowledge" (ex. prioritizing chickens > cows) to "specific detail about how ACE evaluates charities". By posting a quick take on the forum, I was hoping it was closer to the former, that I was just missing something obvious and that ACE wouldn't even have to be bothered. I shouldn't have overlooked the possibility that it might be more complicated!

Thank you so much for this elaborate and insightful response, Max! I understand the argument much better now.

I was going through Animal Charity Evaluators' reasoning behind which countries to prioritize (https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-review/the-humane-league/#prioritizing-countries) and I notice they judge countries with a higher GNI per capita as more tractable. This goes against my intuition, because my guess is your money goes further in countries that are poorer. And also because I've heard animal rights work in Latin America and Asia is more cost-effective nowadays. Does anyone have any hypotheses/arguments? This quick take isn't meant as criticism, I'm just informing myself as I'm trying to choose an animal welfare org to fundraise for this week (small, low stakes).

When I have more time I'd be happy to do more research and contact ACE myself with these questions, but right now I'm just looking for some quick thoughts.