All of tjmather's Comments + Replies

Interesting, are you concerned that in a full-scale nuclear war that most places in the northern hemisphere would be unsafe due to military targets outside the cities and fallout?

What do you think about this Q&A on Quora about where it would be safest in the event of a nuclear war? Most of the suggested safe locations are in the southern hemisphere like New Zealand.

Thanks Matt. In theory it sounds possible that your message could have impact for the reasons you gave - though I'd be interested in seeing empirical evidence that people would give up chicken for ethical reasons.

One possible area for exploration is around Schistosomiasis prevention, as reinfection rates appear to be high after deworming campaigns. PMA2020 has launched an annual survey to measure the impact of Schistosomiasis control programs in Uganda.

Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communication Programs in Uganda will be conducting a mass media campaign to promote Schistosomiasis prevention in fall 2017 before deworming day. The 2017 PMA2020 survey should be able to measure changes in knowledge, attitudes and practices after the mass media campaign. If there... (read more)

Absolutely yes, Against Malaria Foundation is very good from a human rights point of view :)

I agree that contraceptives could increase wild-animal suffering in the short run. The challenge I've run into is how to balance the increase in short term wild-animal suffering against the rights of people to plan their pregnancies, as well as considerations around farm animal suffering. I feel a lot of uncertainty around this, and not sure we can definitively answer that question without having a better understanding of how much insects and other wild animals suffer.

I think what tips the balance for me is that I have the intuition that preventing unwante... (read more)

That is a good point about the need for studies to measure the long term impact. What do you think of United Poultry Concerns? Do you know of any people who have given up chicken for ethical reasons but still eat other meat?

Do you think that cultured meat research should focus on developing alternatives to chicken instead of beef?

I believe that both contraceptive delivery and research are important, and wouldn't advocate for funding one over the other. I was thinking more in terms of high priority funding gaps for both areas, and because male contraceptive research is so neglected, there appear to be some low hanging fruit. There are scientists who want to work on a clean sheets pill as well as other methods but who haven't been able to for years due to lack of funding. If successful, the clean sheets pill might be able prevent both pregnancy and STDs such as AIDS.

Many men do care ... (read more)

I agree that the patent stuff might not be a top EA cause - the inclusion here was based on my personal experience of being sued by a patent troll.

I have looked at http://havingkids.org/ I don't really see their model taking off as it seems difficult to understand and a bit unusual.

I'm currently focused on male contraceptive research in order to help reduce unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Approximately 40% of pregnancies are unwanted worldwide, many of which end in abortion. I'm donating to https://www.malecontraceptive.org/

I believe that behavior change ... (read more)

This year I'm supporting the Male Contraception Initiative to help fund research into non-hormonal male contraceptives.

The rationale for this is:

• About 40% of pregnancies worldwide are unintended
• There are limited contraceptive options for men
• Male contraceptive research is very underfunded and there appear to be significant funding gaps.
• Non-hormonal methods may have fewer side effects than hormonal methods.

I got interested in male contraception after reading this post about vasalgel: https://www.reddit.com/r/EffectiveAltruism/comments/4gvd40/vasalgel/... (read more)

What would an ideal EA event look like to you? Would you like to see more discussion on earning to give and where to donate? Do you feel like earning to give is underappreciated in the EA community?

It seems plausible that http://nutritionfacts.org/ might be one of the most effective charities for saving lives in the US. Michael Greger and his team distill nutrition research to provide practical tips on what to eat to prevent heart disease, cancer and other top killers. The website has more than one million hits a month, so it seems likely that his research saves hundreds if not thousands of lives a year.

Their 2014 revenue was $571,178. So it seems plausible that nutritionfacts is saving lives at around approximately $1,000 per life saved.

As a bonus, ... (read more)

Giving What We Can published a report on mental health in the developing world: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/cause/mental-health-neurological-disorders/

GiveWell recently funded a RCT to test a mindset intervention: http://www.givewell.org/international/charities/ipa/may-2016-grant

There is evidence linking diet to mental health described on http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/mental-health/

There are studies worth doing now that can be done now but aren’t being done, such as a high-quality studies to determine whether certain interventions work to improve animal welfare

There is a planned program to fund empirical research for animal advocacy https://www.animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/introducing-our-new-advocacy-research-program-officer/

I'm hoping to help fund a randomized control trial (RCT) in Burkina Faso or another very low income area to test whether providing free family planning service vouchers increases uptake.

As discussed in http://www.povertyactionlab.org/publication/the-price-is-wrong , uptake of preventative health products increases significantly when they are provided for free to the poor. It would be interesting to see if the same holds true for contraceptives.

There is a great slideshow on what we have learned from free contraceptive programs.

I plan to post updates on http... (read more)

Both AMF and family planning improve lives, so in that sense they are compatible.

I agree that family planning could become a new EA focus area. There is a facebook group to discuss family planning charities from a EA perspective. Giving What We Can has a great blog post on research around adolescent pregnancy. Development Media International is conducting a RCT to test whether radio programs can create demand for family planning.

I agree and think that posting about plans early on would be very good.

I'm hoping to help fund family planning randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in the future. The reason is that there are very few family planning RCTs. With more RCTs, family planning funders should be able to direct funding towards programs that have higher impact. I wrote more about family planning on an earlier cause selection post.

I'm seeking people interested in helping to find possible implementing organizations and researchers as well as co-funders. I plan to post on the Family Pl... (read more)

I have found that a healthy diet makes a difference in my own happiness. As a vegan, I have to pay a bit more attention to getting a well balanced diet, including b12 and vitamin d supplements. For breakfast I make a smoothie made with dates, bananas, berries, flax seeds, cacao nibs, walnuts, cinnamon, orange zest, and kale. I also drink green tea and try to avoid refined sugar/carbs/oils and alcohol.

If anyone is interested, http://nutritionfacts.org/ has a lot of evidence based nutritional advice.

There might be an opportunity to develop a gene drive targeting Aedes mosquitoes, a vector for Zika. Harvard University Effective Altruism is running a Philanthropy Advisory Fellowship and researching funding opportunities for gene drives. They will be publishing their findings next month.

Why did it take so long for someone to start an animal-free milk company?

Is it because the state of the research and technology to enable Muufri's business wasn't sufficiently advanced until now? If so, that would support the replaceability hypothesis.

Or is it because there is a shortage of entrepreneurs who start organizations to do something no one else is working on? If so, that seems to support Auren Hoffman's hypothesis.

I think Muufri is different from your typical for-profit company in that they are doing what no-one else is doing, so I do believe they could have an impact. Auren Hoffman, a serial entrepreneur, says that doing what no-one else is doing may have an outsized impact.

Learning about Wild Animal Suffering has changed my views about environmentalism, specifically about conserving natural habitats for their own sake. I still think environmentalism is important, but as a means to improving human lives by reducing pollution and improving food and water security.

There is a new facebook group to discuss Effective Environmentalism if you are interested.

I think MaxMind is type 1.

Yes thanks for pointing that out. It might be best to support an existing project like ONE Campaign. No need to reinvent the wheel. I updated the original comment.

Great post! To address Rich-Person Morality, I wonder if it would make sense to support political movements to advocate for increased foreign aid for effective programs in the developing world. Government agencies like USAID and DFID are already some of the largest donors to many effective programs (e.g. malaria control and deworming). Yet at the same time, the USAID budget is less than one percent of federal budget, so there seems like there is room to give more.

One nice thing about this type of advocacy is that it would be inclusive of people of all inco... (read more)

I think you are correct in the sense that overpopulation arguments have a strong anti-natalist assumption behind them. However, most of the funding for family planning comes from governments and large foundations like Gates whose focus is on saving and improving people's lives.

Evidence Action has a new 'beta' initiative to launch new interventions. Evidence Action seems well suited for creating new programs since they have the experience and infrastructure already in place. They have an evidence and cost-effectiveness mindset that seems closely aligned with the EA movement.

Thank you for posting this - I agree this is a research area with high potential. I've looked into this a bit and one area I'm interested in is using CRISPR gene drives to help eradicate Schistosomiasis and Dengue fever.

It might cost around $0.5-$5 million to develop and $10-$25 million to thoroughly test gene drives to eradicate Schistosomiasis. If it has a 10% chance of success that would be a fairly high expected value.

I'm also interested in gene drives for soil transmitted helminths (STH), though given low mobility, it might take a long time for the ge... (read more)

Thanks. My professional background is as a tech entreprenuer, my LinkedIn profile has more details. I've learned about development issues mostly by searching Google Scholar, reading GiveWell's website, and talking to knowledgeable people.

Given my own limited time and resources, I decided to focus on just four causes. The other causes you mentioned seem worthwhile and it's good the Open Philanthropy Project is researching those causes.

I think you are right in the sense that farm animal advocacy and global health have much more room for additional funding.

One reason I'm interested in software patent abolition strategies is that they are neglected by funders. While there a decent amount of funding for incremental software patent reform, there is almost no funding available to significantly reduce the patentability of software.

I'd guess that around $250k/year can support "low hanging fruit" strategies towards advocating for reducing software patentability. I'd expect these effort... (read more)

I agree. There is a new initiative to fund and coordinate research on interventions for farm animals. We just posted details at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveAnimalActivism/permalink/483367015167508/

I think that would be a good idea. Would it make sense to have Facebook ads and Google Video ads to promote NutritionFacts.org? We might want to link to a page that distills the information on the videos into a single video or webpage, as the site has a lot of videos!

Another idea could be to translate the videos or make transcriptions and translate those.

A subproblem for factory farming is to expand the evidence base showing how to persuade people to reduce meat consumption. One possible avenue is to encourage research in academia. If you are interested, it might be worth reaching out to https://faunalytics.org/ to see if they are interested in coordinating.

This is potentially a high leverage area since a lot of money is raised to reduce animal suffering without a good empirical research base. Having more research could multiply the effectiveness of charities looking to reduce factory farming.

I'm interested in helping organizations collect more data, using independent surveys of households to measure bed net usage, as well as surveys around deworming programs. One organization that conducts independent surveys is PMA2020. They currently have family planning and WASH surveys, but may add additional modules in the future.