All of Bitton's Comments + Replies

Some possible criteria:

  • Number of GWWC members
  • Number of GWWC pledge signers
  • Number of EA facebook group members
  • Amount of traffic on this website
  • Amount of money moved by GiveWell
  • Amount of 80k Hours career advice requests
  • Number of applications
  • Amount of media coverage
  • Amount of positive media coverage
  • Number of EA organizations and projects
  • Size and scale of EA organizations and projects
  • Number of job applications at EA organizations
  • Number of applications for EA funds, contests, and projects
  • Amount of money donated by EAs
  • Level of credibility EA holds in academia
1
Evan_Gaensbauer
9y
I like this list. We could improve on it by establishing a hierarchy of metrics. 1st Tier: more quantifiable and objective metrics which are also most strongly tied or correlated with direct impact. * Amount of money moved by Givewell and/or other effective altruist organizations. * Amount of money donated by effective altruists 2nd Tier: quantifiable metrics which aren't directly tied to increased impact, but are strongly expected to lead to increased impact. In this tier I include memberships which are expected to lead to more donations, and to overcome constraints on talent and human capital. * Number of GWWC members * Number of GWWC pledge signers * Amount of 80,000 Hours career advice requests * Number of effective altruism organizations and projects * Number of job applications at effective altruism organizations * Number of applications for effective altruism funds, contests and projects * Scale and scope of effective altruism organizations and projects 3rd Tier: metrics which are less direct, more subjective, less quantifiable, and are more about awareness than exactly expected impact. * Amount of traffic on this website * Amount of media coverage * Amount of positive media coverage * Level of credibility effective altruism holds in academia I think it's possible for one metric to jump from one tier to the next in terms of how much confidence we put on it. This can happen under dramatic circumstances. For example, "media coverage" or "positive media coverage" would be something we would have much confidence in as impactful if effective altruism gets a cover story on, e.g., TIME magazine.

I'm in a similar place to you.

One thing I think about that I didn't see you mention in your post is the pressure to remain consistent with this rise in your moral standards.

i.e. if eating meat has a Badness Score of -20 but eating dairy has a badness score of -10, then going from vegetarian to vegan seems to apply pressure on you to give up all your other behaviours that fall between -20 and -10 on the spectrum. (Maybe you now have to care more about recycling or something.)

2
mhpage
9y
I use the recycling analogy when talking to people about this issue. I consider myself to be one-who-recycles, but if I have bottle in my hand and there's nowhere convenient to recycle it, I'll throw it away. Holding onto that bottle all day because I've decided I'm a categorical recycler seems kind of silly. I treat food the same way. Regarding your broader point re consistency, my guess is that we way over-emphasize the effect of diet over other relatively cost-less things we can do to make the world a better place -- in large part because there are organized social movements around diet. That of course doesn't necessarily mean we should eat more animal products but rather that we should try to identify other low-hanging-fruit means of improving the world.

Thanks! Do any of these happen to be easily accessible online? I haven't been able to find them yet.

0
xccf
9y
Did you try any of the links here?

Probably because the average age is so low (~25) - lots of students and people just starting out their careers.

Well, since nobody has asked anything...

Of all the arguments you've heard for de-prioritizing GCR reduction, which do you find most convincing?

1
AlexMennen
9y
The AMA is next week.

FYI in case you didn't know, CFAR posts are automatically posted to the "Recent on EA Blogs" bar on the right side of the page, which is how I read this piece.

Cool. Is the site targeted at people new to EA?

As someone that already knows the basic concepts and the organizations, I don't feel a need to return to the website other than to see what's changed.

Maybe you could link to the EA Forum and the EA Job Board? Have a news feed containing original content, news articles, blog posts, or .impact hackpad posts? Have or link to a page of open research questions?

Features that would get people to return after they've become familiar with the basics.

0
tyleralterman
9y

Any updates on how this has gone?

1
Giles
9y
I've got 16 people on the list and nominally made 5 pairings. In a while I'll prod people to see if they're actually talking to each other.

I'm interested in the social movement research and in your blogging carnival suggestion.

Even if your goal is to do as much good as possible, you might do better in a field that really motivates you than in a field that typically produces high salaries but that doesn't interest you much. I also dislike applying for jobs - usually because the jobs I apply for are often jobs that I don't want. However, I like applying for jobs that I do want and that I think I'm qualified for. If you don't feel qualified for jobs in your field then I don't know what to say other than (1) maybe you are qualified but you just have a negatively biased self-image, (... (read more)

What do you think of the forum allowing private messaging and tagging people in posts?

0
Ervin
9y
Tagging is a killer feature of Facebook.
0
RyanCarey
9y
Improving private messaging so that you can compose a message to any user from their user page is my priority in this domain. Tagging could also be good, I suppose.
1
Ben Kuhn
9y
It already allows private messaging. Go to the "messages" section and click "compose".

From what I understand, donations usually result in tax deductions equal to a portion of the donation (I think 15-30% in Canada) but the article suggests basically making them 100% tax deductible.

There's a guy on a movie message board I used to read that did a series of "30 Minute Film Schools" a while ago. Here's the one on audio and here's one on prosumer cameras. I think he has an especially fun way of teaching - his writing style reminds me of Slate Star Codex.

Record room tone so that you don't get that choppy sound every time you cut to a new clip!

Room tone = Before (or during or after) you start shooting, record about a minute of silence in that location. When you lay that audio track underneath the rest of your audio, you'll have a consistent ambient hum instead of one that changes each time you cut.

In terms of content, I thought there was a lot of material in here for this type of video. It was basically 20-30 bullet points in very quick succession, some of them with numbers and details that I, as a viewer, ... (read more)

0
jonathancourtney
9y
Thanks for the feedback- I will be sure to simplify the script and use room tone in the next video! Do you have any suggestions for blogs/guides I can read up on for other tips? Cheers!
1
Ozzie Gooen
9y
I agree with Bitton, and think he has more experience on this than almost any of the rest of us. That said, great job with the effort and I'm looking forward to seeing where you go from here.

Off the top of my head:

  • The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
  • The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley
  • Moral Tribes by Joshua Greene
  • Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dennett
  • Freedom Evolves by Dennett
  • The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer

They might mean that our evolved morality is "good" in a different sense than you're looking for.

I haven't read them yet but The Ant and the Peacock, Moral Minds, Evolution of the Social Contract, Nonzero, Unto Others, and The Moral Animal are probably good picks on the subject.

0
Giles
9y
Thanks - most of those names ring a bell but the Selfish Gene is the only one I've read. I guess some of the value of reading them is gone for me now that my mind is already changed? But I'll keep them in mind :-)

For the record, I'm 2 weeks into my first Peter-style personal review.

0
Peter Wildeford
9y
I'm excited to read it!

My suggestion: if you can't think of an existing resource that answers one of these criticisms, then write it yourself.

Some reasons for choosing this topic were:

  • It's easy for anyone to write about
  • It doesn't rehash information that's already known and
  • Provides reasonably useful data about movement-building.

I've already written my origin story but only intend to publish it on my blog as I consider it off topic for this forum.

I'd be interested in joining Gratipay but I don't seem well suited for it as I'm not currently working on a specific project that requires funding.

Case by case basis, I'd say. If you haven't spoken to this person in years and they didn't respond, then a second email is pretty much spam. If it's someone you know better, a second email might be worth it.

0
Peter Wildeford
9y
I approve this message. To clarify, I followed up solely with people who said they would donate plus people I was nearly certain I was sure would donate.

I would add:

  • Consider the scale of the issue (how many people are being harmed or killed by this problem?)
  • Consider the tractability of the action (how much difference will this cause actually make toward solving the problem?)
  • Consider the room for more funding of an organization (what would this organization do with more money?)
  • As a general rule of thumb, aim for the world's worst off individuals

These are pretty basic but I think most mainstream social causes (e.g. Black Lives Matter, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge) fail to take these considerations into account.

How about co-creating summaries together?

Here’s my summary of Chapter 1 of Principles of Marketing. It took me 4 hours of work. Here is a link to the book.

Anybody reading this can feel free to edit my writing or work on upcoming chapters. If everybody works on it a little at a time, it could get done several times faster than if I summarize the 600 page book on my own. Summarizing books seems perfectly suited for crowdsourcing.

I'd consider summarizing a sequence.

Any suggestions on what would be most useful and practical to summarize? Peter's list was geared toward marketing, outreach, persuasion, and activism. I think that's a good idea. I've started working on a marketing textbook called Principles of Marketing but I can tell that it's going to take me a very long time to do well and I might give up on it after the first chapter.

0
RyanCarey
9y
Why marketing, outreach, persuasion and activism? Personally, I'm currently interested in marketing moreso than those other three. I'd also be interested in startups, business development, consulting, politics, the history of academic movements, biographies and anything on Nick Beckstead's reading list! And that's just the general topics. Most of all, I'd be interested in summaries of books about technological change, futurism, risk forecasting and attempts at political intervention in risky technologies.

In the same vein as skimming - I sometimes like to just read a bunch of abstracts or literature reviews in a row.

In the same vein as being choosy - textbooks are really good places to start reading about a new subject.

I find that it can help me to read several books at once, also choosing the one I'm most excited to read in that particular moment. I often get bored of books in middle, especially if I'm reading them to learn and don't feel like I'm learning.

Just for you, I threw together an <3 page summary but I think it's a lot less useful. It summarizes the basic idea of the book but has no room for examples.

0[anonymous]9y
Thank you, I liked it!

So my post is up: Investing in Yourself

If you write a post, link to it in this thread so it gets noticed.

Also, let me know if you want to choose next month's topic.

I wasn't able to make it. Maybe next time!

Eyal: "Should we count the death of a one day old baby expected otherwise to live many years as a far worse tragedy than the death of a college student expected to live a few less years forthwith?"

I've wondered this before. What do people think?

1
Nicholas_Bregan
9y
The baby's death is more likely to cause a replacement pregnancy. But the college student's economic output is higher for 20 years, which will compound into the future (whether this is good or not depends on how the wealth is used, what indirect consequences it has, and so on). Also I think childhood is terrible. :)
1[anonymous]9y
I'd personally think of it this way: the difference between a young-adult and an infant dying is that the infant lives for about 20 years, both enjoying their life and costing time/money to raise. The benefit from enjoying life for 20 years is much higher than the cost of raising the child (for a middle-class American, $5-10m vs. $200k), so if I had to estimate, I would say that saving a baby rather than a 20 year old is about 1/4 as good as unconditionally saving a baby's life.

I can't find most people's email addresses but the group is here for people to join.

Any time before the end of the month. I was going to take a crack at mine today with the hope of inspiring other people to submit posts.

Also, you may want to post in the EA Facebook group. I think there are 3 or 4 others from Toronto.

Hey Giles, I met you at a LW meetup about a year ago at the Imperial. I mentioned EA to you (and the only other guy that showed up) and I got the impression that neither of you were familiar. Out of curiosity, was that your introduction to EA?

Good Ventures granted $3M to SCI but only $250k to DtWI. Why such a big difference?

5
Jeff Kaufman
9y
Both SCI and DtWI work with governments on deworming, but while SCI works on creating or scaling up these programs DtWI works on making existing programs better. Because they work on different problems, have different sized staffs, and have different projects underway, they need different amounts of money. GiveWell is recommending an allocation of "$5 to AMF, $1 to SCI, $1 to GiveDirectly and $.50 to DtWI for every $7.50 given" and Good Ventures is mostly following this.
3
JoshYou
9y
DtWI has a relatively small funding gap of $1.3 million.

There are some audio recordings of interviews from 2009 here.

Nice post and thanks for the shout out to my blog but for the record, I'm not "a marketer" by any means. I just took an interest in marketing and related fields while researching my thesis paper. I actually do production office work in film.

I think this is a good place to reiterate that I'm interested in beginning an EA blogging carnival where each month, somebody picks a theme and everybody blogs about that theme.

If there's enough interest, I'll pick a topic for Jan 1 submissions.

0
Jess_Whittlestone
9y
I'd also be interested.
2
Pablo
9y
Richard Yetter Chappell ran the Philosophers' Carnival for many years. I believe he is a member of Giving What We Can and is sympathetic to EA ideas. You may want to contact him for advice.
0
Dale
9y
I'd be interested.
0
Peter Wildeford
9y
I'd be interested.
0
Ben Kuhn
9y
I'd be interested.

The Roxanne Heston link doesn't work.

0
lincolnq
9y
Yes, it should be http://www.roxanneheston.com

I like this way of thinking about weirdness, Peter. I've been saying for a while that EA is associated with a lot of weird ideas that are sure to turn off many ordinary people.

Another thing I'd recommend is remaining sympathetic to mildly and moderately important issues (e.g. fighting police brutality in the USA, supporting gay rights, containing ebola, the ALS ice bucket challenge) even when you see everybody around you overrating their importance relative to other issues that you consider far more important. Raining on everybody else's warm, fuzzy parade... (read more)

3[anonymous]9y
This is something discussed a lot in the animal rights movement. Animal rights, perhaps even more so than EA, is a "weird" movement. And, unfortunately, the animal rights movement has been severely damaged by activists who sacrificed other issues for the sake of their own (e.g. PETA and sexist advertising). Recently, some members of the animal rights community have taken an intersectional approach and aligned themselves with those other issues (police brutality, gay rights, etc.). I think this is a very wise approach.
1
Peter Wildeford
9y
That's an important and really interesting point. I don't know if the press coverage of EA eating other issues ("yo, ALS is unimportant, focus on me instead") has been net negative, but it's worth reconsidering and looking into.

Well, the point is that it's a different person choosing the topic each time so my personal list won't be a good representation of what an actual blogging carnival would like - but here are some possibilities, some of which have already been done to death:

  • Donating Now vs Donating Later
  • EA Outreach
  • The Importance of the Far Future
  • Should EAs Be Vegan?
  • The Role of Self-Improvement in EA
  • Morality and Altruism
  • EA Ideas in Art and Popular Culture
  • Unusual Causes
  • Advanced Finances for EAs
  • The Moral Relevance of Wild Animal Suffering
  • Unknown Unknowns
  • The Epistem
... (read more)

Is there any interest in an EA blogging carnival?

How it works is that each month, a different blogger "hosts" the carnival by selecting a topic. Everyone interested in participating for that month then writes a blog post about that topic. The host then writes up a post linking to all the submissions.

0
Dale
9y
This sounds like a great idea. I'd love to participate. Sounds like it could be a great way of creating content and discussion that would be available to refer to in future.
0
RyanCarey
9y
What topic would you suggest?

This is a bit tangential but I don't know if there's a single EA that smokes cigarettes.

1
jayd
9y
I don't know if EA demographics fit smoking much - my sense is that we tend to be young and highly educated.
0
Larks
9y
How many EAs do you know definitely do not smoke? I'm often surprised at how long I can know someone in person without realizing they smoke. Even more so when they just occasionally smoke cigars (though this is not exactly what you were discussing)
0
RyanCarey
9y
I know a couple.

Diego, I don't weight any of the 4 risks you've listed very heavily. I also think you've underestimated the benefits.

In regards to Benefit #1, a vote's relevance doesn't depend on the election being decided by a single vote. If you think probabilistically, then in any given election, your vote has a certain probability of affecting the outcome. You can weight that against how important you think it is for Party A to win over Party B. I think that given how little it costs to vote, it's usually clearly worth it to take a small action with a tiny probability... (read more)

0
Diego_Caleiro
9y
a) Yes, famous people should signal to whom they will vote. b) Signalling interest in politics seems commendable on occasion and despicable at least as frequently. c) Which is why I focused on large elections where the counterfactual difference would be larger. Also, definition-wise, a vote that decides on more seats is a vote that breaks a tie, which I had considered. d) The hypothesis that dedicating attention to politics gets you closer to the people around me strikes me as utopic, whereas frequently politics are used to determine who is left, not who is right, in a social environment.