Woman // Christian // Canadian // Londoner // Married // Donates to Global Development // Works on Energy Policy
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I'd donate to 3 organisations I expect to influence government decision making positively:
(1) Happier Lives Institute. When governments try to decide what projects to prioritize, they normally consider financial/health benefits. Being able to compare the wider benefits to people's wellbeing would be a powerful new tool.
(2) Centre for Women's Justice. I don't know of any country that competently prosecutes domestic violence and sex crimes. The Centre for Women's Justice is strategically prosecuting specific government decisions in order to set new precedents for women seeking justice.
(3) The Simon Institute for Longterm Governance. This is a very new charity without many results yet. However, their website, working papers and trustees give them credibility and their plan for how to have an impact is sound. I would like to see them funded for 2-5 years, without needing to think about fundraising.
I'm considering donating to the Centre for Women's Justice. With a budget of about £300k last year, they have undertaken strategic litigation against the government , Crown prosecutors etc for mismanagement of sexual assault cases. The cases seem well-chosen to raise the issue on the political agenda. I think more rapists being successfully prosecuted would have a very positive impact so I'm excited to see this work. I'm planning to email them soon. https://www.centreforwomensjustice.org.uk/strategic-plan
I'm not sure about tech! I was thinking the more business/management career track.
I definitely agree that regularly switching jobs is a good thing - this isn't an argument against switching jobs, just against taking a much more junior role
One reason I don't see here: if you take a big decrease in level of responsibility, it can be hard to reverse.
For example, imagine you manage a team of 10 people and a budget of $10 million at a private corporation. You're on track to eventually take on a C-suite position, which will either allow you to earn to give significantly or bring really great skills to an EA charity at that point.
If you leave the team you're managing and take two years to write Forum posts on behalf of an EA charity, you may lose the opportunity to become a CEO. Maybe that's fine - maybe you know ever cared about that because of the social status you could get from it - but maybe EA needs people with experience as successful CEOs and bringing in private sector rising stars for entry level positions is a bad idea.
So in the archetypal Schelling example, everyone would prefer to be at a table with both races, but strongly prefer to NOT be the only one of their race at their table, which led to complete racial segregation which no one was especially keen on...
"We have ... improved our cybersecurity, and streamlined a number of HR systems."
Hurray! Well done
Apologies if I missed it, but are you just assuming that silkworms are morally relevant and capable of suffering? Because if they're not and you succeeded in banning silk, you would cause a lot of human suffering for no reason (eg by increasing the price of bicycles and making certain medical treatments illegal).
Could insecticide-treated bednets lead to the eradication of malaria, or do you think other technologies will be needed to actually end malaria?
I regularly see people write arguments like "One day, we'll colonize the galaxy - this shows why working on the far future is so exciting!"
I know the intuition this is trying to trigger is bigger = more impact = exciting opportunity.
The intuition it actually triggers for me is expansion and colonization = trying to build an empire = I should be suspicious of these people and their plans.
Abraham, does it still take processing time for your staff (or for that matter credit card processing fees) when people set up monthly recurring donations by direct debit?