All of e19brendan's Comments + Replies
Thanks!
I decided to go down this path by carefully examining my priorities for what work I might do after a fellowship wrapped up, first considering how I might best approach the following year with respect to my values and goals. Having been quite interested in doing EA-aligned work, I surveyed some opportunities to work within EA organizations. Along the way, I spoke with Joey Savoie, who encouraged me to cofound my own charity startup rather than joining his (Charity Science Health). I was tentative given my limited experience, but as I considered the c...
Thanks!
can you elaborate more on why you think the space is uncrowded enough for a new charity?
This question is a key consideration about which we hope to become more certain in the next couple of months. This is to say, we don't know that the space is sufficiently uncrowded. However, we have a few reasons to believe this very well could be the case:
The prevalence, particularly of iron deficiency anemia, is geographically diffuse.
Implementing an impactful strategy likely needs to be reiterated independently across geographic borders, and existing o
This is an interesting point, though I wonder whether EAs have the right attitude about tractability. Tractability and neglectedness tend to be inversely related, and the relationship is imperfect - I think EAs can make reasonable bets about when society as a whole overly neglects low-tractability problems, making it worthwhile to disrupt complacency. Sea-changes are apparent even in recent history, say in treating HIV in sub-saharan Africa - something that many argued was impossible, unfeasible, and too costly. A similar transformation is apparent in TB c...
Can you say more about the "revealed constraints" here? What would be the appropriate preconditions for "starting the party?" I think it can and should be done - we've embraced frontline cost-effectiveness in doing good today, and we've embraced initiatives oriented towards good in the far future even in the absence of clear interventions; even so, global mental health hasn't quite fit into either of those EA approaches, despite being a high-burden problem that is extremely neglected and arguably tractable.
Mental health interventions wi...
I wonder if there are good ways to transform a tribalism of "us versus them" into an "us versus it," aligning joint interest in overcoming the constraints of amoral causes of suffering. This is framing is somewhat commonplace when we talk about combatting malaria on a global scale and fighting cancer in individual care. There are countless examples in the medical world of this personification of amoral disease "agents." It seems like it may be a way to repurpose our tribalistic cognitive mechanisms for good.
I've written a bit about this for a course with Josh Greene a few years back, and I'd be happy to share if anyone is interested.
How about a podcast that sheds light of unanswered critiques of the EA movement? They'd have to be fairly knowledgeable about EA in order to pass the "Ideological Turing Test," and you'd have to make sure that the editing/framing doesn't unfairly give EA ideas an edge, but I think we could learn a lot from thoughtful critique!
Pasha & Austen, fantastic suggestions. Pasha, I'd be happy to do some research on effectiveness of hotlines or brainstorm proxies with you. Austen, I'm really excited to hear more about what you're doing with PPP. I'm quite interested in suicide prevention and I think the neglectedness and avertable suffering and death make it an essential focus for our time and effort. I think that most in the EA community (as well as global health more broadly) question tractability, which is all the more reasons to demonstrate pathways to effective reduction in suic...
Gladly. I'm also looking forward to learning from others on the forum, and I'm happy to speak 1:1 if you'd like!