All of Luke Eure's Comments + Replies

Hi Bella,

Thanks a lot for the feedback. Updated the form so people can give qualitative feedback there. Will make the google sheet clearer, and see if I can make the title and copy more compelling. Appreciate it!

Echoing themes of what some other people have said, I think it's important to have space in your life where you are not always optimizing for effectiveness. You were on vacation! Choosing to use some of your vacation time and a significant chunk of money is admirable.

The ONLY worry I would have if I were in your shoes from an EA perspective is "this $1000 I spent, would I have otherwise donated it to a super effective charity?" If the answer is yes then maybe there's some reflection to do about how you are approaching effectiveness. But if - as I'm guessin... (read more)

Thanks - maybe I'm giving them too much trust.

In their impact report they say "We’ve granted out $14.89m in total and we estimate that it will avert 102m tonnes in CO2-equivalent emissions."

I would not give too much credence to that from a non-EA aligned org, but I've been giving them decent credence with regards to counterfactual impact reporting since they're EA aligned.

You're saying I should treat their reports less like givewell reports, and more like I would treat a random non EA charity. Any particular arguments for why? Or is it just that you wouldn't take the prior of assuming that they are at the evaluation quality of givewell? (Or maybe you don't trust givewell on this either)

I have actually been thinking of creating a tool to help people do exactly what you are trying to do! I will DM you after I make my first version to get your input

Were in a little bit of a tangent but an interesting one I think. I've heard that idea before about special obligation towards christians, but I've never found it very compelling - less for strict theological reasons and more for emotional, philosophical, and commonsense morality reasons (my common sense may differ from others' of course).

I'm much more moved by the story of the Good Samaritan or Jesus' instruction to care for the least of these than Paul's exhortations.

But I also don't put that much stock in what Paul says relative to other Christians (htt... (read more)

Fixed - thanks!

I'm so glad to hear it

That's awesome to hear - it was worth the effort of me writing it up then!

Agreed with harfe's comment - if your goal is just to offset your own emissions then you would probably want to donate a bit less. If you don't fly more than the average American, then probably $20. Veganism might push the number down a little bit too, but like harfe said, the intercontinental flights are a bigger factor.

Of course I wouldn't discourage anyone from donating above and beyond the amount needed to offset their own emissions!

Thanks a lot for writing this up - motivated me to donate to do offsets this year!

thank you! Exactly what I was looking for

I don't think it's taking it off course! Thanks for your perspective

I disagree that the problem of nuclear war is wildly intractable - people have been dealing with the issue more-or-less successfully for 80 years. And based on the Vox article, we are in a time where nuclear issues are relatively more important and more neglected than they were say 20 years ago.

To think that there's no organization that can have a meaningful impact on in this time seems unlikely to me. To believe that I think you'd have to believe that no organization in the past 80 years ... (read more)

For sure! Let me know if you want to chat.

On "why high skill immigration", I wrote another blog post on my decision to focus on it:

"I have a strong belief in the importance of immigrants to the US, both as a matter of fact (economically/ culturally/ scientifically) and as a matter of what the US should aspire to be.

Living in Kenya makes this especially salient - it was so easy for me to move here and I think I am doing good. There are so many people here who can’t move to the US, and I think that they would do good.

I think allowing immigration of skilled w... (read more)

wow, very poor link-wrangling by me. thank you for catching - fixed now!

There are definitely different levels of sacrifice. I certainly wouldn't compare any sacrifice I've made to what Mandela, or King, or Jesus did.

But I don't think sacrifice is an inappropriate word in this context. We say that athletes make sacrifices to achieve their goals - in terms of time, physical pain, dietary restrictions, giving up socialization to get enough sleep. I think the sorts of tradeoffs an EA might be confronted with are comparable to that notion of sacrifice - giving up certain luxuries to donate more, or working on an important project f... (read more)

Thank you so much Catherine! Very inspiring post. I appreciate the details of how you were feeling at each point in time, and how you now feel looking back.

I know you say you don't really endorse this thought: "oh these young EA whippersnappers, expecting so much! They don’t know how good they got it...". 

But at least in my case, I have noticed recently that I have been <inserting financial or personal sacrifice> and expecting something back in return. So you sharing your instinctive reaction was exactly what I needed to hear to remind me there are other (often better) ways to think about sacrifice.

Hi Emmanuel, I'm sorry to hear that you feel that rules were unexplained and changing in the process.

I see that you have emailed me on the same, and will respond there. 

I too am finding it hard to articulate. Maybe it's just captured in the impact I talked about in the original post about creating jobs, helping the startup ecosystem, giving me money I can then donate, etc. So I shouldn't pretend that in addition to all that there is some other nebulous "benefit of a company vs nonprofit" just to increase the warm fuzzies I feel.

But there's also a mathematical sense in which a shilling saved (the way Kapu has impact) is better than a shilling earned.

• Imagine someone makes and eans exactly 500 shillings per day. You can e

Thanks a lot for sharing, and thanks for working so hard to make the world a better place! 

Hi Yonatan, thank you so much for the super kind words! I had not thought at all about posting on the 80k hours board - I will talk with our HR person about if she thinks that makes sense. I'd love to talk with you - I'll DM you

Wow, that means a lot because sometimes I feel quite unthoughtful and uncurious when I read your excellent tweets!

Haven't had any EA non-profits ask me about that. I still don't have that much experience (only 1.5 years) in the grand scheme of things but would me more than happy to try to help anyone who thinks they could benefit from talking to me.

Overall I've become a lot more brave since working here. Just saying "look I'm 60% sure this will work, but we need to make a decision rather than waiting on this for 2 more weeks so let's just go." It doesn't a... (read more)

Thanks a lot! I also always love seeing your perspective on the forum as someone else in East Africa.

I actually did a back of the enveleope calculation like that (several months after joining Kapu  - so I definitely had an incenteive to rationalize my own choice) and ended up with something like "this looks better than working at an impactful US company, and comprable to earning to give but I am really excited by the work here and not at all by earning to give so I have rationalized my decision to work here".  Happy to DM on some of the startups ... (read more)

Thanks a lot for the great post! 

I've also been learning a lot lately about nuclear safety, deterrence, the cold war, etc. mostly inspired by the Oppenheimer movie. I've been looking for people to talk through these issues with.

If anybody reading this is looking to talk more about these kinds of issues DM me - I'd love to share what I've learned, see what other people have learned, and just talk about the fascinating history and ethics surrounding atomic weapons use.

Thanks a lot! Very clear and helpful

I just invest in s and p 500, and in vanguards recommended retirement account. I don't try to take into account hoe much good or bad they do, partially out of skepticism of the counterfactual impact of impact investing, and partly out of inertia. If anyone knows of ea-principled work on this I'd be happy to change my approach

“Ubuntu stresses empathy and compassion, enabling people to sympathize with the difficulties and goals of others.” I really like this thread throughout the post. When I wear my EA hat I often start thinking very individualistically like “how can I optimize my impact” rather than thinking collectively. I think I would be better off thinking from more of an Ubuntu perspective. Thank you!

makes sense on the understanding of contextual nuances - I agree that on-the-ground understanding is under-practiced in charity work generally, including in EA.

I still don't quite understand what you're advocating for in terms of targeted funding. Don't most EA organizations and individuals donating in EA already do targeted funding?

You say "Instead of dispersing funds indiscriminately or generically, targeted funding directs resources to specified areas or objectives in order to accomplish desired results." 

Are there examples you are thinking of... (read more)

I’m not clear what the main argument is. Is it simply that EA approaches have already helped Africa broadly across a variety of issues, and that EAs should continue funding and doing initiatives in Africa? Or are there particular types of work you think are neglected and that EA should focus on?

Lots of good points here!

Just to isolate and respond on the "black tax" comment: The perspective I have heard from talking to Kenyan entrepreneurs about this is I have a familial financial obligation that expat  entrepreneurs do not have. It prevents me from being as risk-taking as I might otherwise be

Here is a direct quote from an entrepreneur I interviewed for a project: "there's so many cool, really smart Kenyans and local entrepreneurs. But then there's the sort of like 'black tax'. It's family, and there's all this stuff. And the pressure to make... (read more)

I strongly agree. 

Funding seems quite tractable - there could be a fund specifically for assisting EAs from Africa to go to conferences.

On the visa assistance thing I'm not sure what would be very tractable - maybe there is some way these conferences could position themselves that would make it easier for Africans to get "education"-related visas rather than tourist visas (e.g., if EAG positioned itself as an academic conference somehow, would that enable people to apply under more lenient visa categories)?

It's the geographic proximity that I get hung up on though. He is right in front of the Samaritan. I can't think of any parables that involve someone showing mercy to a person who is not right in front of them.

Every time Jesus performs a miracle, it is for someone right in front of him.

I am strongly in favor of more impartiality, but think most Christians find it a stretch to say that the Good Samaritan parable is meant to imply we should care for future people and people on the other side of the world who they will never meet.

It's a good point about the moral circle expansion.

Maybe I can flip it and ask you: To the extent that Christians do not behave impartially towards people in other countries or people who won't be born for hundreds of years, do you think they are failing to follow the teachings of Christ?

Thanks for the pushback!

I am not trying to argue that Christianity does not support impartiality - there are certainly plausible readings of Jesus's teachings (like that of the Good Samaritan) as plausibly supporting impartiality.

I'm more trying to argue that Jesus's teaching does not necessarily push you to that conclusion.

Jesus is very explicit about the importance of things like:

• helping those in need - the widow, the orphan
• being faithful to the Father
• being humble and meek
• not seeking salvation in this world

And the church has emphasized those teachings in... (read more)

Seems like working at Novavax to improve their implementation could be a super high-value career choice!

Makes me think that a list of "companies that are underrated and critical in important supply chains" could be quite a useful resource for people brainstorming career options.

Unfortunately I don't know anything at all about this literature, but I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't many studies. There are certaintly non-altruistic reasons for existing governments to favor schooling as we have it - teaching rule-following, instilling patriotism, ability to mold young minds in a particular kind of way.

My guess would be that there are huge improvements to be had in the ways that most countries do education, and that more experiments would be helpful. More radical education attempts seem valuable.

A few thoughts:

1. It seems like these things that schools do in terms of restricting speech, movement, and association, parents also do for their kids. Do you think parenting also violates these rights?
2. "opportunities for play and exploration that are not compulsary" are certainly granted to children in the US where school does not take up all of a child's time and they can go play, read books, do whatever they want outside of school  (as long as their parents allow)

Also note that in the US, a child does not have to "go to school" as much as they have to ... (read more)

Follow up on this - I downgraded my prioritization of this as an intervention after talking to a friend in Nairobi who told me that overperscription of anti-biotics is a huge issue in Nairobi. In lots of neighbourhoods, the informal medical clinic will just prescribe you strong antibiotics for relatively mild symptoms. 

This made me 

1. doubt that people will use randomly distributed antibiotics correctly - so less upside

2. give more credence to the idea that passing them out randomly could increase antibody resistance - potential downside

Brian drain is an interesting topic. The brief research and thinking I've done on brain drain leaves me without clear answers as to what an individual facing a decision to emigrate should actually do.

Even if it is in aggregate bad that so many people move from poorer to richer countries (which is not obvious to me), it could still be the rational thing to do on an individual basis.

I would love to see a sort of guide based on EA-principles written for people in low-middle income countries considering moving to higher-income countries.

• what are the benefits y

Hi Gregory, thank you so much for this thoughtful reply!

This is exactly the kind of discussion and analysis I was hoping to encourage with this post.

• Your upshot totally makes sense to me: E2G is probably a bad idea in lower-income countries. 
• I also buy that being a practicing doctor likely is not the most impactful thing most people in lower-income countries can do either
• So what is? A lot of the career considerations probably are still directionally right: government policy, org building at effective nonprofits, research into global priorities, etc.
• Bu

This is a super interesting idea! I like this push for more object-level thinking. I live in Kenya - may be worthwhile to do in the poorer regions here. Heading home for Christmas and maybe I will bring back a suitcase full, then travel around the northern deserts handing them out.

Making this really practical, here are the things I'm thinking through on actually doing this:

• Deciding whether or not to do this:
  • Is any other organization already doing this in the region I would be going to?
  • What is the most likely cause of death in the specific area I woul

I'm super excited about this! Seems like there's a lot of potential. Just a few half-thought observations and data points below in case helpful.

A potential  worry about the restaurant-first approach - anecdotally it seems like hip restaurants in places like NYC/Boston/Philly may already doing quite a bit with tofu in different varieties. The mechanism by which food goes from "being used in chic restaurants" to "drastically changing the volume of tofu eaten" probably needs some proving.

 For example the first (non-random) restaurants I looked up ha... (read more)

Hi Kirsten, I wrote up an update here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ee4q4RhbjZTG9DKZ8/update-on-pestering-embassies-to-reduce-non-policy-barriers

Hi Guy, I wrote up an update here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Ee4q4RhbjZTG9DKZ8/update-on-pestering-embassies-to-reduce-non-policy-barriers

I'm happy to give more detail if it's helpful! I don't really think anything I did was particularly impactful due to not understanding the system well enough, and due to "advocacy from Americans" being less of a limiting factor than "political capital within the embassy"

Thank you! Agreed that EA as a community often overlooks the value of protests and social change. Excited to look more deeply into the report

On “backfire” - do you have any view on backfire of BLM protests? I’ve been concerned with the pattern of protest -> police stop enforcing in a neighborhood -> murder rates go up. Seems like if this does happen, it really raises the bar as the long run positive effects protests like this need to achieve in order to offset the medium term murder increase.

But maybe I’m thinking of this wrong. Or maybe this would... (read more)

Thank you so much! Let me write to Kneedler. May do a FOIA request later too

Absolutely, it's a lose-lose, unforced error.

For channels see my comment to Guy Raveh with what I've done so far!

Thanks! See my comment to Guy Raveh with what I've done so far!