All of Kaleem's Comments + Replies

Hi - thanks for writing this/thinking about it - I feel like it's very "old school EA" and maybe we don't see/do enough of this type of investigation anymore on the forum ?

I want to note that I think this post would be improved quite a bit by having a more defined "what's the issue/how is this bad?" type section - I had to read it twice to find that info, and I feel like it could be expanded-upon

Idk how to make the right people at CEA see this but: I thought the theme/header at the top of the forum during Giving Season has been unbelievably good-looking ! The orange, the yellow, the images ! Would be kinda sick for it to have something like that all the time

I don't think I feel strongly either way, but why is this something that should posted on the EA Forum ? I don't think its obvious/clear how someone should view this other than just random AI-industry news ?

Hi @joey and @MCF - just wanted to point out that on more than one occasion when I've been reviewing someone's grant proposal, they thought "clear passes" in the "what do we mean by meta?" section meant something like "things we'd pass on funding"/"things we wouldn't consider funding" rather than "things which pass our test for fundability/things we defs want to fund". Maybe not a huge issue but probably worth making a small edit for clarity.

Thanks !

maybe a dumb question, but why do you (feel the need to) reward your LLM ?

I've shared this with the Muslims for EA group

Glad that this exists - I was worried about the lack of fiscal sponsors/ops-support orgs available in the EA ecosystem post-FTX crash.

Sorry if this is a dumb question but: why are two of the three people working on this project (Sparkwell) also working on a different but very similar project (ImpactOps)? (e.g. why would someone approach one org over another?). Thanks

Vote power should scale with karma

so im a fool because you betrayed my trust? im a fool for holding what you say with complete sincerity? i’m not the fool, you are

(credit: https://x.com/FilledwithUrine/status/1906905867296927896)

What do you mean by "HEA"?

Here's a squiggle AI model for the estimate

This is so cool ! I'm using it to improve the BOTECs and cost-effectiveness estimates in my research into effective zakat, and islamic FAW interventions

I think so

I would REALLY appreciate if someone quite good at math (especially distributions/graphs) could hop on (what I expect would be a short call) to help me sort out an issue I'm panicking over

EDIT: I'm no longer panicking, thank you to everyone who reached out !

Thank you !

Thanks :)

It looks and sounds like the event was a great success ! Im really happy about that :)

Could you provide some more info about the applicants and the admissions process/decisions? e.g.:

• how many attendees had you planned on admitting ?
• if you had more budget, would you have admitted more attendees?
• were all 170 attendees of the quality that you'd have hoped for, or was there some relaxation of admission criteria passed a certain number of admissions?
• were you surprised at how many applicants there were?
• Do you have a sense of what the general applicant pool

Haven't read the full report but I would hazard to guess that they're using the word long-termism to mean something quite different to what we think about when we talk about longtermism.

It's very common for people to ask for (and receive) feedback on drafts. Search "Feedback" and you'll find examples of how people have done that, and you should be fine

What types of requests ? Like feature updates to the forum, or seeking help from other forum users on projects ?

Got me teary eyed whilst reading the forum. wow. thank you.

I feel like the title should be more specific ? e.g. it should reference china, given the content of the post?

Hi SShaikh, thanks for following the stuff I've written about this, and thanks for the comment. Some of what I want to explain will be contained in a long/formal report I'm writing on this topic. however, a couple of points in response: 

That said, I don't think that plugging Zakat into an EA framework is possible. I haven't seen any serious Muslim scholar support using Zakat funds to avoid global catastrophic risks or future pandemics.

1. I think you're mistaken in thinking that because zakat and longtermist projects aren't compatible (which I think is tr

didn't pan out, unfortunately

lol I am one of the people who (maybe narrowly?) missed out on the incubation program. Yeah I have emailed them about hopefully people connected with any promising collaborators.

Thanks for the encouragement and the ideas :)

I haven't done any enough research to know how much this would affect the estimates but I do want to point out that zakat is calculated on wealth, and wealth is not the same thing as GDP (maybe you're already aware of this and think that GDP is a good enough proxy to estimate wealth).

FAW#3

An interesting idea (no evidence that it would work) - just putting it here for preservation more than anything else:

Insects are haraam to eat. This is obviously good news in that it means at least 20% of the global population is unlikely to contribute to the demand for insects as food. However it doesn't automatically rule-out that muslims will contribute to the demand for insects through the consumption of farmed-animals who we might use insects to feed - e.g. Chickens and Fish.

It might be worth finding out if muslims would care if their chicken or ... (read more)

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.