All of Ruth_Seleo's Comments + Replies

So, caring more about the virtue of being truthful than the utilitarian ambition to create impact?(Sorry, not really against your point, but when the culture demands not being truthful to succeed, you basically doom the truthful ones to fail. That's, why I disagree that the burden should lie on the conscious of the applicant, but the system needs adaptation to ensure it reinforces truthfulness and epistemic humility.) 

Hi everyone, it was a wonderful gathering yesterday! Thank you, everybody, for your interest, enthusiasm and support!

Here are the slides from the event: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1k8RKMYNEdAuARPph8XY2RerRldtul150vfm3wdsFZcA/edit?slide=id.p4#slide=id.p4

Hi everyone, just an information, we also have 5 registrations via meetup. So we're almost full, as registration limit is 25 attendees ;) 

Exciting announcement/discovery 🚀: 
Martin and some other EAs just built Compass, a platform for intentional connections. It has detailed profiles, keyword search, search alerts, and a lot of other powerful tools for efficient searches. It's free and open source. Join the community to shape the platform! 
Compass Platform: https://www.compassmeet.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/8Vd7jzqjun 

I think you mistakenly equal actually doing good vs. not doing harm. Like being vegan is not doing good. It's just not contributing to the harm. And I agree, not contributing to harm is not good enough. And I understand in the end the numbers are important. 

But as fish_in_a_firetruck already pointed out, the psychological ripple effects get ignored, not only for forming habits of doing good, but also of not doing harm. Is a person who saved 10 lives free to kill 9 lives and still deserve to be called equally good as the one who only managed to save on... (read more)

✨ Applications Still Open: Compassionate Future Summit

📅 21–25 August 2025 | 📍 Berlin, Germany
As attendance capacity remains dynamic, a few spots are currently available — perfect for last-minute applicants looking to join a transformative weekend focused on long-term strategies to reduce suffering across all sentient life.

From fast-paced lightning talks to in-depth workshops, here’s a snapshot of the content already driving this year’s Compassionate Future Summit.

• Evelyn Hutter (Philosophy Student & Co-organiser): Suffering-Focused

We still have around 5 spots left for the upcoming Compassionate Future Summit!
 

I’ll soon be sharing 10 example content contributions and contributors — but in the meantime, here’s what I suggest to anyone applying in order to get the most out of the preparation for your self and make your content contribution most valuable for the other attendees. 

Ideally: 

• have a theory of change outlined for your career trajectory or your content contribution - with ranking strategies by their potential for impact and with risk/benefit ratio
• include a

We still have around 5 spots left for the upcoming Compassionate Future Summit!
 

I’ll soon be sharing 10 example content contributions and contributors — but in the meantime, here’s what I suggest to anyone applying in order to get the most out of the preparation for your self and make your content contribution most valuable for the other attendees. 

Ideally: 

• have a theory of change outlined for your career trajectory or your content contribution - with ranking strategies by their potential for impact and with risk/benefit ratio
• include a

Here is the respective forum post to the upcoming talk: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/5Yh3hqhXSpCQcLLF2/compassionate-genomics-for-the-21st-century-genomic-welfare

📣We start in 12 hours, this time using the video conferencing platform jitsi. See link in the description 😊

Hi Alex, thanks for the kind words and thoughtful suggestion!

We actually run online events every other month, and everyone’s welcome to join. I’ll be setting up the next one soon, so I recommend following the Compassionate Future Initiative group page to stay in the loop.

As for the summit, making it hybrid would unfortunately compromise the community atmosphere we’re aiming to create. For more classic conference-style formats, where a safe, close-knit setting is less crucial, we might consider hybrid options in the future.

Hope to see you at one of the events—online or in person. :)

There’s no formal application deadline, but spots are limited and filling up at a considerable pace ;)

Hi @everyone. The meetup went very well today. Thank you everyone for your contributions! Here are the meetup minutes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D5CopGUHOMwXJaHVUcVDuBtaKjWLZ_5np5uFg6-VhaY/edit?tab=t.0

Only 3.5 h left until the next meetup. Looking forward to seeing you there and sharing news and updates

As preparation this time, I encourage people to develop a Suffering Abolitionists Project Prize proposal for e.g. XPRIZE (deadline 05 May 2024)

https://www.xprize.org/designstudio

Questions to answer:      
 

1. What is the problem you hope to address through this prize competition?
2. What assumptions or misconceptions prevent innovation in this area?
3. Describe the specific challenges (political, economic, social, technological, legal, environmental) currently slowing and/or preventing progress in this area?
4. Describe what the winning team must do to

The link for Gather town (our meet up hall) wasn't updated. I did so now. See as well: https://app.gather.town/app/Yhi4XYj0zFNWuUNv/EA%20coworking%20and%20lounge?spawnToken=6DRLsIP5Gp1C30RP

Sorry, I was way, way off. Oh well. Please just check date converted to your time zone with that link: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=Online%20Working%20%2F%20Community%20Meetup%20for%20the%20Abolition%20of%20Suffering&iso=20240406T07&p1=1440&ah=1&am=30 (It only works if your browser has access to your location.)

Hi everyone, again I want to cultivate the habit of using the commenting function (here in the EA Forum, in FB and in Discord) as a motivating accountability tool for sharing what one is working on/ planning to share at the event.

For me, I might talk a little bit about the "Wild Animals in Urban Spaces: How Cities Can Promote Wild Animal Welfare in the Built Environment" talk, and share about my increased engagement in EA Munich and the potentials. Looking forward to seeing you all in about 10,5 hours (if I counted correctly)

We start in 4 hours :)

I'm sorry I messed up the time! We start in 35 min!

Hi everyone,

I will be sharing insights from the IARC2023, where I gave a workshop and attended a bunch of stuff. Looking forward to hearing from everyone again :)

I'm afraid I need to cancel today due to health reasons. Feel free to meet up without me.

Hi there, we will meet in about 8 hours online. Please check out the event description for further information. Looking forward to making some progress on projects and ideas :)

FB event: https://www.facebook.com/events/163512329953547/

📣 In 12 hours we have our next meetup: 15 October 2022 at 07:00 am **UTC**!

As always, in order for everyone to make the most of the event, please make a commitment to work on a topic of your choice relevant to suffering abolitionism. Our list of initiatives should serve as inspiration. But there is no need to make big commitments. Reading an article is fine too! Note: The more precise you are with what you choose to commit to, the more committed you will feel to actually do it. Even better if you share what you committed yourself to. E.g. as a comment her... (read more)

As always, in order for everyone to make the most of the event, please make a commitment to work on a topic of your choice relevant to suffering abolitionism. Our list of initiatives should serve as inspiration. But there is no need to make big commitments. Reading an article is fine too! Note: The more precise you are with what you choose to commit to, the more committed you will feel to actually do it. Even better if you share what you committed yourself to. E.g. as a comment here.

As inspiration for cause areas to work on, check out the following m... (read more)

Only two days left until the next meetup  :D 

I am also planning to attend EAGxBerlin (16 - 18 September), EAGxVirtual (21 - 23 October) and EAGxRotterdam (4 - 6 November). See https://www.eaglobal.org/.

We hope to organize suffering abolitionist lightning talks and meetups during these events.

Let us know whether you plan to attend and are interested to meetup, or whether you know of other conferences and events that we should attend to advocate for Suffering Abolitionism.

Hi @ everyone. Just wanting to share that I just booked for myself „LUXORY“ room with 6/7 beds mixed – FLEX (no breakfast as I am vegan) at the Grand Hostel Berlin, Tempelhofer Ufer 14. (I paid about 25€ / night)

I highly encourage other EAs, particularly people interested in suffering abolitionism/ suffering focused ethics to book there as well to increase networking benefits. ;)

Also, a messenger group could be nice for networking. Should I start one? Would Telegram work for everyone?

In 15 min we meet in EAGT.
Get yourself something to drink and make yourself comfortable for the next Working / Community Meetup :)
Access: https://app.gather.town/app/Yhi4XYj0zFNWuUNv/EA%20coworking%20and%20lounge
 

Now it is 3 hours until our call starts. 😊✊
This is the second time now in EA Gather Town. 

Access: https://app.gather.town/app/Yhi4XYj0zFNWuUNv/EA%20coworking%20and%20lounge 

The first 10 minutes will be again dedicated to help people enter, navigate and explore the Suffering Abolition hall in EA Gather Town. 
Excited to talk to you soon!
 

Awesome :)

Only five days left until the next meetup: 23 July 2022 at 03:00 pm UTC.  :D

This is the second time now in EA Gather Town.

The first 10 minutes will be again dedicated to help people enter, navigate and explore the Suffering Abolition hall in EA Gather Town, which I have set up and decorated with lots of care and help from Emrik. 

As always, in order for everyone to make the most of the event, please make a commitment to work on a topic of your choice relevant to suffering abolitionism. Our list of initiatives should serve as inspiration. But there... (read more)

Starting in 3 min in EA gather.town 🥳

Only one week is left until the next meetup: 09 July 2022 at 07:00 am UTC. 

This is the first time now in EA Gather Town.

The first 10 minutes will be dedicated to help people enter, navigate and explore the Suffering Abolition hall in EA Gather Town, which I have set up and decorated with lots of care and help from Emrik. 

As always, in order for everyone to make the most of the event, please make a commitment to work on a topic of your choice relevant to suffering abolitionism. Our list of initiatives should serve as inspiration. But there is no n... (read more)

Although I agree with the message that fuzzy-feely  altruism can benefit your own well-being and motivation to do high impact altruism, I cringed a bit at the title. Please consider feeding only sterilised stray cats. Thanks ^^'

Otherwise, by feeding a fertile stray cat you contribute to creation of more starving, diseased cats. So even for the fuzzy feely altruism it is important to not just see what you want to see (the one moment of a pleased stray cat you interacted with), but assess relevant (future) consequences to not cause more suffering. ... (read more)

What attitude promotes the best mental well-being in the long run? Maybe stoicism is more sustainable and robust. Or maybe it's not, maybe positive psychology is also a good route to acceptance. I think it's not clear.

I agree! My own understanding comes mostly from personal experience, observation and logic reasoning, as well as a lot of research around that topic. However, I don't know of actual quantitative data collection comparing both approaches and their effects on well-being and the sustainability. So I try very much to stay open minded towards ... (read more)

Thank you very much, Telofy, for your contribution! I am actually not addressing or arguing about value systems like positive or negative utilitarianism or suffering focused ethics. I see how my arguments may seem like being related to that discussion, but sustainability and propagation of well-being I think is as important for positive utilitarians as sustainable suffering reduction for negative utilitarians, so I hope I can win both sides over for my arguments. It is rather true that I am partly referring to Michael Plant's use of words. However, I do a... (read more)

Looking for Karma points.

Hi all, I would like to post a critical perspective on maximizing happiness. It includes an alternative approach, mental health issues and burnout. I would love to see a discussion about it, but not only on FB :) Anyone interested and willing to give me some karma to enable my post?

Cheers :)