I moderate the Forum, and I'm happy to review your posts before they're published! See here for instructions:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZeXqBEvABvrdyvMzf/editing-available-for-ea-forum-drafts
I'm a full-time content writer at CEA. I started Yale's student EA group, and I've also volunteered for CFAR and MIRI. I spend a few hours a month advising a small, un-Googleable private foundation that makes EA-adjacent donations.
Before joining CEA, I was a tutor, a freelance writer, a tech support agent, and a music journalist. I blog, and keep a public list of my donations, at aarongertler.net.
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The Motivation Series seems like it would also qualify for the list.
Cummings is known to be a fan of Yudkowsky/SSC, which the media tends to lump together with effective altruism. He's also written about AI safety before.
Founders Pledge now has a podcast, featuring interviews with their members and researchers: https://founderspledge.com/stories/category/podcasts
Well, that explains the original title! I still think a title change would be helpful; I had to read this title a few times to make sure I hadn't missed a word.
Could you please use a more descriptive title for this post?
I think this line from your introduction would work as a title: "UK foreign aid policy through an EA lens"
Neel reached out to me to ask whether any of his posts seemed like a reasonable fit for the Forum. I mentioned this one specifically, because I think almost all the points here can easily be applied to altruistic work and EA does care about reducing "wasted motion" (in the sense of effort going toward lower-impact interventions).
While LW is a better overall forum for material on personal development and critical thinking, I don't mind having some such content on the Forum; some people read this site and not LW, and I wouldn't want them to miss all the posts like this one.
That's the kind of source I was looking for; thanks for letting me know when it came up.
Dony: Since we just posted our policy on political Forum content, I wanted to let you know that this post will be kept in the "Personal Blog" category (as it endorses a specific electoral candidate). However, I think it's an excellent question, and I would encourage you to promote this post on Facebook/Reddit/etc.
Personally, I doubt Wayne's victory would "unlock additional political wins" to any great extent; Berkeley is a small city, and I can't think of many (any?) other EA leaders who want to become elected leaders.
I do think it would be interesting to see how EA ideas could be implemented on the level of city policy, and Wayne could be the source of a lot of positive media coverage of EA ideas (journalists like Berkeley, and Wayne has solid media experience, e.g. his Ezra Klein interview).
However, there's also some risk that Berkeley's politics are such that a mayor whose ideas aren't in line with those of e.g. most City Council members might struggle a lot. Berkeley is one of the most progressive cities in the U.S.: if they haven't made strong progress in addressing poverty/climate change already, I'm not sure what Wayne's leadership would add.
On that topic, I'm curious about how Wayne's policies and approach differ from those of the current mayor. I can see what he wants to do on his site, but not what he thinks Jesse Arreguín is wrong about (or what he hasn't implemented well as mayor, even if he had the right ideas).
Fixed, thanks!