Just a friendly flag that winter is during different months depending on what hemisphere you are in:)
AllisonA
Karma: 301
There are several talks that aim to provide frameworks and considerations when approaching career choice.
Career-related talks:On-ramps: How to get more people into impactful, high absorbency careers
Magnify Mentoring: Successes, challenges, and lessons (so far!)
Cause area-specific career talks:
Several interactive workshops that are available to EAGxVirtual 2024 attendees only:
Career Impact Workshop: Finding a Role That’s Good For You and Good For the World
More Than the Obvious: Unexplored Paths to High-Impact Careers
Career transition strategies
There is an AI, Animals, & Digital Minds conference that’s being planned in the Bay Area for earlyish 2025! Updates will be announced in the AI & Animals newsletter.
[edited to add that my perspective is based on my experience with animal welfare-related petitions]
I think petitions can be helpful in specific situations, but there is enough noise that I personally default to “not worthwhile” unless I get sufficient info to convince me otherwise.Reasons I’m skeptical about their effectiveness (which are often pursued by orgs that aren’t super EA-aligned):
Petitions are a common tactic used by some orgs for fundraising. They cultivate donors (make them feel good about themselves and aligned with the org’s mission) then the petition is then followed by post-action donation ask.
Petitions are used to collect build an org’s email list. Change.org and Care2 (maybe others also?) have intentional business models where you pay to promote your petition with the goal of receiving a list of opted-in email addresses from people who have similar interests. I’ve also seen paid petitions ads on social media to collect emails.
But that doesn’t mean that all petitions are worthless! I’d expect some to be much more likely to be high impact! There are a few heuristics I use to filter out noise:
Is the target specific? If the petition language is generic (like “help protect chickens from cruelty” without specifying who exactly can help and why your sig/email is needed) that would raise a red flag for me.
What kind of petition/action is it?
Petition where you sign your name in support of a prepared statement. Your name would then (maybe) be exported and included in a list submitted with the org’s comment/email on the issue. Is there a difference between 1234 and 1233 signatures? Not sure. This kind of petition is more likely to be for fundraising, so I rarely, if ever, participate in these.
Send an email to a target. You will enter your physical address (if legislative) and/or contact info on a form to send an email to a target, often by way of an advocacy crm (p2a, everyaction, mobilize, nationbuilder, etc). This is more likely to actually go to the rep/target, which is better! But, I’d follow up with a few questions: Is the target a current stakeholder? For example, if bill is stuck in a specific senate committee, is it worthwhile to send to my rep in the assembly? Or a senator that isn’t in the committee? Is this bill even likely to move this session? Will this bill even have a significant impact?
Fill out form on government/dept website. This is promising also, because at least you know it’s going in public record for consideration. Your connection to the issue at hand is likely going to impact how much weight is put on your submission.
Organization’s transparency record.
Other: Are you asked for money directly afterwards and is the ask language directly related to the petition? (if so that sounds like a fundraising campaign). Are there a lot of petitions on the org’s website with some of them looking less effective?
I’m unsure of my position because there are a lot of additional factors! Specifically for targeting legislators, it’s considered best practice to personalize your messages, but I am not aware of specific numbers on how much impact that has. Anecdotally I’ve heard some reps say they read every email (in which personalization would be more important!) while others have an aide just count it as point in/against support. Also timing seems to be another factor. I’d be keen to get actual research on this!
Fwiw Metaculus has an AI Forecasting Benchmark Tournament. The Q3 contest ends soon, but another should come out afterwards and it would be helpful to see how 539 performs compared to the other bots.
Considering it’s EAF’s marginal funding week (starting tomorrow!), I’m curious on how you plan to use additional donations. It’s nice to see that you’ve started thinking about the rest of the FY and listed 3 points of focus—but will those happen with or without my donation? And what would happen if you don’t reach the £280k shortfall fundraising target?
Why should someone donate to The Humane League UK (THL UK) instead of The Humane League (THL)?
Yes, I did see that the linked newsletter contains information. But that wasn’t my point, I was trying to articulate that I believe the actual body copy of a post should have information that is reflective of the post title (and ideally helpful).
It sounds like we also have differ in how we want an EA Forum post to be presented. I would expect that if one wants to help people acheive a work-life balance by giving them helpful information, then they would have the info presented in an easy-to-read way in the actual EAF post. I think that would be particularly relevant considering many of the tips in the newsletter are repetitive. Quick hack might be to toss the newsletter copy into GPT, churning out a short summary in form of bulleted list so you don’t have to struggle with formatting. If that is still too much of a hassle, then maybe it would be more appropriate for your newsletter link to be a Quick Take instead of a post?I just really appreciate the EAF and want to encourage healthy norms.
Here’s the info & registration link for RP’s Shrimp Farming webinar (ty Ben for posting it on the EA Forum!)
I think that maintaining a healthy work-life balance is really important, and I’m thankful that you (and the other folks) are thinking hard about how to help encourage that!
However I did downvote because this post feels sort of clickbaity. The post title says there are tips, but your post copy doesn’t actually contain any. Also I think I’ve mentioned it before but I don’t think everyone knows what EASE stands for, and it isn’t explained in the post either.
Notion pages can be published with a custom domain using https://super.so/ :)
Thanks for sharing. One quick comment: The post doesn’t make it very clear what the acroynm “EASE” stands for. It might be helpful and more accessible if spelt out somewhere.
Congrats on the new role, it sounds like it took a lot of commitment to get there. As president, do you think you’ll have more influence among members, local or international? I wonder if becoming involved could help others consider cause prioritization when selecting projects.
(I was a Kiwanis Junior member back in middle school. I remember doing literally random volunteering to meet the community service hour minimum.)
Hi Jessica, EAG attendee numbers are listed in CEA’s public dashboard.
Hi Villafana. Sorry I missed this comment earlier! Hope to see you at one of our other upcoming discussion groups if you’re local :)
The goal of this discussion wasn’t necessarily to determine if population growth is or isn’t an issue (though lately I’ve seen more concern about declining replacement rates than overpopulation), but to better understanding why people in the EA community have considered population ethics and the different population-related tradeoffs that we might come across.
You mention housing for homeless people—that’s a great example of a situation that would be helpful to consider from different viewpoints within population ethics. How does it affect the wellbeing of communities who receive this new population? Is it ethical to incentivize people to move into housing or is it undermining individual choice? Is this the best way to increase wellbeing for homeless people who might have different values and desires? (no need to answer these questions, its just an example of how one might try to develop a deeper understanding)
We have enough empty homes to provide every homeless person in the world with 8 and that number of empty homes is only growing, not due to disease—but suicide
Personally I haven’t seen any data that shows an increase in available housing due to suicide deaths. I often fall back to Our World in Data, which shows the magnitude of deaths attributed to disease. These issues, such as mental and physical health, are often incredibly complex.
I’ve been meaning to try this out, thank you for the friendly reminder :) Anecdotally I’ve heard that users with limited internet bandwidth might prefer Zoom/google meet to prevent heavy lag on gathertown. Have you run into any issues with that? I just want to be mindful that not all participants come from locations with high speed connections.
Also, is there a schedule where we should signup/reserve the space for reoccurring uses? I’d hate to disrupt someone else’s meeting.
I’d recommend looking into Chicago—they distribute free rat-proof garbage bins for residents.
Also in Chicago, there is a working cat program to deter rodents, run by Treehouse Humane Society. Sterilized feral cats are placed in an area with nuisance rodents. They acclimate in a cage for 2-3 weeks, then are released. During the acclimation period, rodents will smell the cat and start to relocate, likely to move completely once the cats are released.
This is slightly different than this thread, because these working cats are feral. They aren’t adoptable due to behavior; therefore, releasing them outside is their only live outcome. It would be difficult to get a collar on these cats unless they are under anesthesia.
Community cat advocates argue that since the cats are sterilized and fed periodically, their predatory drive is significantly reduced, when compared to unsterilized and unfed feral cats who are doing the most harm to the bird/mammal populations. Since they are feral, they are more likely to stay hidden and are less likely to be a nuisance than a friendly outdoor pet. 14% of US households admit to feeding outside cats.
Here are a few considerations which make this invention complex:
The cats need to be fed by humans periodically. If they aren’t fed, they hunt and/or migrate.
The acclimation process is laborious. If it is skipped, I’d say the cats have <50% likelihood of sticking around.
These cats are feral; therefore, it is difficult to recapture them for re-vaccinations. Vets have hinted that the rabies vaccine is actually effective for much longer than the 1-3 year timeframe, and I don’t know if there is publicly-available research to confirm or deny.
Not everyone likes cats, especially ones that are free-roaming outside. There are dozens of complaint types, which can include allergies, cultural aversions, misinformation, etc.
This is likely to be more well-received by the public if there is also a cat overpopulation issue (But if you need cats, I promise you there are plenty to go around)
I’m sure there are many others, these just came to mind.
I have firsthand experience with the implementation in field, having run a working cat program in a rural area. If you’d like more information, please reach out!
I think it’s fair to see ALDF playing an important part in the animal protection ecosystem (I agree with this!) but I would not feel comfortable recommending a charity based on the amount of information available. I don’t have time to respond in detail, but here are some questions that I would need answered:
How do they prioritize their cases or work more broadly? I question this because of their companion animal work, like paying for this puppy’s leg surgery. Is their lack of transparency acceptable for a recommended charity?
~60% of the litigation work on farmed animal issues is a piece of information, but what does that mean? # of cases? hours of litigation staff time? What is the avg number of affected animals for each case, both directly and EV for precedent set? I’ve learned that relying on a single number can be misleading if the inputs and context aren’t clear.
How much staff time is litigation vs. other programs?
Again, I am glad they exist and appreciate their place in building and providing credibility to the animal law sector. Many of their wins are significant! They also appeal to a more right-leaning audience which is helpful in keeping animal issues bipartisan. I just don’t feel certain that enough of their 16M annual budge goes towards effective animal work.