The Effective Altruism Newsletter – 9 Nov. 2015 Edition

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Hi there!

Here's the next edition of the Newsletter, your favorite source of everything EA.

Based on feedback from you, we have reformatted the sections and cut out some words.

It’s very important for us to know how we’re doing, so please continue giving us feedback. Oh, and do share interesting new material through this form if you’re ready to help this community project!

Happy reading!

The Team

PS: To unsubscribe, click here or see the bottom of this email.
 
Articles and Community Posts

Have you, like us, failed to win the Nobel Prize 32 times in a row? Are you finding that a bummer? If so,
this article might offer some consolation.

Matthew Gentzel shares some key insights from running Effective Altruism Policy Analytics, including an extensive “lessons learned” section.

If you are interested in investing, for instance to donate more later, Ben Todd provides some tips and resources for how to do so more effectively.

Remember GiveWell’s post “Charities we’d like to see”? Join this recent discussion on the value of charity entrepreneurship started by Charity Science team members who plan to start a new poverty alleviation charity.
Updates from EA Organizations and Projects

80,000 Hours

80k added 11,000 people to their newsletter in the last two months by doing outreach to students and through the website. In Oxford and Cambridge, they signed up over 25% of incoming undergrads.

Effective Altruism Foundation

Dutch, German and Swiss donors can make tax-deductible donations to all EA charities via EAF (formerly GBS Switzerland) – find out more. Recently, they published a transparency page as well.

Raising for Effective Giving

REG is expanding their industry-targeted outreach activites to Daily Fantasy Sports, starting with a $75,000 matching challenge funded by Tom “chipotleaddict” Crowley, a former professional poker player who recently won one of the biggest ever DFS tournaments for a prize of $1.2 million. They are also working on new projects in professional gaming and trading.

The Life You Can Save

Founder Peter Singer will be answering your questions during a Product Hunt LIVE chat on 30 Nov. from 12-1 PM Pacific/3-4 PM Eastern. Sign up to chat with Peter and get ready for an inspiring conversation!
Job Postings

80,000 Hours is still looking for a product engineer.
 
Animal Charity Evaluators is looking for several part-time, remote interns in the fields of research, operations, development and communications. These internships start in January, run for three months and offer the possibility of an extension.
 
The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk is hiring four new postdoctoral researchers to start in Jan. 2016 or as soon as possible afterwards. The research associates will join a growing team of researchers developing a general methodology for the management of extreme technological risk. The deadline is 12:00 noon UK time this Thursday, 12 Nov.
 
The Effective Altruism Foundation (formerly GBS Switzerland) is recruiting a Director of Growth for their project Raising for Effective Giving (REG). They are also offering three positions at their new hub in Berlin, focusing on outreach and operations.
Timeless Classics

Toby Ord’s forcefully argued piece on the moral imperative towards cost-effectiveness offers some very intriguing take-aways, particularly in the field of global health.
What is effective altruism?

EA is a growing social movement founded on the desire to make the world as good a place as it can be, the use of evidence and reason to find out how to do so, and the audacity to actually try.
 
To learn more, watch this 6-minute talk by Beth Barnes, a perennial favorite within the community, take Peter Singer’s Coursera course and visit the the brand-new EA Wiki!
 
We’ll try to include different resources from edition to edition – let us know what you’d like to see here!
 
Go forth and do the most good!

Do tell us how you like the Newsletter and how we can improve it further.

We’ll be back in two weeks!

The Effective Altruism Newsletter Team

Georgie, Michał, Pascal and Sören

The Effective Altruism Newsletter is a joint project between the Centre for Effective Altruism, the Effective Altruism Hub and .impact
 
A community project of the Centre for Effective Altruism, a registered charity in England and Wales, Registered Charity Number 1149828 Centre for Effective Altruism, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, Littlegate House, St Ebbes Street, Oxford OX1 1PT, UK
Comments6


Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:

The Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS) is hiring post-docs for 2016/2017. The full announcement is available at http://metrics.stanford.edu/education/postdoctoral-fellowships. Feel free to contact me with any questions; I am currently a post-doc in this position.

METRICS is a research center within Stanford Medical School. It was set up to study the conditions under which the scientific process can be expected to generate accurate beliefs, for instance about the validity of evidence for the effect of interventions.

METRICS was founded by Stanford Professors Steve Goodman and John Ioannidis in 2014, after Givewell connected them with the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, who provided the initial funding. See http://blog.givewell.org/2014/04/23/meta-research-innovation-centre-at-stanford-metrics/ for more details.

(I tried posting this in a separate article, but as a new user I don't have enough karma. For now it is going to the open thread; if people think this should get more visibility I'd be happy to move it once I get sufficient karma)

That sounds really cool and should be shared in the EA job postings group

The talks from EA Global are available in podcast format at EARadio (iTunes link). The YouTube videos seem to have disappeared, so this may be the easiest way to access the talks. Cheers!

Here's an interesting question from Eva Vivalt of AidGrade on the FB group: "What are some important research questions that could use more work? Let's make a list!"

Some social change questions:

1) Is it better to focus on the "influencers," often through personalized contact and meetings?

2) Which countries are most important in steering global conversation?

3) Does controversy tend to reduce the growth ceiling of a movement by creating opposition (even though it, arguably, speeds up growth)?

Some meta stuff:

1) How can we spread EA effectively?

2) What are the lowest-hanging fruit for improving the EA movement?

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SUMMARY:  ALLFED is launching an emergency appeal on the EA Forum due to a serious funding shortfall. Without new support, ALLFED will be forced to cut half our budget in the coming months, drastically reducing our capacity to help build global food system resilience for catastrophic scenarios like nuclear winter, a severe pandemic, or infrastructure breakdown. ALLFED is seeking $800,000 over the course of 2025 to sustain its team, continue policy-relevant research, and move forward with pilot projects that could save lives in a catastrophe. As funding priorities shift toward AI safety, we believe resilient food solutions remain a highly cost-effective way to protect the future. If you’re able to support or share this appeal, please visit allfed.info/donate. Donate to ALLFED FULL ARTICLE: I (David Denkenberger) am writing alongside two of my team-mates, as ALLFED’s co-founder, to ask for your support. This is the first time in Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disaster’s (ALLFED’s) 8 year existence that we have reached out on the EA Forum with a direct funding appeal outside of Marginal Funding Week/our annual updates. I am doing so because ALLFED’s funding situation is serious, and because so much of ALLFED’s progress to date has been made possible through the support, feedback, and collaboration of the EA community.  Read our funding appeal At ALLFED, we are deeply grateful to all our supporters, including the Survival and Flourishing Fund, which has provided the majority of our funding for years. At the end of 2024, we learned we would be receiving far less support than expected due to a shift in SFF’s strategic priorities toward AI safety. Without additional funding, ALLFED will need to shrink. I believe the marginal cost effectiveness for improving the future and saving lives of resilience is competitive with AI Safety, even if timelines are short, because of potential AI-induced catastrophes. That is why we are asking people to donate to this emergency appeal