EA Updates for November 2019

UPDATES

• Ben Kuhn with a post on how starting a for-profit company serving emerging markets may be one of the most impactful careers. Ben works at Wave, who have saved their recipients over $100 million since 2015

• An article on why the resurgence of tuberculosis is behavioural, not medical

• GiveDirectly looking at how cash transfers affect people who don’t receive them

• A Devex article on how Germany is spending $1,100,000,000 on investment in Africa, mainly focusing on supporting private sector growth

• Caleb Parikh introducing Good Policies, a new charity promoting behaviour change interventions

• You can help out with the December 3rd launch of the 10th anniversary edition of The Life You Can Save, with free downloads of the ebook and audiobook featuring Kristen Bell, Stephen Fry and Peter Singer

• Peter Singer on whether randomised poverty alleviation experiments are ethical

• Wellcome on how to communicate about antimicrobial resistance effectively and why this is important

• An article from the Centre for Global Development on the evolution of think tank research communications

• The Economist looking at how societies change their minds faster than individuals

• The Roots of Progress blog looking at the history of smallpox eradication

• There is a new Effective Altruism UK Facebook group to help people around the country to coordinate and potentially arrange meetups, not just in London

• EA Giving Tuesday instructions for donors on December the 3rd

• 80,000 Hours on why management consultancy may not be the best way to establish a career

• A 5 minute survey on people’s perspectives on ethnic diversity in EA

• A summary of the EA leaders survey on EA priorities, with people from 16 EA related organisations

• 80,000 Hours with anonymous answers about what decisions people would make differently if they were 18 again and what thing people most overrate in their career

• Edo Arad has collated 14 different ways to think about effective altruism (i.e. as a question, as a movement) and how they might be useful in different contexts

• A list of effective altruism related books on Goodreads

• Tyler John with a list of 33 institutions and policies that may benefit future generations

• Haydn Belfield and Gabriel Recchia discussing how countries aren’t prepared for climate change, pandemics and biodiversity loss

• A post looking at whether 80,000 focuses too much on beneficial AI

• Buck Shlegeris with an AMA on research and outreach at MIRI

• Taylor Sloane looking at the top 5 solutions in terms of cost effectiveness for carbon dioxide reduction

• Bill Gates discussing the challenges of mitigating climate change and eliminating malnutrition

• Louis Dixon contributing to a post on how charities can combat climate change

• Sanjay Joshi on why Founders Pledge may be overrating the Coalition for Rainforest Nations impact on climate change

• Our World in Data with a new series on the environmental impact of agriculture

• The Rockefeller Foundation and Tata Power announced a new energy initiative, which they hope will see 10,000 micro grid power systems deployed in India by 2026

• Metascience has an open collection of research related to this emerging field of research on the scientific progress

• Our World in Data looking at the importance of social networks for innovation and productivity

• Katherine Savoie on how to come to better conclusions by playing steelman solitaire

ORGANISATION UPDATES

• Giving What We Can celebrated their 10 year anniversary. Since November 2009, they’ve grown from 23 members to more than 4,000 and donated more than $125 million to potentially effective charities

• GWWC are also having a video Q&A in December, here is a form to ask any questions before the event

• 80,000 Hours with advice on how to read their advice

• The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk with 21 recent publications on existential risk

• Rethink Priorities with a survey of their own impact

• Faunalytics’ research priorities for 2020

• ALLFED 2019 annual report and fundraising appeal

• GiveDirectly can help you host a workplace talk, find out more here

• GiveWell have announced their top charities for 2019

• Open Philanthropy Project have announced their co-funding partnership with Ben Delo

• CEA with a summary on feedback they collected about people’s impression of CEA and the wider EA community

• CEA with an update on the EA Grants Programme, including historical issues and future plans

• GiveDirectly have an end of year conference call on the 4th of December

• Summary of 2019-2020 Global Catastrophic Risk Institutes accomplishments, plans, and fundraising

• Videos of the Charity Entrepreneurship founders presenting their new organisations

GRANTS

• Open Phil have made 43 grants recently with a total value of $7,019,000. With $1,756,000 for the Centre for Effective Altruism, $2,001,000 on farm animal welfare, $2,978,00 on criminal justice reform, $109,000 on emergency food research, $100,000 for the Future of Life Institute and $75,000 on refugee assistance

• Schmidt Futures have committed $1,000,000,000 to building a network of exceptional young people who are committed to helping others throughout their lives

• GiveWell have given an incubation grant of $5,605,000 to Results for Development for their childhood pneumonia treatment program

• The Progress Studies tranche of Emergent Ventures has been given to 10 individuals

• ACE disbursed $505,000 to 19 projects

• EA Global Health and Development Fund with a $1,005,000 payout to Fortify Health and a $355,000 payout to One For The World

RESEARCH

• An overview of the Climate Information Prize run by DFID to test the value of using innovation prizes to achieve international development outcomes

• Neil Dullaghan looking at the opportunities that deliberative reforms offer for improving institutional decision-making

• The Lancet on the ethics of the Global Kidney Exchange programme

• Rethink Priorities with estimates on the likelihood of invertebrate sentience

• Empirical evaluation of unintended effects from invoking the precautionary principle after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, with an increase in mortality from higher electricity prices outnumbering the mortality from the accident itself, in the National Bureau of Economic Research

• Ben Southwood and Tyler Cowen with a new paper looking at whether the rate of scientific progress is slowing down

VOX

• An in depth look at carbon capture utilisation

• How melting permafrost in the Arctic could unlock diseases

PODCASTS

• 80,000 Hours with ambassador Bonnie Jenkins on 8 years of combating WMD terrorism

• The future of cultured meat with Alison Rabschnuk who leads the corporate engagement department of GFI

• Natalie Cargill on BBC Radio 4 discussing the future of AI

• Not Cool episode 20 on deforestation, episode 21 on ocean acidification, episode 22 on climate change and armed conflict and episode 23 on nuclear winter

• Lewis Bollard, the Animal Welfare Program Manager at Open Phil discussing why animal welfare should be a central issue for everyone interested in climate change

• Tim Harford with a new podcast on what we can learn from mistakes

• Helen Toner of CSET and Jaan Tallinn on the BBC World Service discussing potential threats from AI

• Ellen Quigley and Natalie Jones from CSER on the Not Cool podcast discussing climate change, divestment, and impact investing

EA RELATED BOOKS AND MEDIA

• Vice interviewing Simon Beard from CSER on studying the ‘Global Systems Death Spiral’ that might end humanity

• The 10th anniversary edition of The Life You Can Save is released on the 3rd of December.

• Allan Saldanha in the Guardian talking about how and why he gives to charity

• Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith (SMBC cartoonist) with a graphic nonfiction book on Open Borders

•Charles C. Camosy on his friendship with Peter Singer despite large differences in beliefs

• Natalie Cargill, Liv Boeree and Danielle Gram at Web Summit talking about how to maximise donations

GOOD NEWS ROUNDUP

• A global pharmaceutical company has agreed to reduce the price of its preventive tuberculosis medicine by 70% as part of a major deal that is expected to benefit an estimated 1,700,000,000 people

• Donor governments and philanthropists have pledged $2,600,000,000 to help fund a worldwide polio eradication plan