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Disclaimer: This blog post focuses on a new piece of research from Rethink Priorities. I was not involved with the funding or execution of this research, and therefore write this piece merely as a consumer. However, I am the Executive Director of Giving Green and a board member of Rethink Priorities, and acknowledge that these affiliations may bias my...
I am writing up two charity ideas I’ve wanted to investigate, but haven’t been able to, in the hopes someone will investigate them further. If you end up investigating either, I'd be most interested to see what conclusions you come to!
Vulture preservation as a global health intervention
Since the mid 1990's the vulture population in India has been rapidly declining. The reason is due to a few chemicals which are fed to livestock, which is highly poisonous to vultures.
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Michael Nielsen has a beautiful new essay on moral imagination: the ability humans have to 'develop and transmit new notions of good action, indeed, even new kinds of good'.
As examples, he gives:
* Hammurabi's creation of a code of laws (in 1754 BCE) and his justification of his rule not in terms of divine or hereditary right, but by the delivery of justice to his citizens.
* St Gregory of Nyssa's...
Recent opportunities to take action
Apropos of the "Criticism and Red Teaming Contest," I am curious about how critiques have historically shaped EA:
a. What critiques have resulted in large and tangible changes in the movement?
b. What were the means by which these critiques were "metabolized?" Eg did they require a prestigious champion? Was there a highly shared article that changed people's minds? etc
I have no proof it mattered, but a few years before the big pivot to longtermism, 80k debated some leftists who emphasised the sheer scope of systemic change and measurability bias. And we moved.