(Aspiring) effective altruist, figuring out what's the most effective (Pr(Effectiveness | Altruistic Framework)), while trying to sift through important moral uncertainties to figure out the Altruistic Framework (s-risk vs x-risk, animal vs human welfare, and suffering-focused ethics).
Currently working as an ineffective non-altruist, on 5G networks and some machine learning,
Currently learning about/doing :
- Person affecting views and its consequences on my confidence about Longtermism.
- Suffering focused ethics which intuitively appeals a lot to me, but seems to have weak support from the larger EA community.
- Economics from 'The Principles of Economics' by Gregory Mankiw.
- Whether specializing EA orgs for the Indian context is worth it.
- Reinforcement Learning specialization.
My EA journey so far:
- Some ineffective albeit altruistic efforts in my own local community
- EA Introductory Fellowship.
- The In-Depth Fellowship.
- AI safety governance course by BlueDot
- S-risk Intro Fellowship by CLRL
- Biosafety Pandemic Preparedness course by BlueDot
- Career Planning course EA Virtual Program (in progress)
- Small informal Progress Studies reading group
- EA advocacy in personal circles.
- Trying to start a local chapter at my alma mater.
Attending my first EAGx, and this has been super helpful!
I'm still on the fence about going all in with longtermist cause areas. Therefore, I usually divide my donations between Animal Welfare (Animal Charity Evaluators Fund), GWWC Top Charities Fund and The Long Term Future Fund (pandemic risk and AI safety mainly).
Although not relevant to the question, a really useful tip is to donate via your friends' employers (such as Google and Microsoft) who may match the employee's contribution.
I think 'How Democracies Die' is a pretty acclaimed book that seems relevant.