This is a special post for quick takes by Pat Myron 🔸. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Radar speed signs currently seem like one of the more cost effective traffic calming measures since they don't require roadwork, but they still surprisingly cost thousands of dollars.
Mass producing cheaper radar speed signs seems like a tractable public health initiative
Offput that 80k hours advises "if you find you aren’t interested in [The Precipice: Existential Risk], we probably aren’t the best people for you to get advice from". Hoped there was more general advising beyond just those interested in existential risk
This forum has many comments that essentially boil down to something like "thanks/you're welcome/+1/this/me too/same/agree/disagree/great/etc" that dilute signal-to-noise
I imagine most of these commentators also voted on their parent content, and the comment itself doesn't add much more than noise beyond that
I disagree because I think writing text to indicate a sentiment is a stronger signal than pressing a button. So while it’s somewhat redundant, it adds new information IMO.
As a writer, I pay attention to these signals when processing feedback.
Thanks. A sympathetic disagree from me. I think that knowing what specific people think is signal not noise. Who thinks what is often some of the most important information to communicate.
If you know I generally agree with you and support you you are much more likely to talk to me or to collaborate on projects etc. The converse is true if you know I disagree with you about many things. You don't get that information from my votes.
I think I agree with you in most cases, but every 1 in 5 or so I think, "Oh, it's interesting that [Person X in particular] thinks that," or "Aww, it's sweet that this person was so grateful for the parent comment that they felt they had throw in a comment on top of a strong upvote," or "Haha, lc you beat me to it."
There may be initial opportunities for extra impact by prioritizing monitoring and improving air quality in important decision-making buildings like government buildings, headquarters, etc
Most https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/ confuse me since they're predated by Animal Charity Evaluators, Givewell, etc, and the confusion delayed me donating at all
EA funds' website only seems to mention they might grant riskier/earlier-stage, but ACE and Givewell have earlier-stage funds too
The EA Funds Animal Welfare Fund is independent from Animal Charity Evaluators (they have different grant-makers and often donate to different projects).
The EA Funds Global Health and Development Fund seems basically the same as Givewell's funds, it might be a marketing / brand diversification thing.
Many libraries solicit book suggestions at URLs like: https://<LOCAL>.bibliocommons.com/suggested_purchases which seems like a solid opportunity to ensure more impactful books are available: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/effective-altruism
Radar speed signs currently seem like one of the more cost effective traffic calming measures since they don't require roadwork, but they still surprisingly cost thousands of dollars.
Mass producing cheaper radar speed signs seems like a tractable public health initiative
Surprised Animal Charity Evaluators Recommended Charity Fund gives equal amounts to around a dozen charities:
https://animalcharityevaluators.org/donation-advice/recommended-charity-fund/
Obviously uncertainty's involved, but a core tenant of EA and charity evaluators is that certain charities are more effective, so Givewell's Top Charities Fund giving different amounts to only a few charities per year makes more sense to me:
https://www.givewell.org/top-charities-fund
This December is the last month unlimited Manifold Markets currency redemptions for donations are assured: https://manifoldmarkets.notion.site/The-New-Deal-for-Manifold-s-Charity-Program-1527421b89224370a30dc1c7820c23ec
Highly recommend redeeming donations this month since there are orders of magnitude more currency outstanding than can be donated in future months
Offput that 80k hours advises "if you find you aren’t interested in [The Precipice: Existential Risk], we probably aren’t the best people for you to get advice from". Hoped there was more general advising beyond just those interested in existential risk
Some other career orgs:
And for what it's worth, 80,000 Hours has a bunch global health & animal related postings on their job board.
Perhaps also https://www.trainingforgood.com/ and the more niche https://bluedotimpact.org/
I've been lazily throwing job related links here https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YCobjyMhaKHArjwQt/what-resources-should-job-seekers-know-about
Hi Pat,
Thanks, Pat! You and other readers may be interested in Probably Good's list of impact-focused job boards.
This forum has many comments that essentially boil down to something like "thanks/you're welcome/+1/this/me too/same/agree/disagree/great/etc" that dilute signal-to-noise
I imagine most of these commentators also voted on their parent content, and the comment itself doesn't add much more than noise beyond that
I disagree because I think writing text to indicate a sentiment is a stronger signal than pressing a button. So while it’s somewhat redundant, it adds new information IMO.
As a writer, I pay attention to these signals when processing feedback.
Isn't that what the strong upvote is for?
Thanks. A sympathetic disagree from me. I think that knowing what specific people think is signal not noise. Who thinks what is often some of the most important information to communicate.
If you know I generally agree with you and support you you are much more likely to talk to me or to collaborate on projects etc. The converse is true if you know I disagree with you about many things. You don't get that information from my votes.
I agree
I imagine that forum norms might be influenced by this post.
I think I agree with you in most cases, but every 1 in 5 or so I think, "Oh, it's interesting that [Person X in particular] thinks that," or "Aww, it's sweet that this person was so grateful for the parent comment that they felt they had throw in a comment on top of a strong upvote," or "Haha, lc you beat me to it."
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/ is a great American nonprofit resource:
New Incentives in particular seems poised to spend much more after large ~Givewell cash grants
Ranked cost-effective public health interventions:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7142580/ (high income-country policies: food, tobacco, alcohol, etc.)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5552255/ (LMIC policies: medicine, condoms, food, etc.)
Diet advice since food policy tops both lists:
https://cidev.uky.edu/kentuckyhealthnews/2022/02/14/a-healthier-diet-could-add-years-to-your-life-study-says-more-than-a-decade-in-your-20s-and-eight-or-nine-years-even-at-age-60/
Surprised how concentrated shortform authorship is. So far in 2023:
EA Forum:
25/125 (20%) @Nathan Young
9/125 (7%) @Evan_Gaensbauer
Lesswrong:
26/252 (10%) @DragonGod
10/252 (4%) @lc
assuming my code's accurate enough:
grep -Eo 'CommentUserName-author">.+?<' shortform.div | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr # outdatedgrep -Eo 'UsersNameDisplay-noColor" href=".+?">.+?<' shortform.div | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr # updatedMillions of people contract pork tapeworm infections annually, which causes ~30% of the ~50 million global active epilepsy cases:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)61353-2/fulltext
Perhaps cultural pork consumption restrictions are onto something:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_restrictions_on_the_consumption_of_pork
Vaccines saved 150M+ lives over the past 50 years, including 100M+ infants and nearly 100M lives from Measles alone:
https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/new-data-shows-vaccines-have-saved-154-million-lives-past-50-years
https://www.who.int/news/item/24-04-2024-global-immunization-efforts-have-saved-at-least-154-million-lives-over-the-past-50-years
As evidence increases for cognitive effects of poor air quality:
https://patrickcollison.com/pollution
There may be initial opportunities for extra impact by prioritizing monitoring and improving air quality in important decision-making buildings like government buildings, headquarters, etc
Those papers don't look very convincing. Check out:
https://vincentbagilet.github.io/inference_pollution/
This paper looks to be the best:
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180279
In America, dining services influence far more meals than vegans' personal consumption
Aramark, Compass Group, etc. each serve billions of meals annually, and even the largest individual correctional facilities, hospital campuses, school districts, public universities, baseball stadiums, etc. each serve millions of meals annually to largely captive audiences
Various animal groups target these dining services to switch to cage-free eggs and add more plant-based options. Some also push for meatless days.
Most https://funds.effectivealtruism.org/ confuse me since they're predated by Animal Charity Evaluators, Givewell, etc, and the confusion delayed me donating at all
EA funds' website only seems to mention they might grant riskier/earlier-stage, but ACE and Givewell have earlier-stage funds too
The EA Funds Animal Welfare Fund is independent from Animal Charity Evaluators (they have different grant-makers and often donate to different projects).
The EA Funds Global Health and Development Fund seems basically the same as Givewell's funds, it might be a marketing / brand diversification thing.
Many libraries solicit book suggestions at URLs like:
https://<LOCAL>.bibliocommons.com/suggested_purchaseswhich seems like a solid opportunity to ensure more impactful books are available:
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/effective-altruism
Starting more free https://www.parkrun.com/ 5k runs would be a great way to improve public health and connect people interested in improving health
(for local EA groups interested in volunteering ideas)
Reminder AmazonSmile shuts down tomorrow if anyone else wants to shop more today and/or less going forward:
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-closing-amazonsmile-to-focus-its-philanthropic-giving-to-programs-with-greater-impact
+1 to be able to check notifications, messages, and specific posts here without seeing newsfeeds:
https://github.com/jordwest/news-feed-eradicator/issues/253
https://github.com/ForumMagnum/ForumMagnum/issues/6640
Is it possible to re-collapse a shortform after expanding it on /allPosts? If so, how? If not, feature request :)
+1 for these forum logos to be added to FontAwesome:
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/19536