All of Lovkush's Comments + Replies

What is the current funding status of AISC? 

Which funding bodies have you asked for funding from and do you know why they are not funding this (assuming they chose not to fund this)? The funding options I know about are OpenPhil, EA Funds and Non Linear.

My understanding is you only just managed to get enough funding to run a budget version of AISC 10, so I presume that means you'll be looking for funding for AISC 11.

I notice all the suggestions are field-building. Do you have any examples in mind of "More obscure research directions"? I know you wrote elsewhere that your general view is we need to try lots of different things, so maybe field-building is the key lever from your perspective?

I have done around 20 practice interviews for mathematical subjects for Oxbridge. If in the off chance you need somebody to help do this, feel free to reach out. (If yes, let me know and I will share my contact details with you via linkedin)

Regardless, good luck with this! Very useful for teenagers to get this advice which is otherwise not available.

Sorry if the answer for this is readily available elsewhere, but are there recommended times of the year to donate if you are based in the UK, e.g. to make use of matching opportunities? My understanding is that the Giving Tuesday facebook matching is only for US donors.

Thanks!

3
Janique
2y
Thanks for considering to support us!  Basically anyone can donate to the Giving Tuesday fundraiser and participate, but only for US donors it's tax-deductible. From the EA Giving Tuesday FAQ: >Donors from a large number of countries are eligible to donate through Facebook and get matched. However, in both 2019 and 2020 most non-U.S. donors faced significantly lower donation limits. We expect the same to be true in 2021. [This year, the donation limit for US donors is USD 20,000.] Additionally, please be aware that donors outside the United States will likely lose out on any tax benefits they’d receive from donating to a nonprofit registered in their own country. International donors can give to RP through the EA Funds. As a UK donor, your gift is eligible for Gift Aid and would typically be tax-deductible. We explain all of this on our donation page: https://rethinkpriorities.org/donate Regarding other matching opportunities: Check out https://www.every.org/rethink-priorities. They still seems to have some funds available from their FallGivingChallenge for a 100% match! We don't regularly run matching campaigns ourselves, but it's not excluded we may  set up one in the course of the next year.  The best way to stay informed about upcoming opportunities is our newsletter.  Your gift is welcome at any time of the year!

Thanks! I asked because I am currently going through 80k 8-week planning course and I get impression there is just large uncertainty around what could or could not be impactful.

You list various potential paths to impact. What do you think your path to impact has been so far and/or will be in the future? Was impact an important consideration when deciding to be a blogger?

Thanks!

3
AppliedDivinityStudies
3y
It's really hard to tell if my writing has had any impact. I think it has, but it's often in the form of vague influence that's difficult to verify. And honestly, I haven't tried very hard because I think it's potentially harmful in the short run to index too heavily on any proxy metric. F.e.x. I don't even track page views. Though I have talked to some EA people who mostly told me to keep blogging, rather than pursuing any of the other common paths. Some people did recommend that I pursue the Future Perfect Fellowship, which I think is likely to be super high impact, but it just wasn't a good fit for me. I didn't think a lot about it. It was basically "Scott Alexander has a good blog, some EA people have good blogs, this seems to be a worthwhile activity". One way to explain it is as self-mentorship. Todd's latest report indicates that EA really is talent constrained, and specifically senior talent constrained. Unfortunately, the senior talent pipeline is not that healthy right now, largely because there is a lack of senior talent available to mentor junior talent in the first place. So blogging is one path to eventually becoming senior talent without taxing EA resources, and does effectively create new capacity out of nowhere. On that path, some good next steps could be to: * Do more consulting for EA orgs * Directly work on a large research project, once this seems manageable * Eventually try to hire/mentor even more junior people

What do you think of idea of using pandemic as a jumping off point? --idea that you really are capable of significant self-sacrifice for the greater good, and the kind of life changes that many EAs do are small compared sacrifice you have already made during pandemic.
--idea of thinking through with other person why it is obviously good for a government to buy vaccines for its population, given all the other things they could do with the money. I assume most people will use reasoning of helping the most people for low cost. 

1
mariushobbhahn
3y
I agree. It's a very intuitive way to introduce people to EA with something they probably already agree with.