Quick takes

EA Forum Wrapped 2024 👀

In honor of Pledge Highlight Week, here’s a list of some resources we recommend for people who are considering taking a pledge.   Articles/FAQ related to pledging Why pledge (even if you already donate) 5 things you’ve got wrong about the Giving What We Can Pledge Can money buy happiness? A review of the data (newly updated!) Pledge FAQ   Videos featuring @Luke Freeman 🔸 : Why make a public giving pledge?  How change happens  How much to donate to charity: Finding a good standard for giving   Pledgers sharing their experience Case studies page “People who give effectively” video playlist Giving What We Can blog   Introductory videos about effective giving & the ideas behind the pledge The story behind the 10% Pledge (featuring Toby Ord and released last month!) You’re richer than you realise (Grace interviews people on the streets of London!)   And of course, our “How Rich Am I” calculator tool where you can see where your income puts you on a global scale. 

I'm going to repeat something that I did about a year ago: A very small, informal announcement: if you want someone to review your resume and give you some feedback or advice, send me your resume and I'll help. If you would like to do a mock interview, send me a message and we can schedule a video call to practice. If we have never met before, that is okay. I'm happy to help you, even if we are total strangers. To be clear: this is not a paid service, I'm not trying to drum up business for some kind of a side-hustle, and I'm not going to ask you to subscribe to a newsletter. I am just a person who is offering some free informal help. I enjoy helping people bounce ideas around, and people whom I've previously helped in this way seemed to have benefited from it and appreciated it. A few related thoughts: * There are a lot of people that are looking for a job as part of a path to greater impact, but many people feel somewhat awkward or ashamed to ask for help. If I am struggling in a job hunt, I don't want to ask friends or professional contacts for help due to shame; I worry that they will think less of me for not being competent. So asking a stranger that you've never met and that isn't connected to your life can be a nice option. * There is a lot of 'low-hanging fruit' for making a resume look better, from simply formatting changes that make a resume easier to understand to wordsmithing the phrasings. Sometimes you just need a helpful person to look with a critical eye. * There is also something about 'playing the game.' I think of this something like informal coaching. Some people don't know that when you are asked about a time you had an interpersonal conflict, instead of telling about a time you had an interpersonal conflict you should instead tell about a time you had an interpersonal conflict and you resolved it and it makes you look good.

If someone isn't already doing so, someone should estimate what % of (self-identified?) EAs donate according to our own principles. This would be useful (1) as a heuristic for the extent to which the movement/community/whatever is living up to its own standards, and (1i) assuming the answer is 'decently' it would be useful evidence for PR/publicity/responding to marginal-faith tweets during bouts of criticism. Looking at the Rethink survey from 2020, they have some info about which causes EAs are giving to but they seem to note that not many people respond on this? And it's not quite the same question. To do: check GWWC for whether they publish anything like this. Edit to add: maybe an imperfect but simple and quick instrument for this could be something like "For what fraction of your giving did you attempt a cost-effectiveness assessment (CEA), read a CEA, or rely on someone else who said they did a CEA?". I don't think it actually has to be about whether the respondent got the "right" result per se; the point is the principles. Deferring to GiveWell seems like living up to the principles because of how they make their recommendations, etc.

I took the 10% Pledge earlier this year, but was contemplating it a lot for a while before. After taking the pledge, I noticed a couple of insights that I think would have probably made me pledge earlier. I think these insights most directly apply to people who were in a similar situation as I was[1]-  but they might be useful for others as well: * You don’t have to donate 10% right away. Today (!) I learned that "while studying or unemployed, it is within the spirit of the Pledge to give 1% of spending money instead of the income-based pledge amount" and the 10% kicks in once you start earning a stable income. When I first learned about the pledge, I was still at uni and thought I should wait until I had a full-time job and some comfortable savings. However, even if I were already full-time employed at the time and wouldn’t donate at all for the next 4 years, I’d only have to donate ~11%[2] for the rest of my career to compensate for the lack of donations over my lifetime. As someone having a ~median income in a high-income country, I believe that 11% is very doable. In fact (hot take!) I believe that 15-20% should be the norm for people in my situation.  * 10% is not as much as you might think. I think for me, there was a strong anchoring effect here - in my city, most people I know donate something like 30-50€ a month, so 10% (100+ €/month at the time I learned about the pledge) felt like a huge step. Instead of pledging, I decided to just donate what I could “easily miss”. This included instances in which I surprisingly saved money, birthday and Christmas gifts and occasionally deliberate decisions to not purchase “luxuries”. Tracking all of these was a bit tedious, but it showed me how I could easily donate more than 10%, by reframing my donations around what I could genuinely “easily” give away, instead of seeing it in relation to what other people give. * Nowadays I'd recommend people to take the trial pledge, but doing so at 10% for say 6-12 months. My

I’ve been working a few hours per week at the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund as a Fund Manager since Summer this year. EA’s reputation is at a bit of a low point. I’ve even heard EA described as the ‘boogeyman’ in certain well-meaning circles. So why do I feel inclined to double down on effective altruism rather than move onto other endeavours? Some shower thoughts: * I generally endorse aiming directly for the thing you actually care about. It seems higher integrity, and usually more efficient. I want to do the most good possible, and this goal already has a name and community attached to it; EA. * I find the core, underlying principles very compelling. The Centre for Effective Altruism highlights scope sensitivity, impartiality, recognition of tradeoffs, and the Scout Mindset. I endorse all of these! * Seems to me that EA has a good track record of important insights on otherwise neglected topics. Existential risk, risks of astronomical suffering, AI safety, wild animal suffering; I attribute a lot of success in these nascent fields to the insights of people with a shared commitment to EA principles and goals. * Of course, there’s been a lot of progress on slightly less neglected cause areas too. The mind boggles at the sheer number of human lives saved and the vast amount of animal suffering reduced by organisations funded by Open Philanthropy, for example. * I have personally benefited massively in achieving my own goals. Beyond some of the above insights, I attribute many improvements in my productivity and epistemics to discussions and recommendations that arose out of the pursuit of EA. * In other roles or projects I’m considering, when I think of questions like “who will actually realistically consider acting on this idea I think is great? Giving up their time or money to make this happen?” the most obvious and easiest answer often looks like some subset of the EA community. Obviously there are some echo chamber-y and bias-related reasons tha

Imperfect Parfit (written by by Daniel Kodsi and John Maier) is a fairly long review (by 2024 internet standards) of Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality. It draws attention to some of his oddities and eccentricity (such as brushing his teeth for hours, or eating the same dinner every day (not unheard of among famous philosophers)). Considering Parfit's influence on the ideas that many of us involved in EA have, it seemed worth sharing here.

There are quite a few posts/some discussion on 1. The value of language learning for career capital 2. The dominance of English in EA and the advantages it confers See., e.g., https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qf6pGhm9a7vTMFLtc/english-as-a-dominant-language-in-the-movement-challenges https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/k7igqbN52XtmJGBZ8/effective-language-learning-for-effective-altruists I expect these issues to become less important very soon as new AI-powered technology gets better. To an extent, the Babblefish is already here and nearly useable. E.g., the latest timekettle translator earbuds (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTP57ZRM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1) are getting rave reviews from some people (https://bsky.app/profile/joshuafmask.bsky.social/post/3lcm22p6nsc2o)