Introductions and questions thread: April—June 2024
Welcome! Use this thread to introduce yourself or ask questions about anything that confuses you.
PS- this thread is usually entitled “Open thread”, but I’m experimenting with a more descriptive title this time.
Get started on the EA Forum
The “Guide to norms on the Forum” shares more about the kind of discussions we’d like to see on the Forum, and when the moderation team intervenes. For resources that can help you learn about effective altruism, check this list of links.
1. Introduce yourself
If you’d like, share how you became interested in effective altruism, what causes you work on and prioritize, and other fun facts about yourself, in the comments below (For inspiration, you can see the last open thread here). You can also add this information to your Forum bio to help other Forum users get to know you.
2. Ask questions (and answer others’ questions)
If anything about the Forum, or effective altruism in general, confuses you, ask your questions in the comments below. You can also answer other people’s questions or discuss the answers. (You might be interested in sharing your question as its own post, if it’s on a more complicated or substantial topic.)
Resources like the EA Handbook and the Topics wiki might be helpful for exploring topics related to effective altruism — see more here.
3. Explore and join the conversation
You can check the resources below, start browsing posts on the Frontpage, or explore the “Best of the EA Forum.”
You can also start writing! For exploratory or quick thoughts, consider sharing a “Quick take” (or write a post for longer or more fleshed out content).
If you’re unsure whether your first post is suitable for the Forum (or whether it should be a question, quick take, etc...) message me and I’ll look it over.
Featured resources (for everyone)
How to use the Forum outlines the Forum’s rules, answers frequently asked questions, etc.
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Hello, I’m Leonora Camner, a founder of a new climate change adaptation organization called ClimateSafe Villages (CSV). Given the deeply concerning warnings from experts that we are not on track to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming, CSV aims to help communities build local resilience to the severe climate impacts we are likely to face in the coming decades. These communities are resilient not just to climate change, but other catastrophic risks as well.
Our work focuses on:
Researching and modeling innovative, resilient building methods and materials
Developing community-scale systems for water capture, storage and preservation
Building regenerative food systems that are adaptable to extreme conditions
Convening advisors across climate science, engineering, agriculture and other key areas
Producing actionable guides to help people everywhere build climate resilience
By enabling communities to withstand extreme disasters, deadly heat, water scarcity, food shortages and other devastating climate impacts, I believe we can meaningfully reduce the overall level of risk humanity faces.
I’m very interested to connect with others working on climate and existential risks to explore potential collaborations and knowledge sharing. Please reach out or connect me with others!
Until the end of last year, I was the Executive Director of the YIMBY (“Yes in My Backyard”) nonprofit Abundant Housing LA, which I grew from a volunteer effort to a staff of 10. I’m always happy to chat with others about this experience and share any relevant lessons learned. If helpful, I can write a post about this experience and my recommendations. I’m also an advocate for sortition (democracy by lottery) and would love to connect with others interested in this area.
Thanks for reading, and I look forward to getting to know this community! You can learn more about CSV at ClimateSafeVillages.org.
Hi Leonora! Welcome to the Forum :)
Let me know (here or via DM) if you have any questions about the Forum, or want any content recommendations,
- Toby, Content Manager for the EA Forum.
Hi everyone, I’m Ale from Naples, Italy and I’m exited to be here and so grateful that EA exists.
After surviving a heart attack during my last year of high school and being gifted the possibility to live a hopefully long life thanks to an innovative heart surgery technique performed by an equipe of doctors and biomedical engineers, I gave up my plans of studying either political science or medicine (the latter due to the mandatory preselettive test that took place in the time I was in hospital) thinking that biomedical engineering was my one true call to better people’s lives.
After one year studying in engineering, and after coming across EA articles, I soon realized how the most obviously-helpful careers are not the ones who actually have the strongest impact on human wellness and safety.
I’m now trying to find a way to acquire as much skills and knowledge as possible within the very limited resources of my own territory and to understand how can I realistically build the most impactful career for myself and form connection and collaborations with others interested in human needs.
I still have to choose if I want to continue studying in biomedical engineering even if it’s still an emergent and quite lacking field in my own territory and try to figure out innovative ways to contribute to exponentially improve people’s health within the knowledge I’ll be given and currently job outlook , or if I want to combine my lifelong passion for political science and philosophy and my newfound love and skills for coding to pursue an education in informatics to aim to better study and comprehend AI and all the possible impacts it can have on humanity (which is still limited by the lack of resources in my city and the fear of ending up with a time consuming job that wont even pay the bills, but seem a little bit more possible given the attention my university is giving to AI)
I can’t wait to figure it all out and I’m hopeful the knowledge shared in sites like EA will help
Hi Ale, great to have you here!
Let me know (here or via DM) if you have any questions about the Forum, or want any content recommendations,
- Toby, Content Manager for the EA Forum.
Hi, I’m an AI alignment technical researcher who mostly works independently, and I’m in the market for a new productivity coach / accountability buddy, to chat with periodically (I’ve been doing one ≈20-minute meeting every 2 weeks) about work habits, and set goals, and so on. I’m open to either paying fair market rate, or to a reciprocal arrangement where we trade advice and promises etc. I slightly prefer someone not directly involved in AI alignment—since I don’t want us to get nerd-sniped into object-level discussions—but whatever, that’s not a hard requirement. You can reply here, or DM or email me. :)update: I’m all set nowHi everyone I’m Caleb Zege from Nigeria and I am incredibly excited to be here, looking forward to exciting times and memorable moments on this platform.
Welcome Caleb!
Let me know if you have any questions about using the Forum, on this thread or via DM.
- Toby, Content Manager for the EA Forum.
Hello everyone, my name is Manik. I joined the forum a month ago and am very excited to be here.
I am a business and technology consultant in the UK, collaborating with clients on business problems across multiple industries and domains. I have 3 years of software development experience after Engineering Bachelor’s and 6 years of business and technology consulting experience after MBA. I am exploring ways to utilize my skill set to transition into a career which can create a bigger impact.
Over the last few years, I developed ideas about how I want to design my life and arrived at something very similar to longtermism. This led me to do some research and I was absolutely delighted to know that there is a term for this and that a wider community is working with a similar mindset. The idea of “prioritization” and “effective” altruism resonated with me; I have always believed in an intellectual response to emotional motivations/challenges in life (personal, professional, or global).
I have been exploring articles on this forum and on 80,000 hours, pursuing a course on AI safety fundamentals, reading Nick Bostrom’s work, listening to EA podcasts and looking for projects/jobs where I can contribute. I am at present interested in AI Safety, but keeping my mind open to exploring other areas if I find I can create a bigger impact.
Hi Manik!
I’m glad you’re finding these ideas so valuable. Let me know (here or via DM) if you have any questions about the Forum, or want any content recommendations,
- Toby, Content Manager for the EA Forum.
Greetings, I’m Anand Jeevanandham, co-founder of Educate-Liberate Foundation(ELF) a non-profit focused on achieving personal freedom and social peace through Education.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison said Victor Hugo. This makes logical sense, if a school can create such characters in students, who can acquire skills, apply them in the real world to solve problems of the society and uphold righteousness can make this world peaceful and prosperous.
Our current work:
Workshop for students on Self esteem and Logical reasoning.
Training program for teachers on Transactional analysis and Axiology.
Quality Audits using a 12-dimensional evaluation method to scientifically determine the effectiveness of any school.
In the pipeline:
Development of a Hybrid-AI Teacher Evaluation System (TES) that can interactively assess the teacher’s skills, expertise, style, and methods
Research on alternative Pedagogy to enhance learning outcomes.
This foundation was made possible with the contributions and support of Sundararajan Krishnaswamy, who served as the Chief Education Officer for a group of 26 schools in India.
Talk to us contact.educate.liberate@gmail.com
Workshop on Circadian rhythm, St.Francis De Sales School, India (2019) : https://youtu.be/0fH_pvW0VTA
Hi Anand,
Welcome to the Forum, I hope you find your time here valuable.
Let me know if you have any questions!
- Toby, Content Manager for the EA Forum.
So, I have three very distinct ideas for projects that I’m thinking of applying for funding from the Long Term Future Fund for. I was wondering if anyone knows whether it makes more sense to submit them together in one application, or as three separate individual applications?