September to October—Three virtual programs, consisting of weekly meetings over two months
Introductory EA Program—For those new to EA, or who have some familiarity, but want to go through the core ideas
In-Depth EA Program—For graduates of the intro program or those with a similar level of experience, who want to dive deeper into EA ideas and examine their key uncertainties about how to best improve the world
The Precipice Reading Group—In this reading group, you will read and engage in structured discussions of Toby Ord’s The Precipice, a book about existential risks and safeguarding the future of humanity
Holden Karnofsky started a blog covering ideas related to longtermism, epistemology and ethics. His first post is called ‘All Possible Views About Humanity’s Future Are Wild’ and is part of a series arguing that we are potentially living in one of the most important centuries
EA Updates for August 2021
Upcoming Events
6th August—Constraining Longtermism—organised by the Legal Priorities Project
8th August—Giving What We Can Virtual Meetup
19th August—Giving What We Can Open Forum—with Pablo Melchor from Ayuda Efectiva
21st August—Scout Mindset Reading Group—organised by EA Anywhere
25th August—Who is Creating Existential Risk? - Panel Discussion organised by the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
September to October—Three virtual programs, consisting of weekly meetings over two months
Introductory EA Program—For those new to EA, or who have some familiarity, but want to go through the core ideas
In-Depth EA Program—For graduates of the intro program or those with a similar level of experience, who want to dive deeper into EA ideas and examine their key uncertainties about how to best improve the world
The Precipice Reading Group—In this reading group, you will read and engage in structured discussions of Toby Ord’s The Precipice, a book about existential risks and safeguarding the future of humanity
29-31st October—EA Global: London 2021
Latest Research and Updates
Meta
Benjamin Todd analysing whether EA is still growing
Open Philanthropy is seeking proposals for outreach projects
A post on the case against ‘EA cause areas’
CEA update for the second quarter of 2021
An update from the EA Medicine network
EA Survey 2020: Cause Prioritisation
An update from EA for Jews, and a call for volunteers
EA movement building funding is available to non-EA-branded groups
EA Organisation Updates for July 2021
There is a new Slack workspace for creatives and communicators interested in EA
CEA retention statistics for 2021
There is now an EA Forum podcast with recordings of popular posts
Aaron Gertler with the post ‘The most successful EA podcast of all time’
Giving What We Can looking at the motivations behind why people pledge 10%+ of their income to charity
The Jewish Effective Giving Initiative is looking for volunteers to help support their network
Grants
Open Phil have made 13 grants recently with a total value of $8,300,000
$3,120,000 - Future of Humanity Institute
$2,760,000 - Farm Animal Welfare
$1,200,000 - Global Health & Development
$600,000 - Land Use Reform
$320,000 - Scientific Research
$300,000 - Criminal Justice Reform
Animal Charity Evaluators have granted $1,000,000 to 35 organisations involved in movement building
The Survival and Flourishing Fund grant applications are open until August 23rd
Global Development
80,000 Hours podcast with Alexander Berger from Open Philanthropy on improving global health and well being in clear and direct ways
Max Roser looking at how big of a global problem smoking is
Devex is tracking the programs that have been cancelled due to the UK aid cuts, including the Malaria Consortium program in Nigeria
Hannah Ritchie with an overview of how much progress is being made on clean water and sanitation
Hear This Idea interviewing Jeffrey Sachs on sustainable development
The Centre for Global Development have launched the Global Skill Partnership Portal, looking at improving migration and reducing ‘brain drain’
Against Malaria Foundation has agreed to fund 8.1 million nets for distribution in Nigeria in early 2022
Rethink Priorities with a report on agricultural land redistribution as an intervention
Mark Lutter with thoughts on charter cities and effective altruism
Sam Enright with notes on persistence and economic development
Hauke Hillebrandt with an evaluation of Mind Ease, an anti-anxiety app
Animal Welfare
ACE with their thinking around recommending Wild Animal Initiative as a top charity
Lewis Bollard looking at plans for the EU to ban caged animals
Richard Parr with an update on how GFI Europe has engaged with the UK government, resulting in £125,000,000 in funding for research and development of alternative proteins
Wild Animal Initiative are launching a research fund
Existential & Catastrophic Risks
The MacArthur Foundation is removing it’s funding from nuclear policy work, this article claims they currently fund 40-55% of non-governmental funding worldwide on nuclear policy
NASA and the European Space Agency are to test nudging asteroids off collision course with Earth
Wellcome Leap has started a $60,000,000 program to support RNA-based manufacturing capabilities around the world to prepare for future pandemics
A Nasa study predicts an increase in flooding due to an increase in the Moons gravitational pull combined with rising sea levels
Spencer Greenberg interviewing Toby Ord on existential risks
CSER presented ‘Doom and Doubt: Uncertain Futures & Open Questions about Existential Risk’ where researchers discussed how we can have open conversations about worst-case future scenarios
Improving Institutions
80,000 Hours podcast with Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work
A report looking into whether prediction markets could predict outcomes in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s social science programme
A post on the rise of ARPA style organisations
Nadia Eghbal looking at ways to redesign university
An article on the four waves of evidence revolution over the last thirty years
Tony Blair and Patrick Collinson with a collection of essays on how to accelerate UK science and innovation including contributions from Seb Krier, José Luis Ricón, Saloni Dattani and Matt Clifford
Environment
Bill Gates on Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a coalition of philanthropists, companies, and governments aiming to invest in energy innovation
The Breakthrough Institute looking at why carbon emissions grew slower between 2010-2019 than in the previous decade
Kelsey Piper with an article looking at the degrowth movement
The Future of Life podcast with Michael Klare on the Pentagon’s view of climate change and the risks of state collapse
A paper suggesting that higher end warming is underrepresented in climate research
Longtermism
Holden Karnofsky started a blog covering ideas related to longtermism, epistemology and ethics. His first post is called ‘All Possible Views About Humanity’s Future Are Wild’ and is part of a series arguing that we are potentially living in one of the most important centuries
Vox on how to be a good ancestor
The BBC looking at the history of ideas behind building ‘galactic civilisations’
Founders Pledge with ‘The case for longtermism and safeguarding the future’
A post ‘Towards a longtermist framework for evaluating democracy-related interventions’
Luke Muehlhauser with a personal take on longtermist AI governance
Emerging Technology
DeepMind says it will release the structure of every protein known to science
Matt Clifford in discussion with Jeff Ding from the Centre for the Governance of AI on what’s happening in Chinese AI
Tom Davidson with thoughts on David Roodman’s GWP model and its relation to AI timelines
80,000 Hours Podcast with Chris Olah on what is going on inside neural networks
Other Links
Stephen Fry narrating a video on effective altruism
Marcus Daniell, founder of High Impact Athletes, won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics
Patrick Brinich-Langlois asking what can be done with $500,000
Clearer Thinking with a framework for creating positive behaviours
Dylan Matthews writing about the chances of intelligent life beyond Earth and the Fermi Paradox
The initiative ‘NLP for social good’ has been launched
Owen Cotton-Barratt with a post looking at different ways we can try do good and the tensions between them
Peter Slattery has created a list of over 1900 related EA videos on YouTube
A series of posts on the EA Forum where people talk about their jobs, including data scientist, researcher, professor and chemist
Hear This Idea interviewing Anders Sandberg on the Fermi Paradox, Transhumanism, and more
Good News
China has been certified malaria free by the WHO
France bans crushing and gassing of male chicks from 2022