Open and Welcome Thread: August 2020

Hi all! I'm Litawn. I found EA through my interest in rationality (Lesswrong, SSC). I was involved with Stanford Effective Altruism, but mostly am a serial lurker. I want to start engaging more with the community and EA in general, as I can see that there is a lot to learn.

My interests are usually in fundamental questions as well as pragmatic ones. I like thinking about big questions like the far future, the fate of the universe, nature of life, etc. I'm inherently drawn to these sorts of things.

I also care about improving human coordination and raising the sanity water line. I want more people to feel like they have the ability to make a positive difference, and for their efforts to be fruitful.

Hello!

I'm new to effective altruism, and also to online forums in general. I'm interested in philanthropy, charity, altruism, and more generally, giving. Regarding personal or biographical information, if it's okay I would prefer to remain anonymous. Nonetheless I would love to have the opportunity to potentially become part of the community.

If possible I would like some guidance as to the right organisations to donate money to. I hope this is the right place to post this (if not, perhaps I could be pointed in the right direction?). I hope my post is not too detailed! I have chosen this forum to ask this question because I am particularly interested in effective altruism.

I would like to give money to between 1 and 4+ organisations. I've researched the topic and am considering EA's Global Health and Development Fund; the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN); the Fistula Foundation; and ChildFund. I am also strongly considering giving money in order to attempt to help the COVID-19 crisis; and to attempt to help the global warming situation (especially in Africa). I'm considering other organisations and causes, but so far these are the primary ones.

Perhaps I could learn your perspective(s) regarding this. Again, if this is not the place to ask this question, perhaps I could learn where that place may be. Regardless, effective altruism has appealed to me for a long time and I would love to have the opportunity to become part of the community in some way.

Thanks a lot!

Hi all, I’m Celia. I first got involved with Effective Altruism a few years ago, mostly EA London. After trying a few different things to do the most good with my skill set, I settled in charity fundraising, working for WaterAid, then the NSPCC, and now in Hand in Hand International, a small, efficient charity which lifts communities out of poverty with a proven four step model that creates sustainable income. I have a particular interest in International Development and I’m also interested in how fundraising works and how to make it more effective.

Hi everyone! I'm Aman, an undergrad at USC currently majoring in computational neuroscience (though that might change). I'm very new to EA, so I haven't yet had the chance to be involved with any EA groups, but I would love to start participating more with the community. I found EA after spending a few months digging into artificial general intelligence, and it's been great to read everyone's thoughts about how to turn vague moral intuitions into concrete action plans.

I have a soft spot for the standard big-picture philosophy/physics topics, like the nature of intelligence and meta-ethics and epistemology and theories of everything, but also the wildly unpragmatic questions (like whether we might consider directing ourselves into a time loop once heat death comes around, if it's possible).

As a career, I tentatively want to focus on improving global governance capacity, since I'm inclined to think that it might ultimately determine how well EA-related research and prioritization can be implemented (and also how well we are able to handle x- and s-risks, and capitalize on safe AI). I realize that this is probably one of the least tractable goals to have, so I might end up working in another area, like international development, mental health, science policy, or something else entirely. Amusingly, all the EA career advice out there has only made me more confused about what I should be doing (but I'm probably approaching it wrong).

Anyway, I'm excited to be here and grateful for the opportunity to start interacting with the EA community!

Has anyone looked into the implications of deepfakes? To me, it seems like a highly impactful technology that will obstruct the use of the internet as an information-gathering tool, among other things.

Towards measuring poverty costs of covid from economic disruption: https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/lives-or-livelihoods-global-estimates-mortality-and-poverty-costs-covid-19