EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

TL;DR: You can create outsized value by introducing the right people at the right time in the right way. This post shares general principles and tips I've found useful. Once you become a super connector, it's also important to be a good steward of the unavoidable whisper networks that develop, and I include tips for that as well. Context: I unintentionally fell into a super connector role and want...

Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. Despite setbacks, battery cages are on the retreat My colleague Emma Buckland contributed (excellent) research to this piece. All opinions and errors are mine alone. It's deadline time. Over t...

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, and @titotal's recent post finally made me do it: Thick red dramatic box emphasis mine. I was going to post a comment in his post, but I think this topic deserves a post of its own. My plea is simply: Please, oh please reconsider using adjectives that reflect a negative judgment (“bad”, “stupid”, “boring”) on the Forum, and instead stick to indi...

Earlier this year, we launched a request for proposals (RFP) from organizations that fundraise for highly cost-effective charities. The Livelihood Impact Fund supported the RFP, as did two donors from Meta Charity Funders. We’re excited to share the results: $1,565,333 in grants to 11 organizations. We estimate a weighted average ROI of ~4.3x across the portfolio, which means we expect our grantee...

This is a link post. Thank you to Arepo and Eli Lifland for looking over this article for errors. I am sorry that this article is so long. Every time I thought I was done with it I ran into more issues with the model, and I wanted to be as thorough as I could. I’m not going to blame anyone for skimming parts of this article. Note that the majority of this article was written before Eli's updated m...

Formosa: Fulcrum of the Future? An invasion of Taiwan is uncomfortably likely and potentially catastrophic. We should research better ways to avoid it. TLDR: I forecast that an invasion of Taiwan increases all the anthropogenic risks by ~1.5% (percentage points) of a catastrophe killing 10% or more of the population by 2100 (nuclear risk by 0.9%, AI + Biorisk by 0.6%). This would imply it constitu...

This is a transcript of my opening talk at EA Global: London 2025. In my talk, I challenge the misconception that EA is populated by “cold, uncaring, spreadsheet-obsessed robots” and explain how EA principles serve as tools for putting compassion into practice, translating our feelings about the world's problems into effective action. Key points: Most people involved in EA are here because&nb...

Crosspost from my blog. Content warning: this article will discuss extreme agony. This is deliberate; I think it's important to get a glimpse of the horror that fills the world and that you can do something about. I think this is one of my most important articles so I’d really appreciate if you could share and restack it! The world is filled with extreme agony. We go through our daily life mostly...

This is a link post. I am deeply saddened to share that Gabrielle Young, a much-loved member of the EA NZ community and personal friend, died last month. This is an absolutely devastating loss, and our hearts go out to Gabby's friends and family, including her parents and her sister Brigette. While most of us knew her through EA, Gabby was an incredibly vibrant person with a diverse range of inter...

Crosspost from my blog. I just got back from Effective Altruism Global London—a conference that brought together lots of different people trying to do good with their money and careers. It was an inspiring experience. When you write about factory farming, insect suffering, global poverty, and the torment of shrimp, it can, as I’ve mentioned before, feel like screaming into the void. When you try t...

Audio note: this article contains 127 uses of latex notation, so the narration may be difficult to follow. There's a link to the original text in the episode description. Confidence: Medium, underlying data is patchy and relies on a good amount of guesswork, data work involved a fair amount of vibecoding. Intro:  Tom Davidson has an excellent post explaining the compute bottleneck objection t...

Crossposted from my blog. When I started this blog in high school, I did not imagine that I would cause The Daily Show to do an episode about shrimp, containing the following dialogue: Andres: I was working in investment banking. My wife was helping refugees, and I saw how meaningful her work was. And I decided to do the same. Ronny: Oh, so you're helping refugees? Andres: Well, not quite. I'm hel...

Mental illness (including struggles that don’t meet a specific diagnosis) is a serious public health burden that affects a large proportion of people. This is true within EA as well as in the general population. In EA, as in any community, it's important for us to try to support those who are struggling. We sometimes see the theory that EA causes unusually bad mental health, but the evidence light...

Around 1 month ago, I wrote a similar Forum post on the Easterlin Paradox. I decided to take it down because: 1) after useful comments, the method looked a little half-baked; 2) I got in touch with two academics – Profs. Caspar Kaiser and Andrew Oswald – and we are now working on a paper together using a related method. That blog post actually came to the opposite conclusion, but, as mentioned, I...

We’ve redesigned effectivealtruism.org to improve understanding and perception of effective altruism, and make it easier to take action. View the new site → I led the redesign and will be writing in the first person here, but many others contributed research, feedback, writing, editing, and development. I’d love to hear what you think, here is a feedback form. Redesign goals This redesign is part...

Summary  While many people and organisations in the EA community can be great connections, don't assume that just because a person has been in the EA community for a long time, they'll be a good fit for you to work with or be friends with. Don’t assume that just because a project or org has been around for a long time, it would be a good place for you to work. It may be a great opportunity, b...

Article 5 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: "Obviously, no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." OK, it doesn’t actually start with "obviously," but I like to imagine the commissioners all murmuring to themselves “obviously” when this item was brought up. I’m not sure what the causal effect of Article 5 (or the 1984 UN...

Introduction I have been writing posts critical of mainstream EA narratives about AI capabilities and timelines for many years now. Compared to the situation when I wrote my posts in 2018 or 2020, LLMs now dominate the discussion, and timelines have also shrunk enormously. The ‘mainstream view’ within EA now appears to be that human-level AI will be arriving by 2030, even as early as 2027. This vi...

Are you looking for a project where you could substantially improve indoor air quality, with benefits both to general health and reducing pandemic risk? I've written a bunch about air purifiers over the past few years, and its frustrating how bad commercial market is. The most glaring problem is the widespread use of HEPA filters. These are very effective filters that, unavoidably, offer significa...

First published: May 16th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LeCJqzdHZZB3uBhZg/the-daily-show-did-a-segment-on-ea-and-shrimp-welfare --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO .

Americans, we need your help to stop a dangerous AI bill from passing the Senate. What's going on? The House Energy & Commerce Committee included a provision in its reconciliation bill that would ban AI regulation by state and local governments for the next 10 years. Several states have led the way in AI regulation while Congress has dragged its heels. Stopping state govern...

I am Jason Green-Lowe, the executive director of the Center for AI Policy (CAIP). Our mission is to directly convince Congress to pass strong AI safety legislation. As I explain in some detail in this post, I think our organization has been doing extremely important work, and that we’ve been doing well at it. Unfortunately, we have been unable to get funding from traditional donors to continue our...

Or on the types of prioritization, their strengths, pitfalls, and how EA should balance them The cause prioritization landscape in EA is changing. Prominent groups have shut down, others have been founded, and everyone is trying to figure out how to prepare for AI. This is the first in a series of posts examining the state of cause prioritization and proposing strategies for moving forward.  ...

This is a Forum Team crosspost from Substack. Whither cause prioritization and connection with the good? There's a trend towards people who once identified as Effective Altruists now identifying solely as “people working on AI safety.”[1] For those in the loop, it feels like less of a trend and more of a tidal wave. There's an increasing sense that among the most prominent (formerly?) EA orgs and...

I put on a small one-day conference. The cost per attendee was £50 (vs £1.2k for EAGs) and the cost per new connection was £11 (vs £130 for EAGs). intro EA North was a one-day event for the North of England. 35 people showed up on the day. In total, I spent £1765 (≈ $2.4k), including paying myself £20/h for 30h total. This money will be reimbursed by EA UK[1]. The cost per attendee was £50 and the...