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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Summary
This post will summarize the trajectory of Wild Animal Initiative’s field-building for wild animal welfare science so far, along with patterns and indicators we want to see more of going forward. Beginning with an initial phase focused on establishing credibility and awareness of the field, through a second phase that has placed more emphasis on the distinctiveness and broad priorities of the field, we are now moving into a third phase designed to co...
I sometimes get frustrated when I hear someone trying to "read between the lines" of everything another person says or does. I get even more frustrated if I'm the one involved in this type of situation. It seems that non-rhetorical exploratory questions (e.g. "what problem is solved by person X doing action Y?") are often taken as rhetorical and accusatory (e.g. "person X is not solving a problem by doing action Y.")
I suppose a lot of it comes down to presentation and communication skills. If you communicate very well, people won't try as hard to read between the lines of your statements and questions.
However, I still believe there is room for people to do a little less "reading between the lines," even in situations where they really want to. It can reduce friction and sometimes completely avoid an unnecessary conflict.
I searched for this topic on both EA Forum and LessWrong and didn't find much, at least with the phrasing of "reading between the lines." Does anyone have any links or articles that explore this idea more thoroughly?