One happy news for the world - Poland just banned fur farming. The legislative battle is over, the president of the country signed the bill, which is the last chapter of the process.

EAs are trying to win the "attention arms race" by not playing. I think this could be a mistake. * The founding ideas and culture of EA was created and “grew up” in the early 2010s, when online content consumption looked very different. * We’ve overall underreacted to shifts in the landscape of where people get ideas and how they engage with them. * As a result, we’ve fallen behind, and should consider making a push to bring our messaging and content delivery mechanisms in line with 2020s consumption. * Also, EA culture is dispositionally calm, rational, and dry. * This is a poor fit for getting any traction in the current attention landscape. * If we don’t adapt, we risk increasing irrelevance.

* Re the new 2024 Rethink Cause Prio survey: "The EA community should defer to mainstream experts on most topics, rather than embrace contrarian views. [“Defer to experts”]" 3% strongly agree, 18% somewhat agree, 35% somewhat disagree, 15% strongly disagree. * This seems pretty bad to me, especially for a group that frames itself as recognizing intellectual humility/we (base rate for an intellectual movement) are so often wrong. * (Charitable interpretation) It's also just the case that EAs tend to have lots of views that they're being contrarian about because they're trying to maximize the the expected value of information (often justified with something like: "usually contrarians are wrong, but if they are right, they are often more valuable for information than average person who just agrees"). * If this is the case, though, I fear that some of us are confusing the norm of being contrarian instrumental reasons and for "being correct" reasons.  Tho lmk if you disagree. 

Consider whether you're comparatively advantaged to give to non-tax-deductible things. (Not financial advice.) I think people -- especially donors who are giving >$100k/year -- often default to thinking that they should stick to tax-deductible giving, because they have an unusually high "501c3 multiplier" due to high marginal income tax rates or low cost basis for capital gains taxes. I claim this is a mistake for some donors, because what matters is whether your 501c3 multiplier is unusually high relative to the average dollar in the donor mix, which is usually coming from other people in very high tax brackets. People who do have unusually high "501c3 multipliers" include those with employer matches to 501c3 donations. For a 1:1 match for cash donations, I think the multiplier is something like 3.5x, and even higher if you're donating appreciated assets like equity.[1] I would guess that you need to have a multiplier at least that good to actually be comparatively advantaged [ETA: because I think lots of the dollars from individual donors in the EA giving space come from people with 1:1 or better employer matches, like Google or Anthropic].[2] The reason this matters is that if too many people think they're comparatively advantaged for tax-deductible giving, then non-tax-deductible opportunities (e.g. 501c4 advocacy, political giving, even future 501c3s awaiting their 501c3 determination) will unduly struggle to fundraise, so the best marginal opportunities are often going to be in that category. 1. ^ If your donation budget is $10,000 (of post-tax income) and you're, say, a single San Franciscan making $500k (and therefore paying a 42.53% marginal tax rate, per SmartAsset), I think this means you could donate ~$17,400 in cash (a 1.74x multiplier) and deduct that from your income, reducing your tax burden by $7,400 = $10,000 from your post-tax income. Then your 1:1 employer match means the charity gets double that, or $34,800 (a 3.48x multiplier). If

Quick Pitch for Using Toggl * Reduces task switching: * Actively changing the task in Toggl makes you more aware of switching. * Helps maintain focus on one task longer. * For small or miscellaneous tasks, I use grouped categories (e.g. "Smalls", "Slack/email") and batch them.   * Tracks time against priorities: * Allows reflection on whether your actual time spent aligns with your intended priorities. * Easy to spot when too much time is going to low-priority tasks.   * Improves time estimation: * Over time, you get calibrated on how long tasks really take. * Some tasks consistently take longer than expected. * Some tasks you’ve procrastinated on turn out to be quick (e.g. took 5 mins).   * Supports manager alignment: * Makes it easier to discuss priorities and time allocation with your manager * Helps identify tasks that could be delegated or streamlined. * Useful for recognizing when something is taking more time than baselines   * Assists with planning: * Helps forecast quarterly workloads using historical data. * Useful when planning repeated projects (e.g. hiring) by reviewing how much time it took previously.