Effective Environmentalism When:Saturday 4th April Weekly calls with speakers and hosts on different topics relating to climate change and the intersection with other causes
People of Colour and Ethnic Minorities When:Saturday 4th April A virtual meetup for people to discuss issues relating to racial, ethnic and cultural diversity in EA and ways to make the community more welcoming. Join this Facebook group to find out more
Remote Book Club—The Precipice by Toby Ord When:Thursday 9th April Organised by EA York. Fortnightly video calls, each to discuss one of the three parts of Toby Ord’s ‘The Precipice’
Webinar—Rob Mather: AMF and What We Do When:Friday 10th April Organised by One For The World. Rob will join online to talk about AMF and what it does, followed by a Q&A
Q&A with Jennifer Wong, Impact Investor When:Monday 20th April Organised by OFTW. Jen is a portfolio manager and involved in all aspects of investment selection and portfolio management across fund investments, secondaries, co-investments and directs, focusing on impact-oriented investments and emerging markets investments
Q&A with Elie Hassenfeld When:Wednesday 22nd April Organised by OFTW. Elie is co-founder & CEO of GiveWell
EA for Christians When:Saturday 9th May We are exploring the option of having some sessions online for Christians interested in EA
• Here is a sign up form for the EA peer support group. This is a help and support group for members of the EA community dealing with personal problems. The group is intended for people who need support and/or want to offer support
• A £10,000,000 research and innovation programme is opening to support the integration of the financial risks of climate and environmental change into mainstream financial decision making
• The Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning has awarded funds to 25 projects focused on evaluating complex interventions, enhancing evidence transferability and increasing evidence use
EA Updates for March 2020
Here are a couple of links I think are especially useful and I’ve also included events for the first time as they are no longer London specific.
A post from Julia Wise on how to find equilibrium in a difficult time
80,000 Hours with an overview of COVID-19 analysis, resources and how to help with time or donations
UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS
Effective Environmentalism
When: Saturday 4th April
Weekly calls with speakers and hosts on different topics relating to climate change and the intersection with other causes
People of Colour and Ethnic Minorities
When: Saturday 4th April
A virtual meetup for people to discuss issues relating to racial, ethnic and cultural diversity in EA and ways to make the community more welcoming. Join this Facebook group to find out more
Remote Book Club—The Precipice by Toby Ord
When: Thursday 9th April
Organised by EA York. Fortnightly video calls, each to discuss one of the three parts of Toby Ord’s ‘The Precipice’
Webinar—Rob Mather: AMF and What We Do
When: Friday 10th April
Organised by One For The World. Rob will join online to talk about AMF and what it does, followed by a Q&A
Q&A with Jennifer Wong, Impact Investor
When: Monday 20th April
Organised by OFTW. Jen is a portfolio manager and involved in all aspects of investment selection and portfolio management across fund investments, secondaries, co-investments and directs, focusing on impact-oriented investments and emerging markets investments
Q&A with Elie Hassenfeld
When: Wednesday 22nd April
Organised by OFTW. Elie is co-founder & CEO of GiveWell
EA for Christians
When: Saturday 9th May
We are exploring the option of having some sessions online for Christians interested in EA
LATEST RESEARCH AND UPDATES
Meta
• You can watch a recording of the EA Global: Virtual Conference 2020 here
• Podcast with Ben Todd on the key ideas of 80,000 Hours
• Anonymous contributors on what they think are the biggest flaws of the effective altruism community
• Richard Ngo with a forum post asking what are the key ongoing debates within EA
• EA Organisation updates for February 2020
• Here is a sign up form for the EA peer support group. This is a help and support group for members of the EA community dealing with personal problems. The group is intended for people who need support and/or want to offer support
• Jack Lewars on whether effective altruism should be broad or narrow
• Phil Trammel on the 80,000 Hours podcast discussing how being a patient philanthropist could allow you to do far more good
• Animal Advocacy Careers with research on developing management and leadership expertise
• A Facebook group for consultants interested in effective altruism
• Michael Aird with a post collecting EA related videos
• Stefan Torges writing about the case for building more and better epistemic institutions in the EA community
• An EA forum post looking at cooperation inside and outside of effective altruism
• Interviews with Will MacAskill, Open Phil and GiveWell
• An Ask Me Anything with Patrick Stadler, Director of Communications at Charity Entrepreneurship
Grants
• Open Phil have made 41 grants recently with a total value of $77,117,000.
$54,645,000 - global development
Including $33,926,000 for Malaria Consortium
$7,654,000 - meta effective altruism
$4,151,000 - biosecurity and pandemic preparedness
$3,675,000 - criminal justice reform
$2,551,000 - farmed animal welfare
$2,500,000 - scientific research
$1,000,000 - macroeconomic stabilisation policy
$600,000 - land use reform
$341,000 - potential risks from advanced AI
Global Development
• GiveWell on the impact of COVID-19 on their plans
• How Innovations in Poverty Action are adapting to COVID-19
• An Ask Me Anything with Elie Hassenfeld, co-founder and CEO of GiveWell
• Malaria Consortium with a new campaign looking at future health, including research into antimicrobial resistance
• Centre For Global Development podcast looking at coordinating aid countrywide
• The Campbell Collaboration on whether evidence is transferable around the world
• How philanthropy can drive development in the Arab world
• The U.K. Parliament’s aid watchdog is launching an investigation into the impact of U.K. aid
• Caleb Parikh and Joel Burke with a post on why they think tobacco tax advocacy could be more cost-effective than AMF
• Think Global Health with an interview with Nigeria CDC leader Chikwe Ihekweazu on outbreak detection, preparedness, response, and COVID-19 in Africa
• For conversations and updates about global development and EA, here is the Facebook group
Animal Welfare
• An Ask Me Anything with Leah Edgerton, executive director of ACE
• Animal Advocacy Careers are offering a limited number of 1-1 career sessions
• The top animal charity ideas being researched by Charity Entrepreneurship
• AAC with research into bottlenecks and job opportunities in effective animal advocacy nonprofit organisations
• The Good Food Institute have an online course exploring the science behind plant-based and cultivated meat
• Wild Animal Ethics Conference, 24-25th September, St. Andrews
• Peter Singer on why live animal markets should be banned worldwide
• World Animal Protection with an animal protection index
• ACE with a post outlining how they are different to charity watchdog organisations
Environmentalism
• Vaidehi Agarwalla with updates about the effective environmentalism community
• Our World in Data looking at the carbon footprint of food, and how food waste is responsible for 6% of greenhouse emissions
• Giving Thought podcast looking at what the $10,000,000,000 pledge from Jeff Bezos to tackle global climate issues could mean for philanthropy
• A £10,000,000 research and innovation programme is opening to support the integration of the financial risks of climate and environmental change into mainstream financial decision making
• A post with an overview of negative emissions
Improving Institutional Decision Making
• How game theory can be used to understand the promise of collaboration in public service provision
• Sally Davies on what it take to achieve science-informed policy, looking at evidence-informed rather than evidence-based policy
• The Centre of Excellence for Development Impact and Learning has awarded funds to 25 projects focused on evaluating complex interventions, enhancing evidence transferability and increasing evidence use
Biosecurity
• 80,000 Hours with a new profile on reducing global catastrophic biological risks
• Devex with a post looking at how more than $4.6 trillion (4,600,000,000,000) has been pledged by governments, bilateral donors, multilateral institutions, philanthropic donors, NGOs, and the private sector in the fight against COVID-19
• A London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine podcast focusing on the science behind outbreaks
• Open Phil have contracted The Good Judgement Project to forecast the COVID-19 pandemic
• An article looking at how philanthropists are tackling COVID-19
• LSHTM with an online course on understanding COVID-19
Artificial Intelligence
• Cullen O’Keefe on the FLI Podcast talking about distributing the benefits of AI via the windfall clause
• The OECD have a platform to share and shape public policies for responsible, trustworthy and beneficial AI
• AI Alignment podcast: Lethal Autonomous Weapons with Paul Scharre
Long Term Future
• The Foundational Research Institute has been renamed The Centre on Long Term Risk, here are their plans for 2020
• The Centre on Long Term Risk offers career coaching, schedule a call here
• Toby Ord and The Precipice related content
Toby on the 80,000 Hours podcast discussing humanity’s potential futures
An Ask Me Anything on the EA forum
The Spectator with a review of The Precipice
The Guardian looking at why we need worst case scenario thinking to prevent pandemics
Future of Life Institute Podcast with Toby
Other Links
• Founders Pledge with a report recommending Action for Happiness, a UK-based charity that aims to improve people’s subjective well-being
• Dobrosława Gogłoza, CEO of Anima International, on the feeling of not being good enough
• Darius Meissner, James Aung and William MacAskill with a new website for utilitarianism
• Clearer Thinking with a tool to help people sleep better
• Kelsey Piper looking at how GiveDirectly is giving cash to Americans suffering because of COVID-19
• Entrepreneur First Bangalore with their latest cohort of people trying to use technical and business skills to solve problems
• Matthew Poe, Salesforce architect at Open Phil, on how they use Salesforce to do more good in the world
• Vox looking at the ethical dilemma of rationing medical care
Good News Roundup
• Global carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector fell 2% last year
• The last Ebola patient in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was discharged. With no more confirmed cases, a 42-day countdown to declaring the end of the world’s second-deadliest Ebola epidemic began on 2 March