JP Addison🔸
Bio
Head of the CEA Online Team, which runs this Forum.
A bit about me, to help you get to know me: Prior to CEA, I was a data engineer at an aerospace startup. I got into EA through reading the entire archive of Slate Star Codex in 2015. I found EA naturally compelling, and donated to AMF, then GFI, before settling on my current cause prioritization of meta-EA, with AI x-risk as my object-level preference. I try to have a wholehearted approach to morality, rather than thinking of it as an obligation or opportunity. You see my LessWrong profile here.
I love this Forum a bunch. I've been working on it for 5 years as of this writing, and founded the EA Forum 2.0. (Remember 1.0?) I have an intellectual belief in it as an impactful project, but also a deep love for it as an open platform where anyone can come participate in the project of effective altruism. We're open 24/7, anywhere there is an internet connection.
In my personal life, I hang out in the Boston EA and Gaymer communities, enjoy houseplants, table tennis, and playing coop games with my partner, who has more karma than me.
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You can read our politics policy here.
Political issues are clearly relevant to improving the world. However, in our experience, we’ve seen that partisan political discussion tends to have a strong polarizing effect on public forums; it consumes a lot of a community’s attention and can lead to emotionally charged arguments. Overall, we think the EA Forum will be healthier, and better-positioned to achieve its goals, if we limit the space given to political topics.
Another comment from me:
I don’t like my mod message, and I apologize for it. I was rushed and used some templated language that I knew damn well at the time that I wasn’t excited about putting my name behind. I nevertheless did and bear the responsibility.
That’s all from me for now. The mods who weren’t involved in the original decision will come in and reconsider the ban, pursuant to the appeal.
I used to work in remote sensing in a past life. I don't have much to say about the science of measuring water quality, but I do want to comment on the data collection question.
You mention satellites and drones. If you can get the info you need from existing satellite imagery that's great. To the extent that you need something more, I can recommend using manned aircraft over drones.
The world is well set-up for pilots to fly small aircraft. The type of drone you would need to cover a large area would have to be a very autonomous, fixed-wing aircraft. You don't need this. You can contract a pilot & plane for hundreds of $s an hour and cover a whole lot of ground per hour. I would bet you could survey the whole of India's fish farms annually for less than a single FTE in a western country working on drones.
Once you realize this, you might start thinking about other approaches than visible light. Can you identify substances that shouldn't be present in a humane fish farm and measure them with a spectrometer mounted on an aircraft?