Hi!
I'm Tobias Baumann, co-founder of the Center for Reducing Suffering, a new longtermist research organisation focused on figuring out how we can best reduce severe suffering, taking into account all sentient beings. Ask me anything!
A little bit about me:
I’m interested in a broad range of research topics related to cause prioritisation from a suffering-focused perspective. I’ve written about risk factors for s-risks, different types of s-risks, as well as crucial questions on longtermism and artificial intelligence. My most-upvoted EA Forum post (together with David Althaus from the Center on Long-Term Risk) examines how we can best reduce long-term risks from malevolent actors. I’ve also explored various other topics, including space governance, electoral reform, improving our political system, and political representation of future generations. Most recently, I’ve been thinking about patient philanthropy and the optimal timing of efforts to reduce suffering.
Although I'm most interested in questions related to those areas, feel free to ask me anything. Apologies in advance if there are any questions which, for any of many possible reasons, I’m not able to respond to.
One key difference is that there is less money in it, because OpenPhil as the biggest EA grantmaker is not focused on reducing s-risks. In a certain sense, that is good news because work on s-risks is plausibly more funding-constrained than non-suffering-focused longtermism.
In terms of where to donate, I would recommend the Center on Long-Term Risk and the Center for Reducing Suffering (which I co-founded myself). Both of those organisations are doing crucial research on s-risk reduction. If you are looking for something a bit less abstract, you could consider Animal Ethics, the Good Food Institute, or Wild Animal Initiative.