There is also this essay from Jason Crawford and this piece from Asimov Press that are less technical description of the Science article

Check out the NALMCO certificate holders from their GUV training and certification program

Love the Calvin and Hobbes reference!

Thanks for sharing this! I donated with Be The Match as well, in March of 2020, which was interesting timing. They actually had to send me to a sister organization called Gift of Life, whose staff was amazing as well. I had preciously started the process to donate a kidney and then let the ball drop and forgotten about it. The call from Be The Match was such a specific call to action:
"You’ve been identified as a possible marrow match for a 57-year-old Male in need of a transplant. The patient’s doctor is trying to determine treatment options as quickly as possible." My reaction was basically "oh my god, of course!" versus the kidney donation which was more like "eh this is mildly annoying right now I'll just not" since there was no single individual being called to my attention.

Interestingly enough, my experience donating stem cells was so rewarding that it reminded me of my previous attempt at kidney donation, and I restarted that process and donated my kidney later that year. I bet if you compared kidney donation rates between people in the bone marrow registry and people who have been matched and donated stem cells, you'd find a significant increase in the latter population.

As I was reading, I was nodding along, agreeing with this post. I also was first introduced to EA by that very same Sam Harris podcast. I in fact did join the military in part because of their very good ads (Marines run towards the sound of chaos was the campaign that got me). 99.etc% of the time, I don't feel like much of anything related to my GWWC pledge- it's just the obviously right thing to do, in many ways the bare minimum for me personally. I started right as I got a large pay increase, so I've never even had to adjust to less income. I feel more warm and fuzzies from helping someone reach a high box at the grocery store than I do from my automatic monthly payments.

So, imagine my surprise when I saw this:

> Given this, when I read about other GWWC members’ attitudes towards their giving I sometimes feel a bit sheepish, maybe even like a bit of an imposter.

Wait- that's my article! I wrote that piece on the one year anniversary of my pledge. It was a conscious effort to reflect on the reasons for that decision, and to reflect on the good it did in the world, exactly because I don't feel warm and fuzzies on a day to day basis. I've lately been trying to build my gratitude muscles, with a gratitude journal and a push to express gratitude to a specific real person when I feel it. That piece was in part a gratitude training for me, because I am immensely grateful to be able to donate 10% of my salary to amazingly effective charities- but I am only grateful when I am really thinking about it. So I wrote a post to make me think about it more. 

I agree with everything you wrote, and I also want to really thank you for taking the pledge. You are making the world a better place, and doing so far and above what most people in our culture consider normal. You help me and others to do the same in your work at GWWC. 

One thing I really admire about our community is that we have taken to heart that the correlation between warm and fuzzy feelings and actual good impact in the world is totally broken, and we donate and work where we can do the most good, not feel the most warm and fuzzies. But I also want to spread some warm and fuzzies! Personally, I've found that I can hack my own system a bit by being intentionally grateful for my opportunity to do something like take the GWWC pledge. It makes me want to keep doing it, and it makes me happier. On my one year GWWC anniversary, I told an EA friend and we went out to celebrate; since that celebration, he has taken the pledge, too. 

Thanks for writing this! Thanks for speaking to the reality that doing really good things doesn’t always come with great rewards in emotions. Our experiences are very, very similar. I wholeheartedly endorse your last section.

Thanks for asking this, I'm in basically the same boat and I am learning a lot from the answer you've gotten so far

Thanks!

Procrastination was definitely a motivator for me too. Better than my procrastination strategy yesterday of watching 30 minutes of boating failures!

Here's an update video on the Maternal Center of Excellence

Great post! This matches closely with the lessons I've learned and advice I've given after working with virologists and biosafety professionals. I'd also give a plug for the book Biosecurity Dilemmas for anyone who wants to do a deeper dive in the trade offs in this space.