All of LucasNarukami's Comments + Replies

It's a shame that you think that EA isn't for you. We could use more people like you.

Please remember that I don't represent the whole movement. If you can and you are interested, It would be nice if you could look what other EAs have to say. You may like it a lot more.

Hi :)

I used Google Analytics and I constantly tracked all the activity on the Facebook page and groups, comparing the performance of each text in many ways. I also talked to a lot of people about the texts and what perception they had of the EA movement so far. Apart from that, I frequently offered my contact information, and we have a Facebook group for EA in Spanish in which interested people could ask questions(almost all of them were either about effective animal activism or off-topic).

These methods allowed me to get a very good general idea. We could ... (read more)

I do stand by the title (in the sense that I don't think it's false) because I added a "yet". I think that EA in spanish-speaking countries is quite far from getting really started. At the very least, six months. And it's very likely it will only catching on little by little if I decide to work full time on this with a strong team. Due to the enormous talent constraint, it seems unlikely that it will happen soon.

I think that the title may lead to misunderstandings and that it is quite problematic, but it certainly isn't wrong. Since It leads to misunderstanding, I regret choosing it, and you are right when you point out the problems with it.

Hi not-an-ea. I completely agree with you when you say that some aspects of my article are problematic!

From my perspective, many of the claims that I made seem very reasonable. This is because I researched all these issues well and I know a lot about Latin America and Its people. I lived all my life here, after all.

The problem is that I tried to do a very brief summary here, so I didn’t offer all the evidence to back up my claims. I merely talked about what I think based on my knowledge so far.

If there is enough interest on this topic, I would be willing t... (read more)

Hi Tom! :) I will reply each question briefly, as I'm a bit busy.

What knowledge and/or messages did you try to spread? Effective charity, or GiveWell, or effective animal activism, or broad EA under that name, or x-risk, or anything else?

We wrote about Effective Charity, Earning to Give, Deworming, Rationality and Effective animal activism in general. We also translated some popular EA texts from GiveWell, Yudkowsky and Scott.

In what combinations did you spread them? Did you try spreading knowledge of GiveWell without packaging it with e.g. x-risk?

Thanks :)

But Effective altruism means different things in different countries. If the 'give to developing countries charities' EA meme just doesn't work in one country and some other does, 'give to the most effective charity working within the country' for example, then that's the most effective thing you can do there.

This is a very good idea and I was already planning on moving on that direction with EA in Spanish. I researched many charities and giving opportunities in Latin America. Unfortunately, I didn’t find many exceptional ones, though there ar... (read more)

Yes, totally. The next post was going to consist of some ideas about the critics true rejections and how to deal with it.

The question about what would be a healthy EA ecosystem is really interesting and worth exploring. Somebody should write more about it. I may eventually do it.

My current intuition is that we need more people from diverse fields of knowledge and with diverse skills, since they can contribute to EA in unique ways, apart from donating. To gain this benefit, I think that it's worth losing a bit in other regards if we have to. I will think more about it though.

This comment is very smart and important. You made me think a lot.

In the case of science, I think the example isn’t good for your point, but your point is perfect nonetheless. I will simplify, but the reason that I think that the example doesn’t work is because science has lost its battle with religion (warm language) for centuries, and only started gaining ground because it started producing really useful things. Religion produces very little and it still manages to put up a fight against Science. Science is successful despite the fact that it’s ''cold'' ... (read more)

Thanks :)

I’m still thinking about what is the best public for effective altruism, what should be the size of the movement and so on. But the first thing that comes to mind based on many recent discussions is that we need more people doing Earning to Give and doing good Outreach. People that aren’t like us can also do those things really well, so It’s seems good to reach out to them using a language that is slightly different than the one we normally use.

We should never stop talking about rationality. It’s a really important component of effective altruism.... (read more)

:) I agree with this.

I was drawn to EA because of people that combine compassion and rationality. Brian Tomasik and David Pearce come to mind. They often speak warmly. Even when they don't, it’s easy to tell that they are moved by strong feelings of empathy.

We should keep talking about evidence and rationality with all the audiences, but I think that making an effort to transmit our feelings to the general public is important and useful. A lot of the things that we promote are unusual and counter-intuitive, so we can easily be misunderstood.

I think that so... (read more)

I need Karma to post :) Please gimme.

I wrote an article that is relevant to this topic and I want to post it. However, I'm new here and I don't have any karma points. Can you please give me five so I can post my article?

Thanks! :)