Happy to hear your thoughts. 

I should clarify that I wrote this as someone who left a very EA bubble and came back after working in spaces that were remarkably worse. I agree with other commenters that we should aim to be better than the baseline. Regardless of where we fall on general harassment levels, I appreciate the community’s efforts to address issues as they happen.

Personal anecdote: multiple members of the CEA events team called out a vendor for behavior that I didn't think to report as harassment. They proactively looped in HR and offered to negotiate this person’s exclusion from future event contracts at the venue. I was shocked, given my other recent work experiences. 

This response didn't erase the initial interactions, but it made the rest of the event (and future events) so much better. I want everyone to feel like they are working on a team / in a community that cares about them, even if making resources visible causes some people to think we have an outsized problem with harassment. 

I think the fact that these issues are more openly discussed in EA than in comparable sectors can skew the discourse. If you don’t regularly attend EA events, it’s easy to think that all of the community health resources suggest an extreme problem with sexual harassment, as opposed to a proactive approach to preventing it. That said, these resources being available can make it more surprising when specific cases are not handled well. 

I work in DC. The bar is so low here that it took months of public pressure for one person to see consequences for harassment that led to his staffer committing suicide by lighting herself on fire. In day to day work, it’s normal to get groped by tipsy old men at work events, and dealing with it gracefully is basically part of the job. 

This is anecdotal, but something similar happened once at an EA-ish AI policy event (though by a sober, less elderly person). I mentioned it to the organizers in case other people were having issues, and the response was much more helpful and proactive than anything I would have expected in industry.

I would rather have people expect more from this community and be shocked when harassment happens than have people become jaded because other parts of society are willing to put up with worse working conditions. 

^Just adding that the Mobius team is awesome and it would be a great place to work for anyone who cares about animal welfare! 10/10 would recommend.

Until a few months ago, about 13% of Gavi’s funding came from the United States. According to admin officials, this funding commitment was rescinded over concerns about Gavi’s approach to vaccine safety and marketing during COVID-19. I don’t attribute much value to the stated reasoning, as it was already expected to be among cuts to US foreign aid around the time the Trump administration took office.

~$300m/year is a big hole to fill in order to maintain existing operations, and there wasn’t much time to evaluate it as a private giving opportunity. Some EA-aligned policy people were able to build bipartisan support while advocating for renewing federal funding to Gavi, but I am not sure where that effort currently stands.

Several of these organizations were already working with OpenAI partners (Microsoft is the founding partner and anchor tenant of the SOVA Innovation Hub in a town of ~8,000 people) and the call for proposals required applicant organizations to be based in the US. 

I don't know how much of the overlap was deliberate vs. a reflection of who was invited to their nonprofit events and able to respond to the call for proposals on short notice. For some relevant orgs (like those working on AI & health), it may be worth keeping an eye on future funding opportunities and applying. 

IIRC, the 35% figure comes from the value of the deduction for people in the 37% bracket. Basically, you will only see 35% back from the deduction instead of the full 37% (saving $0.35 in taxes vs $0.37 for every dollar donated in that bracket).

I am not aware of any changes to the limit in total qualified donations, but you should still be able to take advantage of carryover rules if you exceed the limit. 

I am not an accountant and this is not financial advice - I just don't want people to be discouraged from giving in the coming years and worked pretty closely on the OBBB. 

I think Point #5 is really important, especially as the professional default shifts back to in-person work. The additional cost of living in an EA hub is probably worth it for people who lean towards doing direct work in a specific field or rely on some level of social pressure to remain focused.

While based in Texas, most of my visits to EA hubs were tied to business travel. I could have a great life in a three-bedroom house (right on the water!) for about as much as I spent living in a 300-square-foot basement without air conditioning in an EA hub. The state tax savings covered my living expenses and let me donate more than I would have otherwise. From an ETG perspective, it made sense. 

I had the best of both worlds for a little bit, but I felt quite disconnected when that travel took me elsewhere. Conversations about niche advocacy projects were replaced with talk of private school tuition and the best skiing destinations. I missed major things that I could have helped with (specifically in the global health space) because I was engaging less with the ideas and people that had motivated me to join the industry I was in.

I don’t think everyone should reorient their lives to live in an EA hub, but it can be incredibly useful for both personal and professional reasons. I am not a city person and will probably move eventually, but I can personally say that coming back has been worth the cost at this point in my life.

Several people working on climate issues out of World Bank HQ are involved in the local EA community. It may be worth a conversation with them around feasibility and bureaucratic pathways / challenges to shifting strategy on major funding areas. Your second footnote focused on climate impacts, so I assume you're not opposed to arguments from that perspective. 

Distribution would likely be coordinated with the Defense Logistics Agency, which manages global supply chain and distribution for DOD and other federal agencies. They have an extensive national distribution network and are often responsible for ensuring emergency supplies reach domestic natural disaster sites. 

Recent biodefense plans included high levels of DOD action. I don't know where the current admin stands on the existing plans, but I would feel much more comfortable if Defense played a significant role.