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Hi, i would be interested in joining the slack

My name is Vincent Söderberg, and im a non proffesional artist/writer (altough i am not very productive)

I plan to make a short story for the EA creative writing contest

EA Survey 2017 Series: Demographics II

I'm curious about disabilities demographics in EA (both mental health and physical health). As far as i can remember, the EA survey never asked that, but it seems like something relevant to ask.

It might not be as relevant as i think though.

Kelly_Witwicki

Seeing how e.g. depression correlates with cause area preferences would be interesting.

The Turing Test

Vincent-Soderberg7y4

Great podcast! A question.

1: is it possible to have an episode on the science of movement building? Not that i know much of it.

Ales_Flidr

Thanks for the suggestion! Sounds like a fun topic, will definitely think of potential guests when we get back to recording.

Open Thread #38

Vincent-Soderberg7y0

The link doesn't work sadly, but it sounds cool!

Message me on facebook or my email ( soderberg.vincent@gmail.com)

JamesDrain

I fixed the link.

Open Thread #38

Vincent-Soderberg7y2

An idea i've had for a while: Making an Effective Altruism/DGB board game might might be an high impact project.

The reasons for why that would be are rough, but sensible i think.

1: Games can teach mindsets and viewpoints of the world that other media cannot, and since much of EA is counterintuitive, a game can be a great learning tool.

2: It can serve the same purpose as an documentary (aka: an EA awareness tool)

3: could be fun to whip out at EA hangouts and play with people new to EA ; related to 1st point.

4: Board games are having an golden age right now,... (read more)

JamesDrain

I have a fully-formed EA board game that I debuted at EA Global in San Francisco a couple weeks ago. EAs seem to really like it! You can see over one hundred of the game's cards here https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Byv0L8a24QNJeDhfNFo5d1FhWHc The way the game works is that every player has a random private morality that they want to satisfy (e.g. preference utilitarianism, hedonism, sadism, nihilism) and all players also want to collaboratively achieve normative good (accumulating 1000 human QALYs, 10,000 animals QALYs, and 10 x-risk points). Players get QALYs and x-risk points by donating to charities and answering trivia questions. The coolest part of the game is the reincarnation mechanic: every player has a randomly chosen income taken from the real-world global distribution of wealth. Players also unlock animal reincarnation mode after stumbling upon the bad giant pit of suffering (the modal outcome of unlocking animal reincarnation is to be stuck as a chicken until the pit of suffering is destroyed, or until a friendly human acquires a V(eg*n) card.) I'm also thinking about turning the game into an app or computer game, but I'll probably need an experienced coder to help me with that.

Joey

There is a THINK module with an EA board game attached http://www.thehighimpactnetwork.org/modules/paths-to-impact

rhys_lindmark

I'm super into this! I'd be happy to check out your rough sketch. A couple thoughts: 1. I think we should not bucket all of our time into a general time bucket. In fact, some of our time needs to be "fun creative working time". e.g. Sometimes I work on EA things, and sometimes I make music. "Designing an EA board game" could be part of that "fun bucket". 2. A game like Pandemic (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic) could be a good starting point for designing the game (or to work with them on designing it). Essentially, use Pandemic as the MVP game for this, then expand to other cause areas (or to EA as a whole). Also, see 80,000 Hours most recent podcast on pandemics (the concept, not the oard game :) https://80000hours.org/2017/08/podcast-we-are-not-worried-enough-about-the-next-pandemic/ 3. Here's my favorite piece on game design (by Magic the Gathering's head designer) http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/ten-things-every-game-needs-part-1-part-2-2011-12-19 4. My instinct is that this should be a collaborative game (or, as William Macaskgill would say, a "shared aims community").

Testing an EA network-building strategy in the Netherlands

Vincent-Soderberg7y1

suggestion for possible low hanging fruit: getting DGB, The life you can save, and 80k into all the libraries in netherlands. Im constantly surprised how few libraries have the books in sweden, and the benefit of it is that once you get it in, at least a few people will read it, and it gets easier for a potental EA to get into EA if there is good reading material in their vicinity. thats my idea at least

other then that, i'll be going to Fest i Nord (a mormon convent), and i'll likely meet someone from netherlands. I'll be sure to mention the EAN to them!

Remmelt

I had missed your comment, Vincent, so here's a late reply. :-) I like your idea of distributing introductory books to EA through libraries (especially university colleges, where students seem more multidisciplinary and idealistic). Last May, we actually collaborated with a publisher to get a new translated book of Peter Singer out. Here's the deal. From my perspective, it will probably take too much time and attention away from EAN to directly work on distributing the books. Our current strategy for representing EA publicly in the Netherlands is to do it in limited, low marginal cost ways – through our online channels and invitations from media or lecture platforms (this falls under strategy point 4: EA-related in the Netherlands). I think we should aim to become extremely competent by specialising in these approaches, which also means not getting distracted by other outreach opportunities (unless focusing on one of those instead will contribute more to building a thriving EA community). To explore this concept more deeply: People tend to naturally specialise in economic markets. This seems more difficult in the EA community because in a transaction, a product (information, skills, and other forms of capital) is often not offered in return for currency units (a medium of exchange) but instead in the expectation of reciprocity (that the other party is 1. aligned enough with your consequentialist preferences and 2. capable of fulfilling these moral preferences sufficiently using what you give them). It's not even barter (the exchange of products as would be done in moral trade, i.e. where moral preferences diverge) but the formation of trust-based partnerships towards shared long-term goals. My hope (and what we're testing) is that collaborating on building a fractal social network structure – with EAs clustering around different adaptable network targets with corresponding specialised expertise at each layer – would result in a more optimal division of labour.

The marketing gap and a plea for moral inclusivity

Vincent-Soderberg7y2

Interesting read!

Just a thought: does anyone have any thoughts on religion and EA? I don't mean it in a "saving souls is cost effective" way, more in the moral philosophy way.

My personal take is that unless someone is really hardcore/radical/orthodox, then most of what EA says would be positive/ethical for most religious persons. That is certainly my experience talking to religious folks, no one has ever gotten mad at me unless i get too consequentalist. Religious people might even be more open to giving what we can pledge, and EA altruism in s... (read more)

Consider raising IQ to do good

Vincent-Soderberg7y1

Hi! i found this study while listening to freakanomics radio, and it says that poverty does indeed lower IQ, which might imply that donating to Givedirectly could be a way to increase IQ?

I don't know, but here is a link to the study. (thank you for writing this, i found your post very interesting)

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976

Effective Altruism Forum
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