The September edition of the newsletter is here, with exciting news of grants, EA courses in universities and a spotlight on EA Global this month, with some fantastic talks available online. This is an open thread, meaning you can comment about whatever you like—not just discussion about the newsletter.
Be sure to check out this new course on EA at the University of St Andrews – the course outline is a treasure trove of material. LSE also recently introduced a course on effective altruism for this coming academic year.
In this podcast Sam Harris talks with Will MacAskill about EA, moral illusions, existential risks and more. The other podcast of this kind that Will did, a two-hour conversation with Tim Ferriss, proved very popular.
In this exciting announcement, Charity Science announces a new initiative: Charity Science Health. Read all about how this charity was designed from the ground-up to be evidence-based, cost-effective and flexible.
Ever wondered what it would be like to work at an EA-aligned organisation? Milan Griffes takes to the 80,000 Hours blog to discuss his experiences of working at GiveWell.
What makes animal welfare an important focus area for EA? This article, written by those in the effective animal advocacy field, explains why helping animals could be the best use of your time and money.
Have a look at this updated chapter of the 80,000 Hours career guide on how exactly to build career capital early on in your career.
The New “Spotlight” Section
In this section we’ll be shining a spotlight on different topics, concepts and considerations that are central to EA. Submit ideas for this section through our feedback form.
After introducing this section in the last edition, this time we’ll be focusing on EA Global 2016. A total of 1,052 people attended the conference a month ago in Berkeley, making it the largest-ever gathering of effective altruists in history.
For example, there’s a panel on sharing and aggregating knowledge, a talk on whether effective altruists should do policy and of course the opening keynote that sketches a grand overview of the history and possible future of effective altruism. More videos will be added there in the coming weeks.
Interested in the next EA conference? Here’s a list of upcoming EAGx events around the world. The next one will be EAGx Berlin on October 8, for which you can sign up now.
Updates from EA Organizations
Animal Charity Evaluators
ACE released several blog posts, including a “Charities We’d Like to See” post that several people in their audience had requested. They also published an Online Ads Intervention Report, concluding that, while online ads likely spare large numbers of animals from suffering on farms, in most cases marginal resources are probably better spent on activities like corporate outreach and cndercover investigations.
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
CSER has made its first hire in catastrophic environmental risk, Tatsuya Amano. CSER’s team is now up to 8 interdisciplinary researchers working on classification frameworks on global catastrophic risk, horizon-scanning, population ethics, biosecurity, disaster law and technology and more.
The Local Effective Altruism Network launched a new website and is making it easier than ever to start a local group in your area or get support for an existing one.
The deadline for the Sentience Politics Essay Prize has been extended. You can submit your ideas for effective strategies to reduce the suffering of all sentient beings until Sept. 30.
A community project of the Centre for Effective Altruism, a registered charity in England and Wales (Charity Number 1149828) – Centre for Effective Altruism, Littlegate House, St Ebbes Street, Oxford OX1 1PT, United Kingdom
The Effective Altruism Newsletter & Open Thread – September 2016
The September edition of the newsletter is here, with exciting news of grants, EA courses in universities and a spotlight on EA Global this month, with some fantastic talks available online. This is an open thread, meaning you can comment about whatever you like—not just discussion about the newsletter.
In this podcast Sam Harris talks with Will MacAskill about EA, moral illusions, existential risks and more. The other podcast of this kind that Will did, a two-hour conversation with Tim Ferriss, proved very popular.
In this exciting announcement, Charity Science announces a new initiative: Charity Science Health. Read all about how this charity was designed from the ground-up to be evidence-based, cost-effective and flexible.
Ever wondered what it would be like to work at an EA-aligned organisation? Milan Griffes takes to the 80,000 Hours blog to discuss his experiences of working at GiveWell.
What makes animal welfare an important focus area for EA? This article, written by those in the effective animal advocacy field, explains why helping animals could be the best use of your time and money.
Have a look at this updated chapter of the 80,000 Hours career guide on how exactly to build career capital early on in your career.
In this section we’ll be shining a spotlight on different topics, concepts and considerations that are central to EA. Submit ideas for this section through our feedback form.
After introducing this section in the last edition, this time we’ll be focusing on EA Global 2016. A total of 1,052 people attended the conference a month ago in Berkeley, making it the largest-ever gathering of effective altruists in history.
25 video recordings of talks and panels are now online – have a look at the list!
For example, there’s a panel on sharing and aggregating knowledge, a talk on whether effective altruists should do policy and of course the opening keynote that sketches a grand overview of the history and possible future of effective altruism. More videos will be added there in the coming weeks.
Interested in the next EA conference? Here’s a list of upcoming EAGx events around the world. The next one will be EAGx Berlin on October 8, for which you can sign up now.
ACE released several blog posts, including a “Charities We’d Like to See” post that several people in their audience had requested. They also published an Online Ads Intervention Report, concluding that, while online ads likely spare large numbers of animals from suffering on farms, in most cases marginal resources are probably better spent on activities like corporate outreach and cndercover investigations.
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
CSER has made its first hire in catastrophic environmental risk, Tatsuya Amano. CSER’s team is now up to 8 interdisciplinary researchers working on classification frameworks on global catastrophic risk, horizon-scanning, population ethics, biosecurity, disaster law and technology and more.
GiveWell
GiveWell published write-ups on grants Good Ventures made to New Incentives, Results for Development, and IDinsight as part of GiveWell’s work to support the creation of future top charities. GiveWell also discussed whether other organizations would have funded the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF)’s bed net distributions if AMF hadn’t.
Local Effective Altruism Network
The Local Effective Altruism Network launched a new website and is making it easier than ever to start a local group in your area or get support for an existing one.
Open Philanthropy Project
The Open Philanthropy Project awarded a $5,555,550 grant to support the launch of the UC Berkeley Center for Human-Compatible AI as part of its work on potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence. The Open Philanthropy Project also described its rationale for a grant to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH); the grant will allow FNIH to form a working group to recommend a consensus path for field testing gene drives to fight malaria.
Sentience Politics
The deadline for the Sentience Politics Essay Prize has been extended. You can submit your ideas for effective strategies to reduce the suffering of all sentient beings until Sept. 30.
Temporary office manager at the Centre for Effective Altruism
Program director and project manager at Evidence Action Beta
Full-stack web developer at Founders Pledge
Various positions at J-PAL
The Mercy For Animals Writers Group
Social scientist at Schistosomiasis Control Initiative
The perspectives on effective altruism we don’t always hear – Jess Whittlestone on how to take on board feedback about the EA movement.
Let us know how you liked this edition and how we can improve further. As usual, thank you very much for your feedback!
See you again on Oct. 6!
Georgie, Michał, Pascal and Sören
– The Effective Altruism Newsletter Team
The Effective Altruism Newsletter is a joint project between the Centre for Effective Altruism, the Effective Altruism Hub and .impact
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