Topics in Need of Work
Criticism of longtermism and existential risk studies collects critical discussions of longtermism and existential risk studies.
Further reading
Melchin, Denise (2021) Why I am probably not a longtermist, Effective Altruism Forum, September 23.
Tomasik, Brian (2015) Should altruists focus on reducing short-term or far-future suffering?, Essays on Reducing Suffering...
Urgent longtermism is the position that now is an unusually good time to have an outsized impact on the future (i.e., the hinge of history hypothesis). In particular, it claims that the current time is particularly pivotal and that we have some scope to change what happens. Ben Todd creates a distinction between two kinds of urgent longtermism: broad and targeted...
Further reading
Askell, Amanda (2019) AI safety needs social scientists, EAGlobal, March 4.
Irving, Geoffrey & Amanda Askell (2019) Ai safety needs social scientists, Distill, vol. 4.
Mauricio (2020) Social sciences & existential risk - syllabus, unpublished.
Related entries
economics | history | international relations | psychology | surveys
For posts that offer career advising, discuss better (and worse) types of career advising, etc.
Types of career advice research
One proposed typology of research on career advice distinguishes between career choice research ("Which career paths are especially impactful?"), career success research ("What strategies are best for succeeding in a career?"), and career...
Grantmaking is the process by which a government or an organization gives non-repayable funds or products for a particular purpose or project.
Grantmaking focused on top cause areas is one of 80,000 hours "priority paths"—the most promising career opportunities the organization is currently aware of.[1] Their medium-depth profile rates grantmaking an option...
Charity evaluation (or charity assessment) is the investigation of charities to determine whether they should receive funding. It often includes a mixture of quantitative cost-effectiveness calculations and other considerations, such as the strength of the charity's team, their theory of change, and their room for more funding.
Charity evaluators are organisations...
The burden of disease (also called disease burden and global burden of disease) is the total impact of disease on a population.
History
The concept of burden of disease originates in a study commissioned by the World Bank in 1990 and in collaboration with Harvard University and the World Health Organization (WHO). The study, published in the World Bank's 1993 ...
A supervolcano is an unusually large volcano with the potential to produce an eruption with major effects on the global climate system.
Recommendations
In The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, Toby Ord offers several policy and research recommendations for handling risks from supervolcanic eruptions:[1]
- Find all the places where supervolcanic
A singleton is a world order in which there is a single decision-making agency at the highest level. The singleton hypothesis is the hypothesis that Earth-originating intelligent life will eventually assume the form a singleton.
The concept of a singleton expresses an abstract idea. A singleton could take the form of world government, such as global democracy...
The Motivational tag covers posts that focus on inspiring us to do good (either a specific kind of good, or whatever we already want to work on).
We hope that reading through this collection will lift your spirits and spur you to beneficial action!
If a post motivates you to do good, or you think it will motivate others, upvote it. There are no wrong answers.
Topic Voting Activity
| User | Post Title | Topic | Pow | When | Vote |
Recent Topic Activity
Soil animals are terrestrial invertebrates that spend most of their life in soil or litter (e.g., nematodes, mites, springtails, earthworms, many ants and termites).litter. They are extremely numerous and influence nutrient cycling, plant growth, and carbon dynamics. Recent EA Forum work arguesExamples of soil animals include soil ants, termites, springtails, mites, and nematodes. Each of these groups is much more numerous, and has many more neurons in total than wild vertebrates and farmed animals. Vasco Grilo argued overall changes in welfare may be determined by effects on soil animals, even accounting for soil ants and termites only, instead of effects on the beneficiaries targeted by interventions. However, there is large uncertainty about the expected intensity of the subjective experiences of soil animals, whether they may dominate animal-year counts relevanthave positive or negative, and what increases or decreases their population. So Vasco advocated for more research on informing how to increase the welfare analyses, but their sentience and net welfare remain highly uncertain.of soil animals over pursuing whatever land use change interventions naively seem to achieve that the most cost-effectively.
animal welfare | wild animalartificial sentience | invertebrate welfare | moral circle expansion | moral weight | digital mindsnematode welfare | wild animal welfare
FarmKind "connect[s] compassionate people with impactful charities that are fixing factory farming".
FarmKind "connect[s] compassionate people with impactful charities that are fixing factory farming"
Rethink Priorities is a think tank dedicated to informing decisions made by high-impact organisations and funders . We workfunders. It works across various cause areas such as longtermism (including forecasting, AI governance, and nuclear risks), building effective altruism, animal welfare (for both farmed and wild animals), and global health and development.
The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (CWAW) is a new policy advocacy organization, working to improve the lives of wild animals today and build support for wild animal welfare policy.
The Center for Wild Animal Welfare (CWAW) is a new policy advocacy organization, working to improve the lives of wild animals today and build support for wild animal welfare policy.
Holden Karnofsky (born 1981) is an American philanthropist. He is a visiting scholar Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.member of technical staff at Anthropic.
Coefficient Giving's leadership can be viewed on its team page.[5] At present, Alexander Berger is the CEO, and Cari Tuna is Coefficient Giving's president, and Holden Karnofsky and Alexander Berger are its two co-CEOs. Karnofsky oversees grantmaking in biosecurity, AI safety and longtermism, while Berger oversees grantmaking in global health and development, farmed animal welfare, scientific research and other areas within global health and wellbeing.[5]
Funding opportunities
Applications are currently open for young individuals interested in obtaining financial support for pursuing careers that help improve the long-term future.[6]chair.
Walsh, Bryan (2025) One of the world's most influential philanthropies is changing its name. Here's why it matters.Vox, November 18.
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Karnofsky, Holden (2011) Announcing GiveWell Labs, The GiveWell Blog, September 8 (updated 2 September 2014).
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Karnofsky, Holden (2014) Open Philanthropy Project (formerly GiveWell Labs), Open Philanthropy, August 20.
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Karnofsky, Holden (2017) The Open Philanthropy Project is now an independent organization, Open Philanthropy, June 12.
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Berger, Alexander (2025) Open Philanthropy Is Now Coefficient Giving, Coefficient Giving, November 18.
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Karnofsky, Holden (2021)Open Philanthropy’s new co-CEOTeam,Open PhilanthropyCoefficient Giving,June 15. ^Open Philanthropy (2020)Early-career funding for individuals interested in improving the long-term future,Open Philanthropy, August 31.November 20.
Soil animals are terrestrial invertebrates that spend most of their life in soil or litter (e.g., nematodes, mites, springtails, earthworms, many ants and termites). They are extremely numerous and influence nutrient cycling, plant growth, and carbon dynamics. Recent EA Forum work argues they may dominate animal-year counts relevant to welfare analyses, but their sentience and net welfare remain highly uncertain.
Related entries
animal welfare | wild animal welfare | moral circle expansion | moral weight | digital minds
Ambitious Impact — Does research into the most effective interventions and incubates charities to implement these interventions.
Charity Entrepreneurship — Does research into the most effective interventions and incubates charities to implement these interventions.
Coefficient Giving — Aims to help philanthropy improve lives effectively through research and grantmaking. Makes grants in areas including U.S. policy, farm animal welfare and global catastrophic risks.
Legal Priorities ProjectInstitute for Law & AI — Conducts legal research that tackles the world’s most pressing problems. Currently focusing on artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, climate change and institutional design.
Open Philanthropy — Aims to help philanthropy improve lives effectively through research and grantmaking. Makes grants in areas including U.S. policy, farm animal welfare and global catastrophic risks.
Coefficient Giving (previously Open Philanthropy (previously the Open Philanthropy Project) is a research and grantmaking foundation based in San Francisco.
Open PhilanthropyCoefficient Giving launched in late 2011, as a partnership between Good Ventures and GiveWell.[1] The partnership operated under the name GiveWell Labs before adopting, in August 2014, the name Open Philanthropy Project.[2] It continued to be part of GiveWell until 2017, when it became an independent organization.[3] The name was changed to Open Philanthropy around December 2019.2019, and Coefficient Giving in November 2025.[4]
Cari Tuna is Open Philanthropy'Coefficient Giving's president, and Holden Karnofsky and Alexander Berger are its two co-CEOs. Karnofsky oversees grantmaking in biosecurity, AI safety and longtermism, while Berger oversees grantmaking in global health and development, farmed animal welfare, scientific research and other areas within global health and wellbeing.[4]5]
Applications are currently open for young individuals interested in obtaining financial support for pursuing careers that help improve the long-term future.[5]6]
Wiblin, Robert (2017) You want to do as much good as possible and have billions of dollars. What do you do?, 80,000 Hours, October 11.
An interview with Nick Beckstead, a former program officer at Open Philanthropy.Coefficient Giving.
Wiblin, Robert & Keiran Harris (2018) The world’s most intellectual foundation is hiring. Holden Karnofsky, founder of GiveWell, on how philanthropy can have maximum impact by taking big risks, 80,000 Hours, February 27.
An interview with Holden Karnofsky, Open Philanthropy'Coefficient Giving's former CEO.
Open PhilanthropyCoefficient Giving. Official website.
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Karnofsky, Holden (2011) Announcing GiveWell Labs, The GiveWell Blog, September 8 (updated 2 September 2014).
- ^
Karnofsky, Holden (2014) Open Philanthropy Project (formerly GiveWell Labs), Open Philanthropy, August 20.
- ^
Karnofsky, Holden (2017) The Open Philanthropy Project is now an independent organization, Open Philanthropy, June 12.
- ^
Berger, Alexander (2025) Open Philanthropy Is Now Coefficient Giving, Coefficient Giving, November 18.
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Karnofsky, Holden (2021) Open Philanthropy’s new co-CEO, Open Philanthropy, June 15.
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Open Philanthropy (2020) Early-career funding for individuals interested in improving the long-term future, Open Philanthropy, August 31.
During Marginal Funding Week (November 17 - 23), organisations post about their funding gaps, and what they could achieve with extra funding. [Here's a fancy page that also showcase Marginal Funding Week posts.]
You can check out our special Marginal Funding page Apply nowhere.
- AMAs
- Debates
- Annual events
- Other events
- AMAs
- Debates
- Annual events
- Other events
Looks like legal priorities project transfered to https://law-ai.org/