Critique of pursuing systemic change. How hard is it to figure out what systemic changes will make things better?
This is partly an expression of disagreement with others in EA who have embraced systemic change, which was itself partly a response to criticisms like those in the Boston Review
Is effective altruism a question or an ideology, or both?
Making decisions under moral uncertainty - Placing credence in multiple ethical systems leads to questions of moral uncertainty when the two ethical systems disagree. This post summarizes the problem and suggests ways to resolve such issues. (16 mins.)
Pascal’s MuggingCritique of the application of expected value theory. How do you deal with very low probability events that would be disastrous if they took place? (5 mins.)
Ethical Systems - Check out other ethical systems not discussed yet in the program. Which ones resonate most with you? (Varies)
The Repugnant Conclusion - Total utilitarianism (maximizing overall wellbeing) implies that it’s better to have many many beings with infinitesimally positive wellbeing to a smaller number of beings that are all extremely well off. Some people find this counterintuitive, but there’s significant debate on this. (Video - 6 mins.)
Utility monster - Another thought experiment suggesting that trying to maximize wellbeing may have counterintuitive implications (5 mins.)
The bullet-swallowers - Scott Aaronson describes how some theories (like EA) force you to either swallow some tough conclusions or dodge them by contorting the theory. (2 mins.)
Funding and Cause prioritization
The flow of funding in EA movement building (In this piece, data on funding for different cause areas within EA was collected and analyzed. It’s important to note that funding is only one of many ways we could determine what the EA movement currently prioritizes, and other sources (such as the EA Survey) might show other results.) (12 mins.)
This post presents the executive summary from Giving What We Can’s impact evaluation for 2025. At the end of this post we share links to more information, including the full report and...
I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences.
Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts:
* Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do
* NEST is an opinionated ideas-fi...