Mr.Addison, critiquing an organization for being too western and western-focused is completely credible when that organization employs people only in the developed world with people and resumes that imply high privilege in the western society too.

This is not a critique on the people working these jobs, but on the organizational policy as a whole.

My opinion that 80.000 hours is turning into an echo-chamber is completely valid, because it would take 5 minutes to browse the employees and their backgrounds. 

To wrap it up, I can be productive in engaging, literally look down and see my response to Michael, the fact that some people disliked my OPINION, is not good enough for me to decide that I am simply here for anger-farming.
 

To the unkept mind these seem like a waste of space and time and money. 

Why genetic material is so important especially today?

I like to think of samples as books, the gene-bank as a library. Today we are inefficient in GM of crops, at least not to the point where we can pick and choose and everything comes out squeaky clean. Complicated process ya know. But with AGI, and general tools in the future, we might be on course to have a pick and choose approach to how we want our crops to act and how to produce, what and in what quantity.

The more samples, the more books, the more data and unique genetic pathways to produce the food, the higher the level of refinement. 

Basically these samples are like the data we scrape now and teach the LLMs, but in biology.

1. EA as a whole acts globally, but the majority of big EA players are western based and I believe there is a big gap between what reality is to the average human on the planet and the average EA participant. Yes in terms of AGI, it's a western game mostly, but 80,000 hours wasn't an AI-focused organization it was an EA-focused organization. I think this is somewhat like putting all the eggs in one basket, but it's one Fabergé egg that promises a lot of potential, but could be rotten on the inside. In my opinion AGI is somewhere around the 3-rd place for "biggest global issues" right now. First one for me is Climate Change, and the second one is Food production systems security. Again this aspect is inherently not-western because Western Europe and the majority of the US, don't face the repercussions of climate change, or if they do, they are minor compared to India or parts of Africa.
2. I am references poor, I live and die by my views, sorry, I know not the most reliable person, but the whole hype about 2030 AGI feels just like hype, everything is just around the corner, in the early 2000s I remember every year we would have these huge corporations promising the next break-trough, everything within the reach of our fingertips but slipping away at the last moment. Cryonics, Theranos and the like, so much potential, so much "results", but in the end it was all a sham. My fear is that we now have people cooking the books, cooking the reports, and overpromising the dreams, while the reality is bleak. My main fear it that we will invest too much and get little to no in returns, while the other causes pile up and cause real-life issues.
3. I am not against AI or AGI research, I just fear that diving deep just into that cause is a huge gamble, I am cheering you all on to succeed, but I am afraid of the scenario where it all goes down like a house of cards, and we have lost so much funding and resources working on this synthethic brain, but noting to show for.

I usually just sit down and type my thoughts directly, I don't work trough my thinking, so my first point is somewhat moot at parts, but I feel like I addressed some things that I wanted to address now. Thanks for your feedback and comment, I enjoyed the difference in views.

My lunch every day for the past 3 years has been.

Piece of bread, piece of cheese, salad and a cold drink/greek yogurt. 

Ending with a fruit usually an orange.

You can escape the sheep herding lifestyle, but you can never leave.

Okay, real talk now, I know I have been an asshole on this forum, but now I will speak from my heart.

I wanted to kill myself as early as 10, I still do, I can't stand how miserable life is at times, and how everything I touch turns to shit. Literally, give me a grand, and bet against me on the stock market. 

No matter how much I try, how much I do, nothing turns out good, everything is shit, I have the midas-touch of shit. In the past year I can't remember a single good thing happening to me, it's all pain (some of it chronic) and misery. 

To end on a positive note, the fact why I am still here is not some greater purpose or hope for a better tomorrow. I am here because I enjoy the birds and the wilderness walks. I have owls in my local park, and I can hear them regularly, I like how crows sound, pigeons, sometimes I even see the bats dance around in the late night. 

We are using way too much plastic in agriculture, lowkey someone needs to find a replacement and fast. 

Anyone has any pointers on startups for more innovative mulching materials? 

Nick I have one comment every three days (I have been a baaaad forum member) but I am here to answer your rebuttal honestly and truthfully.)

I come from a fairly rich background, in my country I would be in the top 0.5%, but I come from a developing country, that means that while I can afford pretty much everything, everyone around me is living on that edge between living and surviving, some are barely surviving as well.

My father was one of the first people to bring USAID donations to my country, specifically water treatment donations, and they built several water treatment plants that cleaned water to a drinkable level, our specification system is fairly outdated and I am unsure about the international ones. But like the whole course of water treatment. Those plants today are abandoned, there were not enough funds or the funds got mismanaged and those facilities are now rotting. My father moved in Western Europe in the early 2010s, because he was so depressed with the situation here, when he left, he had a company here that was running fairly well, we were doing great, he went to western Europe to cut grass and start all over again because he was done with how things were done here.

I am not as depressed as him, but in the past year I spent over 500 hours trying to deal with littering and improper waste disposal by local companies in my city. I invested my own money, time and health, because roaming dump sites is not the safest thing to do. In those 500 hours I have around 75 reports for various offences, out of those 75 reports the people in charge acted on 3 or 4.

For food safety, I have contacted my agency over 80 times, they have now blacklisted my number and don't return my mails because the chain I am reporting has every one of the inspectors in their pockets.

In university a grant was stolen from us (the students), albeit with my colleagues and it was not my idea originally, but I worked on writing that grant, I spent time and effort, only to have my faculty misappropriate the funds, submit a false report, and present a falsified research document that we did the research. We didn't even do any research, they probably manufactured the whole paper they presented.

Now tell me, why should I care about these people when they don't even give me the time of their day, I have spent countless of hours on civic engagement, trying to make this place a better place to live, only to get spit in my face by corrupt officials. Why not go to the west and be a plumber, at least I will get paid what I deserve and know that "hey I have some rights".

I am at a breaking point where I would rather be neck deep in shit in the west, than live leisurely here because it sucks. Also the job opportunities suck, being in agriculture, as an agronomist my salary would be near the minimum wage, while my software/engineering/any degree peers are way above that. It's not about the money it's about the recognition, although even if I decided to become a big time farmer, the main issues that I would face are pollution and corruption.

Sorry if this feels too raw and boring at times, I am a stream of consciousness on this platform and godspeed to you.