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Saturday, October 19th 2019
Sat, Oct 19th 2019

Friday, October 18th 2019
Fri, Oct 18th 2019

Thursday, October 17th 2019
Thu, Oct 17th 2019

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3Ramiro2d Why don't we have an "Effective App"? See, e.g., Ribon [https://home.ribon.io/english/] - an app that gives you points (“ribons”) for reading positive news (e.g. “handicapped walks again thanks to exoskeleton”) sponsored by corporations; then you choose one of the TLYCS charities, and your points are converted into a donation. Ribon is a Brazilian for-profit; they claim to donate 70% [http://blog.ribon.io/2019/09/03/conheca-o-caminho-do-dinheiro-na-ribon/] of what they receive from sponsors, but I haven’t found precise stats. It has skyrocketed [http://blog.ribon.io/2019/08/19/comprovante-de-doacoes-%ef%bd%9c-abril-e-maio-de-2019/] this year: from their informed impact, I estimate they have donated about U$ 33k to TLYCS – which is a lot for Brazilian standards. They intend to expand (they gathered more than R$ 1 mi – roughly U$250k - from investors [https://www.startse.com/noticia/startups/60773/startup-de-doacoes-ribon-abre-nova-captacao-apos-aporte-de-r-1-milhao] this year) and will soon launch an ICO. Perhaps an EA non-profit could do even more good?

Wednesday, October 16th 2019
Wed, Oct 16th 2019

Tuesday, October 15th 2019
Tue, Oct 15th 2019

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4Stefan_Schubert4d Andrew Gelman argues [https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/10/15/think-scientifically-scientists-proposals-fixing-science-2/] that scientists’ proposals for fixing science are themselves not always very scientific. If you’ve gone to the trouble to pick up (or click on) this volume in the first place, you’ve probably already seen, somewhere or another, most of the ideas I could possibly propose on how science should be fixed. My focus here will not be on the suggestions themselves but rather on what are our reasons for thinking these proposed innovations might be good ideas. The unfortunate paradox is that the very aspects of “junk science” that we so properly criticize—the reliance on indirect, highly variable measurements from nonrepresentative samples, open-ended data analysis, followed up by grandiose conclusions and emphatic policy recommendations drawn from questionable data— all seem to occur when we suggest our own improvements to the system. All our carefully-held principles seem to evaporate when our emotions get engaged.

Monday, October 14th 2019
Mon, Oct 14th 2019

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42Stefan_Schubert5d The Nobel Prize in Economics [https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2019/summary/] awarded to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer "for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty".
2evelynciara5d A series of polls by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs [https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/publication/record-number-americans-say-international-trade-good-us-economy] show that Americans increasingly support free trade and believe that free trade is good for the U.S. economy (87%, up from 59% in 2016). This is probably a reaction to the negative effects and press coverage of President Trump's trade wars - anecdotally, I have seen a lot of progressives who would otherwise not care about or support free trade criticize policies such as Trump's steel tariffs as reckless. I believe this presents a unique window of opportunity to educate the American public about the benefits of globalization. Kimberly Clausing is doing this in her book, Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital [https://smile.amazon.com/Open-Progressive-Immigration-Global-Capital/dp/0674919335/] , in which she defends free trade and immigration to the U.S. from the standpoint of American workers.

Sunday, October 13th 2019
Sun, Oct 13th 2019

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1Khorton6d AI policy is probably less neglected than you think it is. There are more than 50 AI policy jobs in the UK government. When one's advertised, it gets 50-100 applicants. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada is really excited about funding AI policy research. http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/fellowships/doctoral-doctorat-eng.aspx [http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/fellowships/doctoral-doctorat-eng.aspx] AI policy is very important, but at this point it's also very mainstream.

Saturday, October 12th 2019
Sat, Oct 12th 2019

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11Stefan_Schubert7d Of possible interest regarding the efficiency of science: paper [https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0223116&fbclid=IwAR0fvF3obK8i1hRd8sVKwYd5HAJGbnqbSeyrtEwhTU9xywIRFQb3py7jZiY] finds that scientists on average spend 52 hours per year formatting papers. ( Times Higher Education write-up [https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-lose-aweek-ayear-formatting-journal-papers] ; extensive excerpts here [https://www.facebook.com/stefan.schubert.3954/posts/1218205841713137] if you don't have access.)

Friday, October 11th 2019
Fri, Oct 11th 2019

Thursday, October 10th 2019
Thu, Oct 10th 2019

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13jpaddison9d Thus starts the most embarrassing post-mortem I've ever written. The EA Forum went down for 5 minutes today. My sincere apologies to anyone who's Forum activity was interrupted. I was first alerted by Pingdom [https://www.pingdom.com/], which I am very glad we set up. I immediately knew what was wrong. I had just hit "Stop" on the (long unused and just archived) CEA Staff Forum, which we built as a test of the technology. Except I actually hit stop on the EA Forum itself. I turned it back on and it took a long minute or two, but was soon back up. ... Lessons learned: * I've seen sites that, after pressing the big red button that says "Delete", makes you enter the name of the service / repository / etc. you want to delete. I like those, but did not think of porting it to sites without that feature. I think I should install a TAP [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wJutA2czyFg6HbYoW/what-are-trigger-action-plans-taps] that whenever I hit a big red button, I confirm the name of the service I am stopping. * The speed of the fix leaned heavily on the fact that Pingdom was set up. But it doesn't catch everything. In case it doesn't catch something, I just changed it so that anyone can email me with "urgent" in the subject line and I will get notified on my phone, even if it is on silent. My email is jp at organizationwebsite [https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org].
1edoarad9d Reading Multiagent Models of Mind [https://www.lesswrong.com/s/ZbmRyDN8TCpBTZSip/p/x4n4jcoDP7xh5LWLq] and considering the moral patienthood of different cognitive processes: A trolly is headed toward an healthy individual lying carelessly on the track. You are next to a lever, and can switch the trolly to a second track, but on that track there is an individual with a split brain [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain]. What do you do?

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