Effective Altruism Forum
EA Forum

Login
Sign Up

All of rafa_fanboy's Comments + Replies

EAs and EA Orgs Should Move Cash from Low-Interest to High-Interest Options
rafa_fanboy3y11

ideally you shouldnt be risk-averse with your donations though

Reply
5Brendon_Wong3y
If the EA community invests all intended donations in a mix of investments that are high-EV and uncorrelated, many years there would be more money available to donate than if everyone had been more risk adverse. That sounds really beneficial. One potential issue is there aren’t that many highly liquid asset classes out there. If most EAs put their intended donations in stocks, there may be undesirable effects from having donations significantly decrease in recessions from negative returns on intended donations combined with a decrease in donations due to job loss/lowered income. On an individual level, another potential issue is that the variation in donation value could be more harmful than the higher EV. For example, at an extreme, doubling donations every 6 years and losing all the money every 4 years could lead to missed donation opportunities during those 4 years. The additional opportunities made possible with the doubled donations may not be impactful enough to overcome the effect of the missed donations. These concerns are just speculative. If nonprofits retain sufficient capital reserves to mitigate the effects of donation variability and if EAs adjust to funding shortfalls caused by other EAs not having enough cash on hand, then all EAs should be investing intended donations in high-EV options.
EAs and EA Orgs Should Move Cash from Low-Interest to High-Interest Options
rafa_fanboy3y13

individual eas should be investing in high-risk high-reward for EV too right ?

Reply
4Brendon_Wong3y
That depends on the goals and risk tolerance of the individual. Generally, the longer the holding time, the higher the chance stocks and bonds outperform cash and cash equivalents. Therefore, investing with stocks and bonds is typically recommended for savings that aren’t needed in less than several years (like retirement savings).
Open Thread: What’s The Second-Best Cause?
rafa_fanboy3y0

1st = clean meat/GFI 2nd = diet change/THL

Reply
kbog did an oopsie! (new meat eater problem numbers)
rafa_fanboy3y3

do 3rd world countries eat factory farmed meat?

Reply
3kbog3y
I'm not sure exactly, my perception is that (1) often they don't currently but the new growth is more likely to be factory farming, (2) traditional farming isn't clearly better. Farming in the West is probably covered by more welfare regulations than farming in poor countries.
1Ramiro3y
Sorry, I'm new here. You mean making a thread in this forum? I still don't know how.
What Courses Might Be Most Useful for EAs?
rafa_fanboy3y1

frugal living course, or just look it up http://yboris.com/frugality/

Reply
Will companies meet their animal welfare commitments?
rafa_fanboy3y-4

question: how do u find ratio of chicken suffering to human ? is it square root # of neurons, so 20:1 ?

Reply
6Julia_Wise3y
This is not a question that anyone has an objective answer to.
Vocational Career Guide for Effective Altruists
rafa_fanboy3y2

is there a resource for e2g out there that doesnt focus on super hard jobs like ib/consulting? (other than this one) i think accounting is a pretty good career but idk if i could be donating more doing something else

Reply
3kbog3y
Go ahead and write one! Do some research/modeling and share your findings. I did, and you can too.
2Denkenberger3y
Accountants typically require a 4 year degree [https://www.bls.gov/ooh/business-and-financial/accountants-and-auditors.htm]; vocational is generally 2 year degree or less.
3SamDeere3y
AFAIK random.org offers to run lotteries for you (for a fee), but all participants still need to trust them to generate the numbers fairly. It's obviously unlikely that there would in fact be any problem here, but we're erring on the side of having something that's easier for an external party to inspect.
Should Global Poverty Donors Give Now or Later? An In-Depth Analysis
rafa_fanboy3y1

what about the poor meat eater problem ? all donors should wait for clean meat to arrive before giving to poverty and maybe causing more harm to the animals there

Reply
3mic3y
I was going to link to EA Concepts: The Meat Eater Problem [https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/the-meat-eater-problem/], as I thought it had been successfully argued that the meat eater problem was not much of a issue, but after re-reading those posts, it does seems that the meat eater problem is a reasonable concern so as long as farm animals have on expectation net negative lives.
-1PetterHallqvist3y
I see where you are coming from in terms of meat consumption but that is problematic ethically in my eyes - depriving people from a potential increase in QoL.
How can I internalize my most impactful negative externalities?
rafa_fanboy3y4

you dont need to specifically offset that, just donate to the best charity. you already have a net positive impact by being ea anyway

Reply
Julia_Wise3y14

Rafa_fanboy, I've written to you but I'm not sure if you saw the message. You consistently make comments that aren't helpful, and people regularly report them. Please try to keep your comments in the realm of "friendly and productive."

Reply
An integrated model to evaluate the impact of animal products
rafa_fanboy3y3

i think carl shulman estimated chickens have 250k neurons, u could use that

Reply
9Lukas_Finnveden3y
It's 221 million neurons. Source: http://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-is-brain-mass-distributed-among.html [http://reflectivedisequilibrium.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-is-brain-mass-distributed-among.html] You might be thinking about fruit flies, they have 250k
quant model for ai safety donations?
rafa_fanboy3y0

whats the charity overhead for something like miri or fhi?

Reply
1Tetraspace3y
In MIRI's fundraiser they released their 2019 budget estimate [https://intelligence.org/2018/11/26/miris-2018-fundraiser/], which spends about half on research personnel. I'm not sure how this compares to similar organizations.
quant model for ai safety donations?
rafa_fanboy3y-1

ok, im not sure if ai researchers get paid that much though

Reply
3Tetraspace3y
The cost per researcher is typically larger than what they get paid, since it also includes overhead (administration costs, office space, etc).
9Tee4y
I would imagine this should play into it: "£13.3m boost for Future of Humanity Institute [https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/grant-announcement/]" https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/grant-announcement/
Towards Better EA Career Advice
rafa_fanboy4y-1

That's what happens when everyone who runs EA graduated from either an Ivy League school or Oxford

Reply
Effective Altruism Making Waves
rafa_fanboy4y1

Dont forget the $13.3M grant the FHI got a few weeks ago, I felt like that was huge for EA

Reply
2Evan_Gaensbauer4y
I didn't know about that. That's incredible!