I haven't read the other comments yet but I just want to share my deep appreciation for writing this post! I've always wondered why animal welfare gets so little funding compared to global health in EA. I'm thankful you're highlighting it and starting a discussion, whether or not OP's reasons might be justified.

Thanks for sharing Grace. I think it's interesting you mention "that I could always resign if needed to". I'm also still on the fence of pledging, but I wonder if I should look at it similar as going vegan. Like, right now my goal is to be vegan for the rest of my life. So in a way I've pledged to that. But something could always happen later in life, perhaps health reasons, that would result in me 'resigning' from veganism.

Today we celebrate Petrov day: The day that Stanislav Petrov potentially saved the world from a nuclear war. 40 years ago now.

I made a quick YouTube Short / TikTok about it: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Y8bnqxAbMNg https://www.tiktok.com/@ahappierworldyt/video/7283112331121347873

I'd love to do more weekly coworkings with people! If you're interested in coworking with me, you can book a session here: https://app.reclaim.ai/m/jwillems/coworking

We can try it out and then decide if we want to do it weekly or not.

More about me: I run the YouTube channel A Happier World (youtube.com/ahappierworldyt) so I'll most likely be working on that during our sessions.

Some people might not be a fan of AR or circling, so other methods of mediation should be considered too.

There are still a lot of young EAs that aren't into AuthRev and circling, so I think as a mediator it's important to take this into account.

I think having paid (part time or full time) fund managers with less expertise makes sense. Having such a high turnover of fund managers isn't great for grantees either. I'm not really sure what the cons of paid fund managers are, but I can imagine that there's a good argument against it that would change my mind. Having less expertise could be a great thing, as your mind isn't set on a particular view and you can still gather insights from people who do have expertise. And while they perhaps won't be experts in AI safety or biosecurity, they could be(come) experts at managing funds. Perhaps a pool of experts could be created that fund managers can ask questions too, as long as it won't take up more than 2 hours a week of their time (or a different cut off).

Great post! I've been applying the same metaphor to my life. But I like to think of it more as a phone than a computer since it has a battery that often needs recharging (my laptop is basically always plugged it so I like it less as a metaphor). Also just like not every phone has the same specs and battery, people don't either. So just because one person is able to do a crazy amount of things, don't feel bad that you can't.

I would like to add that it might be important to communicate this in an email to all currently funded projects by EAIF/LTFF ;)

I like seeing this. It's a great thing to try out and seems like a good idea overall, mostly to decrease the unipolarity of the funding ecosystem. Having no overlap in people who work for Open Phil and help out with EAIF/LTFF seems really important. Though I don't think there's any harm for Open Phil to continue matching donations after the six months, but it definitely doesn't have to be 2:1. 0.5:1 would already be great. I have low confidence in these opinions, just quick thoughts.