Jeroen Willemsđ¸
Bio
Participation5
My name is pronounced roughly as "yeroon" (IPA: jÉËĘun).
You can leave anonymous feedback here: https://admonymous.co/jeroen_w
Currently residing in Brussels, Belgium. I obtained my master's degree in audiovisual arts, specializing in television, from RITCS in 2020. During my studies, I learned how to direct, write scripts, film, edit and develop concepts.
I have since applied and refined all these skills by creating YouTube videos for my channel, A Happier World. A Happier World is a YouTube channel that explores exciting ideas with the potential to radically improve the world. The videos tackle the world's most pressing problems and offer effective ways we can solve them. Topics covered include global health, poverty, animal welfare, artificial intelligence, pandemics, climate change, and even moral philosophy.
I have been actively involved with EA Brussels/Belgium since 2016. My experience in hosting and organizing events has provided valuable insights into effectively communicating EA ideas.
Pronouns: he/him
Posts 32
Comments146
I was going through Animal Charity Evaluators' reasoning behind which countries to prioritize (https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-review/the-humane-league/#prioritizing-countries) and I notice they judge countries with a higher GNI per capita as more tractable. This goes against my intuition, because my guess is your money goes further in countries that are poorer. And also because I've heard animal rights work in Latin America and Asia is more cost-effective nowadays. Does anyone have any hypotheses/arguments? This quick take isn't meant as criticism, I'm just informing myself as I'm trying to choose an animal welfare org to fundraise for this week (small, low stakes).
When I have more time I'd be happy to do more research and contact ACE myself with these questions, but right now I'm just looking for some quick thoughts.
Giving What We Can has grown tremendously over the past couple of years under your leadership. Itâs been inspiring to witness how the organization has flourished! The redesign, the video content, the doubling in pledges, the fundraising feature, the donation platform, all the new research,... these are real milestones to be proud of. Thank you so much for the important work you've done! I am confident that Sjir and the rest of the team will continue building on the strong foundation youâve created. Iâm excited to see what youâll do next, but make sure to take the well-earned rest you deserve!
I can't figure out how to change it on the EA Forum. Perhaps because I've already changed my name once before and there's a limit?
But I understand that there are many people who take the pledge but don't feel comfortable sharing it publicly. I think different circles and different cultures look differently towards "bragging" about donating. I know I don't feel comfortable doing it on LinkedIn or Instagram. Mostly out of fear or judgement I guess, so my mind could easily change.
Agreed. There is a major difference between thinking someone should be deplatformed just because they have opposing views (e.g., pause AI vs. accelerationist, libertarian vs. communist) and thinking someone should be deplatformed because they promote discriminatory views.
There's nothing inherently wrong with being controversial or outside of the Overton window. Many important ideas were once controversial, and many still are. But it is wrong to actively promote views that are racist, transphobic or sexist and to platform those who do. Not because these views are controversial, but because they go against creating a safe and welcoming environment for all.
That being said, I am not familiar with most of the speakers being discussed here, so I can't say whether the organizers made the right call or not with them. And I understand not every case is clear cut. But with Richard Hanania they clearly made a bad call in my opinion.
I've had admonynous for ages, my guess would be 2018-2020, but I've only had 2 submissions so far. One was recently, because I mentioned it in my recent fundraising post. This was actually useful feedback. I felt slightly frustrated because I wanted to refute some points, but I believe it's best to just let it be. This post does inspire me to promote/highlight it more.
In case you're interested in supporting my EA-aligned YouTube channel A Happier World:
I've lowered the minimum funding goal from $10,000 to $2,500 to give donors confidence that their money will directly support the project. Because if the minimum funding goal isn't reached, you won't get your money back. Instead it will go back in your Manifund balance for you to spend on a different project. I understand this may have been a barrier for some, which is why I lowered the minimum funding goal.
Thanks for pointing this out! I wasn't really sure where my question fell on the axis of "general EA animal welfare knowledge" (ex. prioritizing chickens > cows) to "specific detail about how ACE evaluates charities". By posting a quick take on the forum, I was hoping it was closer to the former, that I was just missing something obvious and that ACE wouldn't even have to be bothered. I shouldn't have overlooked the possibility that it might be more complicated!