Latest Research and Updates for January 2019

• The BBC has a new vertical focusing on the long view of humanity—starting with an article on the perils of short-termism

• Why time capping might be able to increase how productive you are

• A post looking at using ‘limiting factor’ rather than scale when evaluating which causes to prioritise

• 80,000 Hours with a podcast looking at whether politics is becoming more polarised and populist

• An overview of how EA Giving Tuesday went, with £356,000 (65%) of £546,000 donations matched

• Explainer posts on what GiveWell recommended charities Helen Keller International and Malaria Consortium do

• An overview of cause areas supported by people who filled out the 2018 EA survey

• Wild Animal Initiative is announced as a merger between Wild-Animal Suffering Research and Utility Farm

• Why some campaigns to stop child marriage can backfire

• A post on why it may make sense not to go to university if you want to have impact

• Ezra Klein interviewing Bruce Friedrich from GFI on the future of animal farming

• There is a $1000 prize for coming up with a title for Toby Ord’s new book on existential risk. Closes 15th February

• An overview of Google AI research in 2018, including flood protection, ethical AI, detecting diseased plants, health prediction and a new research office in Ghana

• Applications for the long-term future fund are open until the 7th of February

• A Vox article on why some people are worried about harms caused by AI

• An article on how microcredit hasn’t lifted people out of poverty, but may have other benefits

• Bill Gates on lessons from 2018, including epidemic responses and the end of Polio

• 4 ways that natural phenomena could wipe out humanity

• A post which has summarised over 400 potentially cost effective global interventions in mental health

• A blog on how ‘what works’ government teams from around the world are approaching the task of increasing the amount of experiments and evaluations that governments do

• Emergent Ventures is looking to fund projects on “advancing humane solutions to those facing adversity – based on tolerance, universality, and cooperative processes”

• A list of job boards for careers in EA and international development areas

• An individual’s post publicly pledging their donations and goals for 2019

• An updated list of AI safety resources

• An article in the Financial Times looking at donating to animal charities from an EA perspective

• A curated list of potential EA projects and meta charities

• A post on the case for animal focused local EA movement building

• A list of EA organisation funding gaps

• A review of how well DIFD has used its position as a major donor to improve the value for money and effectiveness of humanitarian aid spent through UN agencies

• CEDIL with a post arguing that the limits of RCT generalisability are overstated

• FHI have a new paper looking at U.S. public attitudes towards AI

• Open Phil made 5 grants in December, with $330,000 for criminal justice reform and $33,000 for biosecurity

• The importance of knowing you might be wrong—a Vox explainer of intellectual humility

• A podcast on why some scientific reform movements succeed and others fail (26:00)

• David Roodman on why studies should be reanalysed, not just replicated

• Our World in Data are looking for recommendations on metrics to include in their new country profiles

• A philosophy paper claiming that EA focuses too much on the efficiency aspect of effectiveness

• A “Starter kit to change the world” with 300+ book, podcast and website recommendations

• Charity Science with a post on why charities sometimes have other, unsaid goals

• An article in Nature looking at how scientists are turning to crowdfunding for their research

• A briefing paper from a global policy watchdog on how policy makers should interpret effective altruism and the risks of doing so

• Clearer Thinking have a decision tool to help make an important life decision

• Effective altruism in media & blogs—NPR podcast on Evidence Action, a history of EA from Newsroom New Zealand, Jacy Reese looking at PETA in Quillette, Abdullah on why they give 1% for humanity, Jessica Almy writing about clean meat in Newsweek

• In a good news roundup Ethiopia has given almost 1 million refugees the right to work, the number of children dying each year has gone down by more than 2 million since 2007 and the Iowa Ag-Gag law has been struck down as unconstitutional, the state in America with the biggest production of pigs and egg laying hens