We should hire leaders based on how well suited they are to running the organization in question

I'd argue that an important part of running a new philanthropic organisation is stakeholder engagement and relationship management, and this was not a good example of fostering a good relationship with someone who is highly influential and a likely source of valuable connections with respect to FF's goals. 

I think I agree with the general point you’re making, but I specifically I disagree that the longtermist project is incompatible with good PR, and that it doesn’t appeal to common moral intuition (eg people do care about climate change, nuclear war, rogue AI, deadly pandemics).

EA (via discussion of SBF and FTX) was briefly discussed on the The Rest is Politics Podcast today (the 3rd of April) and .... I'm really irritated by what was said. This is one of the largest politics podcasts in the world at the moment, and has a seriously influential listener-base.

Rory Stewart said that after 15min someone at FTXFF cut his call with Rory short because that person wanted to go have lunch. The person reportedly also said "I don't care about poverty".

Rory Stewart (the ex-President of GiveDirectly, and ex-MP) now seems to think that we are ... (read more)

I was going to suggest the same thing but I wanted to be able to read the article before pointing this out

Can you post a non-paywalled version, if possible?

I'm sorry that you had to go through this terrible event, but thanks for writing this - I found it really moving and I think the lesson is a good one. I think you conveyed the value of moth wellbeing, and your respect for it, in a touching way.

I enjoyed this a lot, thanks !

Done ✅

If someone knows/is able to put me in touch with Mehdi Hassan, I'd be SUPER grateful

FAW#2.

An interesting potentially high-impact intervention: banning dog meat production/trade in Indonesia.

I was surprised to find out that Indonesia produces/consumes ~1M dogs per year, given that it's ~89% Muslim, and dogs are absolutely not permissible to consume in Islam. For context, very quick googling and estimating leads me to believe that the number of dogs killed per year in Indonesia is ~half the number of cows consumed in Indonesia per year (nowhere near the ~700M chickens per year though).

I'd assume it'd be WAY easier to help push through a dog... (read more)

Leonie and Akhil, are there any results from this would could be shared?

This does answer the question and is much appreciated! Do you have any sources I can cite (other than the paper linked in your response) ?

I don't know what price or % of daily income would be unaffordable, but I think it would be very useful to know what that was so that I could use the number in a question to a theological authority.

I assume the standard that would be more widely useful would be "not available in local markets at any price".

yeah it answers the question - although I think for the purposes of leaning on this answer I'd probably want someone/something with reputation on the subject (no offence intended).

The point I'm trying to clarify is whether or not funding e.g. AMF means that people are getting something which they couldn't get otherwise. I don't think the idea that they might not choose to purchase them even if they're available is necessarily good enough in this instance.

The reason behind the question is to see whether or not I can apply the reasoning behind the ruling that "yes you can give zakat to a charity which provides free organ transplants to people who can't afford them" to something like AMF.

Wow, this is amazing news. Thank you so much for all the hard work that must have gone into writing this book, I can’t wait to read it !

(Small, very reluctant point of correction: I think unfortunately, “The good it promises, the harm it does” is probably the first book focusing on EA and FAW (assuming we don’t consider Animal Liberation to be a book about EA, which I think is fair)).

thanks for this - I think I get it now. I think the points relating to the effects on zakat-donors and non-zakat donors are good ones, especially since I hadn't considered the effect on non-zakat donors a huge amount up until now.

With regards to Zakat donors: I don't think the majority of muslim donors would find this argument a reason not to donate. The thing they care most about is whether or not the entire amount of zakat they donate is reaching the hands of zakat-eligible recipients. There is a large amount of scholarship around the philosophy of zakat... (read more)

Hi - good questions, and things I've been trying hard to find out.

1. I think most scholars would say this is dubious but maybe acceptable depending on what the context is. I've come across mixed reactions when I've explained NI's model

2. Its unideal and pretty uncommon - the vast majority of zakat is cash, and in rare cases its emergency supplies like food, water, and medical supplies in disaster regions.

3. I haven't asked this question specifically to anybody (because I hadn't really considered it as an option) but my intuition from all the other discussi

Yarrow, there is a MASSIVE amount of writing on this topic - there is quite a lot of agreement but also (like many things in Islam) large points of disagreement.

I think for the purposes of EA/effective giving, in the simplest form:

1. Zakat is a wealth-tax levied against Muslims above a certain wealth level and given to a small prescribed group of eligible recipients. Strictly, zakat has to be in the form of the transfer of ownership of cash or commodities.

2. In the theology there are 8 permissible groups, only one of which I think we'd be able to target fo

Thanks Ian.

I agree with the three bullet points - using unrestricted or dedicated non-zakat donations to cover operating costs is likely the best way to do this. Additionally:

1. Determining who is Muslim is a non-trivial and probably impossible thing to do, which is why I would probably just punt that to whichever external orgs we approach to get the program zakat- certified. They're likely just going to do what they did when they zakat certified GD's Yemen program, which is to look at the national or regional demographic data, as you suggested. This also

Hi Brad. Thanks for engaging with this quick take. I've read your comment multiple times and am struggling to understand what it means. I would appreciate if you could try and re-explain the second and third paragraphs of your comment for me.

EZ#2

After doing a LOT of reading of Fiqh, and speaking to islamic scholars, it seems that (for the purposes of EA- so ignoring most of the permitted uses of zakat, like freeing slaves, promoting the faith etc), anything other than an org which directs zakat to poor muslims would be religiously dubious and unlikely to be strictly zakat compliant.

This is a pretty big disappointment for me: I went into this research with an expectation that there would be some reputable, sizeable minority of opinions which would support using zakat for things like the public ... (read more)

Yeah on the face of it, this simple case is extremely appealing. As you do more work looking at the specifics, it becomes more evident that there are a number of pretty significant hurdles

Yep, thanks !

took me ~5min

EZ#1

The world of Zakat is really infuriating/frustrating. There is almost NO accountability/transparency demonstrated by orgs which collect and distribute zakat - they don't seem to feel any obligation to show what they do with what they collect. Correspondingly, nearly every Muslim I've spoken to about zakat/effective zakat has expressed that their number 1 gripe with zakat is the strong suspicion that it's being pocketed or corruptly used by these collection orgs.

Given this, it seems like there's a really big niche in the market to be exploited by an EA-... (read more)

I started research into farmed animal welfare in Muslim countries and I think this is a useful way to share little updates along the way, and also to track any ideas I come up with so I can refer back to them when I need to compile my findings. Because I'm also working on a grant looking into effective Zakat, and I think I'll end up doing the same thing for that, I'm going to be numbering farmed animal welfare quick takes with FAW# and Effective Zakat quick takes with EZ#.

so.

FAW#1.

Before starting with this project, I was operating under the assumption that... (read more)

Finished reading it (Chip Wars): I enjoyed it a lot, thanks !

I’d held off on Chip Wars because I had assumed it’d be too surface level for the average EA who listens to 80k and follows AI progress (e.g. me) but your endorsement definitely has me reconsidering that

Thanks !

Thanks ! :)

Thank you :)

Looking for non-fiction book recommendations: what've you enjoyed reading recently ?

I had a similar thought a (few) year (s) ago and emailed a couple of people to sanity check the idea - all the experts I asked seemed to think this wouldn't be an effective thing to do (which is why I didn't do any more work on it). I think Alex's points are true (mostly the cost part - I think you could get high enough intensity for it to be effective).

(huge missed opportunity not using the lonely Pablo meme as the splash image for this post imo)


 

I'm no longer able to do this/trying to do this

I'm thinking about organising a couple of talks for Non-EAG-attending students in the Boston area, either the week before or week after EAG. I'm hoping we'd be able to get ~250 students from Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, Tufts, BU, BC (and all the other unis). I have event planning experience and would be willing to put significant time into making these good.

If you're comming to Boston and have a talk or message you'd be excited to communicate to a bunch of students (likely ranging from no-EA experience to EAG-attendee level experience) please message me !

Hi - thanks for engaging so thoroughly with the post, and for caring about our shared interest in diversity and inclusion within EA.

I have mixed-feelings concerning your post.

lol same. 

2. 

yours go into the 'Let's narrow EA because diversity is overrated'

I do want to point out that I don't think I stated my own position on this topic anywhere. A reason for the post generally focusing more on the global approach to EA community building is because the status quo is to accept that narrowly focused community building (at top universities, and r... (read more)

Thanks Ollie :) - they're also a lot of fun to work on, and its really fulfilling to see all the connections and potential impact being created at the end of the process as a result of the team's work.

Hillary Greaves and MacAskill have postulated that that decision making in EA must be premised on two factors: (a) every option that is near-best overall is near-best for the far future; and (b) every option that is near-best overall presents significantly more benefits to far future people, than it does to near future people.^[26]

Point of information: I don't think that they've said that all decision making in EA should be based on axiological or deontic strong longtermism, which is specifically what that paper is about. 

I've been doing judging for the African EA forum post competition, and its been really irritating/sad to see how uncharitable (and keen to be harsh) more experienced EAs have been towards the posts of first-time posters or people who write in a non-rationalist way. Come on people....

If you think a post is bad or could easily be improved, just point out how. Don't strong downvote and deride the author?

I agree that an improved title would help make this post make more sense. The author is trying to point out that addressing environmental factors which propagate malaria (which the author should describe somewhere) would improve the effectiveness of existing structural (bed nets) and medical (vaccines and chemo prevention) interventions. But the existing title makes it seem like the environmental and vaccine models are in tensions, whereas they aren't mutually exclusive.

Given that AI-generated content is allowed on the forum, according to the forum guide, and that there is nothing prohibiting users from using LLMs from editing their work:  I don't think this comment (and specifically the use of the word 'blatant' here) is kind/helpful.

This post seems to imply that populism is in opposition (or at least strong tension) with democracy - but from my definitional understanding and reading of common sources like wikipedia, I would argue that populism is extremely compatible with democracy. Yes, typical characteristics of most democracies, such as minority rights and institutional checks on power, are often undermined by populist leaders, but it seems like the thing you're warning against in your post is actually dictatorship or authoritarianism? 

What do you mean here? Can you elaborate ?

Hi MvK - just wanted to make one clarification and point out some problems I see with your comment:

Clarification: When I point to conferences in the UK and US, I'm thinking specifically of EAGs (rather than EAGxs or retreats). These happen in the 'power centres' of the EA community, and people who can choose to attend EAGs are generally the most highly engaged or influential EAs in the community. 

1. Most EA conferences are already in places other than the US or UK (these are the ~10 EAGxs that happen every year). In this way, we technically already do th

Me too

(I'm contracting for CEA's events team to work on EAGxNYC)

I like this idea - It'd be nice to hear from a wider range of people in the community, and away to give more people a platform - which would be good for defusing fame in the community.

We're doing a non-blinded version of this for EAGxNYC - I think ~30% of applicants were people who we wouldn't have thought to ask to present - which is good I think. BUT it is riskier or more costly as an event organiser to select them (you don't know if they're good speakers, you have to vet them and their work before deciding etc).

I'm curious about ways you think to mitigate against being seen as the face of/spokesperson for EA

Yeah I wasn't planning on these necessarily being between "famous" EAs - if someone is a content expert and wants to debate, and happens to be "famous" then that'd be okay I think. But the point isn't "Come to EAGx and watch the MacAskill v Holden debate boxing".