All of Tyler Kolota's Comments + Replies

Could this technology improve methods to vaccinate large amounts of farmed & wild animals to help reduce vectors for pandemics?

If we’re doing a constitutional convention then really make it count…

-Statehood for Puerto Rico & Washington D.C.

-Expand the house so each representative represents fewer people.

https://youtu.be/KhQGHY44XPM?si=iLivhjAUAl-igEtd

-Make some extra Senators elected by popular vote.

-Make it easier to remove the president/executive with a congressional vote of no confidence or a 60% referendum vote at each mid-terms.

-Add term limits to the supreme court & elect new justices on a schedule. Or make the Supreme Court a rotating lottery of Appellate judges.

I’m still catching up on some work for a global health contractor, but when I get more spare time I want to develop a website to help people contact their representatives about several EA topics.

And it would be nice to enable multiple channels of contact like email, phone, text message, mail/post-card, social media, etc, so people can partly express intensity of interest through varied & frequent messaging.

Small to medium donors should also consider making some more speculative donations with even higher expected impact than the GiveWell All Grants & EA Animal Welfare funds.

For example…

Donations to the Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP) are more speculative as some of their government & corporate advocacy campaigns to eliminate lead may fail, but on average they expect to generate 1 extra healthy year of life (DALY) for every $5-$15 donated, which is about 3X better than malaria bed-nets at $50 per healthy year of life (DALY).

https://leadelimin... (read more)

After looking up more stuff I think small & medium EA donors have at least a few solid options to beat GiveWell All Grants & EA Animal Welfare Fund and I personally am adjusting over 25% of my giving to them…

Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP)

The cost per DALY (healthy year of life gained) on LEEP is like 5-10x better than the best GiveWell interventions like malaria bed-nets. Instead of taking $50 to get a healthy year of life their estimate is like $5 for lead elimination programs. I gather this is because they can leverage policy changes in... (read more)

I think a point here is based off last year’s executive cuts & statements we expected like a 50% global health cut officially put into the budget, but we are actually only seeing like a 25% cut.

It’s true that Trump may still solely & unlawfully block spending, but this indicates those actions would likely not continue beyond his term & also the resulting suffering & deaths would really be solely on him.

Getting used to a camper van may only make sense if you really plan to work in like SF tech where housing costs are out of control. Otherwise it makes a lot more sense to try maintaining a good relationship with family / friends, work on being a really good/easy room-mate, & then rent a cheap room from family/friends into adulthood to save more money.

More from the researcher…

“If everything went perfectly, from this early stage research to clinical trials to broad deployment, we’d treat about 5% of the current causes of death (most but not all of the 7% chronic respiratory disease category, not pneumonia). It could theoretically be higher if there are e.g. positive effects on cardiovascular disease from healthy lungs, but those kinds of nebulous benefits are hard to predict.

To be clear though I'm sure you know, like all preclinical research it is many millions of dollars and very high chance of failure away from hitting that 5%.”

MRNA lung researcher replied:

“… my lead indication is not one of those 3 (Pneumonia, COPD, Asthma), but the further indications I'm testing with my approach does include one of those!”

So this may eventually lead to something to help with a like 2.5%-4.4% cause of death disease.

So I don’t know if it really passes a GiveWell All Grants cost effectiveness threshold at this point without more strong commitment to target something significant like Pneumonia.

I’m very skeptical 90% of these options are better than GiveWell All Grants & EA Animal Welfare Fund, but the following two seem like they could be significantly better:

Screwworm Elimination Advocacy

https://manifund.org/projects/anti-screwworm-gene-drive-advocacy
On a per animal basis screwworms are likely much much worse than factory farming as animals are essentially being tortured to death so it may have extra importance. Also elimination could mean a lot of counterfactual suffering averted at lower costs. And given agriculture/rancher interests alig... (read more)

Here’s an even better write-up of this & similar ideas

https://michaelgris.com/posts/charity-tax/

Here’s an even better write-up of this & similar ideas

https://michaelgris.com/posts/charity-tax/

Here’s an even better write-up of this & similar ideas

https://michaelgris.com/posts/charity-tax/

See this piece for more on optimizing tax deductions with charitable giving

https://michaelgris.com/posts/charity-tax/ 

Thanks for writing this, I’ve been somewhat skeptical of arguments for patient philanthropy. But at the same time mildly patient philanthropy has lead me to some more easy/sustainable ways to donate over time.

As a US citizen, instead of donating $5000 every year I can donate $1000 every year & invest $4000 every year. Starting in 2026 we can do a tax write off up to $1000 per year in donations even if we take the standard deduction. Then every like 4-7 years when the $4000 per year investment fund reaches around $30,000 (or whatever 30% of my annual in... (read more)

In some senses I really couldn’t blame them for spreading out donations with that kind of windfall. I’d personally just donate the maximum amount per year that I could still write off on taxes which is 60% of annual money income or 30% equivalent income if doing direct stock transfers.

On the margin I’d expect more AI safety donations, from them. But any guess to how much the cost effectiveness may change for health & biosecurity areas? 

I’d initially think there is a lot of room to absorb more funding with…

-Malaria vaccines

-Near HIV vaccine

-Chronic diseases (https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death)

-Sentinel / biosecurity global disease monitoring system

-Advanced Market Commitments for various vaccines & tests (https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/10-technologies-that-wont-exist-in-5-yrs/)

Also promotion of more free trade alway... (read more)

By the way, the job market is getting worse while oil & inflation aren’t likely to see increases due to decreased demand/a recession.

Bad labor market & no extra inflation mean likely more FED cuts which makes it more likely the bubble will extend a bit further. I’ve continued to invest in AI for now but I plan to build a hedge position sometime in 2026.

Didn’t even know there was a provision to allow for charitable deductions coming in any year. Thanks for this!

If you are considering global health, helping the GiveWell All Grants Fund filling the most high impact programs affected by large US & European aid cuts the past couple years may be more significant than whether Anthropic employees donate a lot of money soon.

Also if you live in the US & want to decrease the cost of your donations by like 10% and/or give like 10% more, one option is to use a 100% equities investment account (like all S&P500 or something) to save all the money you would donate each year until you can make a big enough stock-transfer donation to an effective organization to reduce your tax bill.

100% Equities

In standard personal finance, you lower risk as you age to protect your retirement security. In "Investing to Give," the philosophy is different.

Because large charities and globa... (read more)

Also if you live in the US & want to decrease the cost of your donations by like 10% and/or give like 10% more, one option is to use a 100% equities investment account (like all S&P500 or something) to save all the money you would donate each year until you can make a big enough stock-transfer donation to an effective organization to reduce your tax bill.

100% Equities

In standard personal finance, you lower risk as you age to protect your retirement security. In "Investing to Give," the philosophy is different.

Because large charities and globa... (read more)

After some time & querying Gemini 3 I adjusted my thinking on this a bit, I wonder if others may benefit from this info.
Due to personal circumstances & certain tax implications I think a good strategy for me is to max out a traditional IRA with 100% equities every year & keep any donations I would make in year in a 100% equities standard investment account so I can batch together donations in certain years & get a better tax deduction.

100% Equities

In standard personal finance, you lower risk as you age to protect your retirement secur... (read more)

If anyone else is into software development / Azure resources & is underutilized, I have this on my to-do list:

Set up a simple website to allow people to contact their congress people on various global health & EA issues. Research best ways to create & host a site.

Issues:

-Global health & Pandemic preparedness & Medical science

-Factory farming & Animal welfare

-Housing

-Low-cost energy

-Global Liberalism & China & Ukraine

-Autocratic use of AI

Put link to site on all open source project pages asking people in the US to pick at lea... (read more)

If you ever find high-impact data that could need cleaning or could need to be pulled from like PDFs & scanned images then let me know as I often work develop tools related to this in my day-job.

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kolota

Parts of this read like an opening movie scene of an over-optimistic scientist about to create zombie cows.

But otherwise an interesting development.

By “make more sense” I mean like change the calculations to be more positive for, but still uncertain on the broader decision of give now vs. invest.

Like I’d assume one could at least 2X their annual donations with these things. So for someone using these strategies the give now argument should be 2X stronger for the sum of donations they can multiply now that they can’t multiply in the future.

There are tax reasons & annual donation multiplier reasons like employee donation matching or matching events or credit card incentives, that make donating some percent each year of life make more sense.

There are also ways to leverage smaller donations to direct larger sums of money. See how to multiply small donations by 1.27x to 6.6x here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BFbNymbn4ukmKWHrX/donation-multiplier-stacking-directing-1-27x-to-6-6x-more 

Has GiveWell considered a grant?

I don’t have the context or best expertise to make a cost effectiveness estimate here so as an individual donor I’m more likely to just give to GiveWell’s All Grants Fund.

In addition to looking for concrete feedback on small-to-medium donations, there are ways to direct an even larger amount of funds with your donations so they have more impact.

See here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BFbNymbn4ukmKWHrX/donation-multiplier-stacking-directing-1-27x-to-6-6x-more

Checking back in. Contractors have started some discussions on what specific activities can resume, but with all USAID staff put on admin leave & recalled it is very uncertain what is actually happening with PEPFAR. Right now the waivers make for some PR for Rubio, but aid is still functionally blocked.

Also…
“Rubio claims that @USAID lifesaving assistance for health and humanitarian needs will continue. But his team just communicated that the entire agency will be imminently reduced from 14,000 to 294 people. Just 12 in Africa.”

I think solutions that solve all of climate change may be more tractable than wide-reaching solutions for factory farming / animal suffering.

Climate change resolutions that cost $1 trillion a year or less & don’t require widespread political change…

-SO2 Injection

-Olivine Rock Weathering

-Continued Steep Cost Declines in Renewables & Batteries

-Abundant Carbon Neutral Synthetic Gas

How to Solve Climate Change https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/we-can-already-stop-climate-change 

Current SO2 Credits https://unchartedterritories.toma... (read more)

New broader waiver to the freeze for life-saving assistance announced

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-issues-new-waiver-humanitarian-aid-amid-freeze-2025-01-29/ 

I’m not sure “sharing articles on PEPFAR as widely as you can” won’t have some negative consequences.

I’ve been following the posts around this on Twitter/X & they routinely get disdain & hate from MAGA users. Like if one put up a link to contact Congress, I wouldn’t put it past some people to contact Congress to say the program is wasteful, doesn’t prioritize US citizens, only helps irresponsible gay people, etc. The ignorance & selfish cruelty on display has been very disheartening. It has shaken my faith in humanity, not even a faith in peopl... (read more)

If you publicize how the government aid org is wasting money, the entire budget may more likely get cut, not redirected to more effective aid.

May be better to highlight what the effective aid could do.

I hope Every Egg starts selling their animal free eggs in stores soon.

Maybe the most tractable new idea to improve lives by 5% or more at scale!

I recently came across this short-sleepers intervention idea on Twitter. https://x.com/byersblake/status/1865853596769849671?s=46

And when I started listing out big project ideas like economic/political systems change, reducing diseases/aging/major causes of death, resolving climate change, working on advanced market commitments, etc., I couldn’t think of anything that was as tractable that would significantly improve lives at scale. There are ways to improve democratic decision makin... (read more)

I’m still using donation multipliers to increase the amount of funds given/directed to orgs: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/BFbNymbn4ukmKWHrX/donation-multiplier-stacking-directing-1-27x-to-6-6x-more

So I’m lined up to give $950 to the Evidence Action donation match campaign https://supporters.evidenceaction.org/page/2024match?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=giving_season

And I’m doing it on a new credit card with a $200 cash back bonus.

Then my remaining holiday donation of $550 will be split between the GiveWell All Gran... (read more)

When & where can I watch the video?

Many of the most cost-effective & scale-able interventions are preventative, like child immunizations in globally poor areas. Unfortunately preventative work usually isn’t as flashy, like there isn’t a lot of fan-fare or striking event when in 6 months a vaccinated child doesn’t get malaria.

In what ways might the Mr. Beast team or others creatively work through/around this challenge to make highly-effective preventative work more compelling?

Would you consider more work & content in nutrition for pregnant mothers & developing children in globally poor regions?

-Multi-micronutrient & calcium supplementation & education for pregnant mothers to prevent still-births/early-births/underweight-births.

-Complementary feeding supplies & education for families with infants to prevent stunting.

-SQ-LNS (https://www.unicef.org/documents/nutrition/SQLNS-Guidance) distribution to prevent malnutrition in early childhood.

Research presented in the “Best Things First” book (https://lomborg.com/... (read more)

Some people in this comment thread are repeatedly making the mistake of talking about the increase in satisfaction due to increased wealth of already-wealthy/developed-country-people. Increases in satisfaction related to increases in income only start to plateau around the $80k per year mark. https://images.app.goo.gl/7jDJFqbj3Eq1ePeY7

The per capita global income is around $10,000. Most people in the world would be significantly more satisfied with 2x, or even 7x, their current income.

I tried reaching out to contact@eagivingtuesday.org with the following, but never got a response…

“Hello EA Giving Tuesday Team,

I've been reading through the site & getting a better idea of how you work this each year. Based on past efforts it looks like the matching isn't just limited to the FB listed organizations in the usual Fundraiser search section, which is good news.

But for the upcoming Giving Tuesday 2022, I really want to know if you can include Giving Multiplier as an organization donation option? It is an EA organization, but it wasn't liste... (read more)

Hello, I reached out to contact@eagivingtuesday.org with a question about this year’s efforts. But I did not get any response. Can I please get in contact with someone from the team?

Besides the interventions mentioned for increasing free trade, immigration, or charter cities, I wonder if there is any capacity for additional less political interventions.

With new tools like the Atlas of Economic Complexity (https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/), might there be some effective ways to support entrepreneurs moving up the value-add & product complexity scale to products related to the existing products & skill-sets in a country? Explainers…

https://youtu.be/2FeugaLv5Bo

https://youtu.be/5jjKDH6ijrQ

https://youtu.be/KQAarHByMTM

Or

Is there more ... (read more)

A close thing I’ve seen to the “growth diagnostics” you describe is the country strategies & likely growth products sections of the Atlas of Economic Complexity (https://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/).

Explainers… https://youtu.be/2FeugaLv5Bo

https://youtu.be/5jjKDH6ijrQ

https://youtu.be/KQAarHByMTM

Some points for why Giving Multiplier could still be pretty good even if more funds are directed to slightly less effective GiveWell charities than things like bed-nets:

1. As EA starts to move a lot more money each year and potentially gets more push-back for concentrating its power in the non-profit space, Giving Multiplier offers a step in the funding process that allows more non-EAs to voice where they want more of these concentrated funds directed. It gives even outsiders a bit of a democratic voice in our processes.

2. If these outsider voices seem to