If you’re an animal welfare EA I’d highly recommend joining the wholesome refuge that is the newly minted Impactful Animal Advocacy (IAA).
Website and details here. I volunteered for them at the AVA Summit which I strongly recommend as the premier conference and community-builder for animal welfare-focused EAs. The AVA Summit has some features I have long thought missing from EAGs—namely people arguing in good faith about deep deep disagreements (e.g. why don’t we ever see a panel with prominent longtermist and shorttermist EAs arguing for over an hour straight at EAGs?). There was an entire panel addressing quantification bias which turned into talking about some believing how EA has done more harm than good for the animal advocacy movement… but that people are afraid to speak out against EA given it is a movement that has brought in over 100 million dollars to animal advocacy. Personally I loved there being a space for these kind of discussions.
Also, one of my favourite things about the IAA community is they don’t ignore AI, they take it seriously and try to think about how to get ahead of AI developments to help animals. It is a community where you’ll bump into people who can talk about x-risk and take it seriously, but for whatever reason are prioritizing animals.
If you’re an animal welfare EA I’d highly recommend joining the wholesome refuge that is the newly minted Impactful Animal Advocacy (IAA).
Website and details here. I volunteered for them at the AVA Summit which I strongly recommend as the premier conference and community-builder for animal welfare-focused EAs. The AVA Summit has some features I have long thought missing from EAGs—namely people arguing in good faith about deep deep disagreements (e.g. why don’t we ever see a panel with prominent longtermist and shorttermist EAs arguing for over an hour straight at EAGs?). There was an entire panel addressing quantification bias which turned into talking about some believing how EA has done more harm than good for the animal advocacy movement… but that people are afraid to speak out against EA given it is a movement that has brought in over 100 million dollars to animal advocacy. Personally I loved there being a space for these kind of discussions.
Also, one of my favourite things about the IAA community is they don’t ignore AI, they take it seriously and try to think about how to get ahead of AI developments to help animals. It is a community where you’ll bump into people who can talk about x-risk and take it seriously, but for whatever reason are prioritizing animals.