AndyMorgan

• AndyMorgan 6 Apr 2016 7:49 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: What is up with car­bon diox­ide and cog­ni­tion? An offer

  Yeah, I really hope someone breathes some life into this issue.

• AndyMorgan 11 May 2016 9:34 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Ac­com­plish­ments Open Thread—May 2016

  \Hey everyone,

  My recent accomplishment is that I’ve completed building an API to anonymously record donations made to charities, with the intention of allowing organisations like Giving What We Can and EAHub to automatically update the donation records of their members and to measure their impact (I figured there must be an easier way than individuals manually entering their donations).

  At the moment I’m going to start working on integrating it with those organisations, and charities that are the most popular with effective altruists, but I’d also really be interested to hear any suggestions for possible applications for it that I could build?

  Maybe something like a web application that exports all your donations to a CSV file?

  Or maybe a Facebook plugin (is that what they’re called?) that displays your donation total on your profile page?

  I’m all ears.

  It’s currently set up to record a donor ID, a charity ID, the amount donated, a reference number, the date, and the time the database record was created.\

• AndyMorgan 11 May 2016 20:12 UTC

  0 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: The Effec­tive Altru­ism Newslet­ter & Open Thread – May 2016

  Hey everyone,

  So, I’ve recently completed building an API to anonymously record donations made to charities, with the intention of allowing organisations like Giving What We Can and EAHub to automatically update the donation records of their members and to measure their impact (I figured there must be an easier way than individuals manually entering their donations).

  At the moment I’m going to start working on integrating it with those organisations, and charities that are the most popular with effective altruists, but I’d also really be interested to hear any suggestions for possible applications for it that I could build?

  Maybe something like a web application that exports all your donations to a CSV file?

  Or maybe a Facebook plugin (is that what they’re called?) that displays your donation total on your profile page?

  I’m all ears.

  It’s currently set up to record a donor ID, a charity ID, the amount donated, a reference number, the date, and the time the database record was created.

• AndyMorgan 11 May 2016 20:42 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: SamDeere’s comment on: Ac­com­plish­ments Open Thread—May 2016

  Oops, totally retracted my whole comment haha.

  Will do, Sam! :)

• AndyMorgan 26 Sep 2016 21:43 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: The world is ready for a char­ity app! (New idea in­side, please cri­tique and com­ment)

  Hey Mikkel,

  Thanks for the post. This looks really interesting. I’m going to be making something similar in the next few weeks (an Angular2 web app with a simple RESTful API that tracks personal donation history), just as a personal project, so there could a bit of overlap and I’d love to contribute to the project if there’s support for it. If you’d like, just flick me a message and we can talk some more.

  Andy.

• AndyMorgan 27 Sep 2016 3:17 UTC

  0 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: kbog’s comment on: The world is ready for a char­ity app! (New idea in­side, please cri­tique and com­ment)

  Thanks for the heads-up kbog, just changed my original comment.

• AndyMorgan 10 Apr 2017 12:04 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: CalebW’s comment on: Can we set up a sys­tem for in­ter­na­tional dona­tion trad­ing?

  Yeah, I agree with this.

  Also, as a side note, I’d like to donate to MIRI in future but I’m currently based in Australia.

• AndyMorgan 21 Apr 2017 2:14 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: MichaelPlant’s comment on: Two Easy Ways to Help Each Other

  If the EA forum weren’t (as far as I can tell) just filled with EAs, I’d agree.

  I don’t think we should necessarily be worried that, say, some journalist is reading this forum (which is what I take your comment to mean), so much that we should be worried that posts like this could potentially turn off people that are currently EAs or are considering becoming more involved in EA. Speaking personally, the suggestions floated in this post seemed a little dishonest to me.

• AndyMorgan 18 Jan 2019 10:07 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: List of pos­si­ble EA meta-char­i­ties and projects

  If ‘Coordination for EA researchers’ is considered by enough people to be a worthwhile project to undertake, I’d be interested in working on that (in a project design capacity).

  And on a related note, I think combining this project with others like the ‘EA expertise board’ or ‘Build a platform to match projects with people who can do them’ would enable the platform to reach a critical mass of active users, making it really worthwhile for the community.

• AndyMorgan 20 Jul 2021 2:03 UTC

  29 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Aaron Gertler’s comment on: You should write about your job

  I work as a senior policy analyst in the New Zealand government, specifically in the area of genetic modification policy. I can talk about how I got the job, and why I think I excel at it, despite not having a background in science, as well as what the work is like day-to-day.

• AndyMorgan 22 Jul 2021 21:07 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Aaron Gertler’s comment on: You should write about your job

  Sweet, will do!

[Question] Is there a need for a cu­rated list of re­sources on ba­sic biol­ogy/​im­munol­ogy/​epi­demiol­ogy for those want­ing to work GCBRs?

• AndyMorgan 7 Nov 2021 8:28 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Pro­ject Ideas in Biose­cu­rity for EAs

  Comprehensive archive of career routes of people currently at the top of the biosecurity industry (mainly for useful stats gathering eg how many degrees on average does each person have, what age did they get to the position they currently hold).

  Is anybody doing this project?

• AndyMorgan 3 Mar 2022 21:53 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: An­nounc­ing the Fu­ture Fund

  This is really great to see and just wanted to quickly say that the website looks fantastic. Great design.

Writ­ing about my job: Policy Analyst

• AndyMorgan 28 Apr 2022 22:36 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Pro­ject: bio­eng­ineer­ing an all-fe­male breed of chicken to end chick culling

  My worry is that you’re probably trying to identify then add/​turn-on too much (i.e. all of the genes that code for egg laying).

  I’m sure its probably not straightforward to change shell colour, which would be the best method of identification of chick sex (maybe shell development is determined by the hen rather than the embryo?), but there’s probably still a couple of additions you could make to the Z and W chromosomes to ultimately achieve the same outcome. And a couple of additions would likely be at least an order of magnitude easier than identifying then adding/​turning-on a bunch of genes.

  At least one idea that comes to mind is using insights from gene drive theory to disrupt male embryo development enough to be identifiable using a light shined through an egg. For instance, you could insert a gene into both Z chromosomes coding for a CRISPR complex that disrupts some key embryo development process. Additionally, you insert a gene into the W chromosome that codes for a CRISPR complex that modifies/​disrupts the CRISPR complex on the Z chromosomes.

  Maybe there’s a really obvious reason why that wouldn’t work or wouldn’t be that simple, but I suppose my point is that maybe you should aim to find and pursue a more simple solution unless you’re sure that no obvious and simple strategies would work.

  Either way, I really hope you and your efforts succeed.

• AndyMorgan 26 Nov 2022 19:51 UTC

  8 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: Semi-con­duc­tor /​ AI stocks dis­cus­sion.

  Thanks for the post, sapphire. I’d also really like if EA had more of a ‘taking care of each other’ vibe (I was envious when hearing about early discussion on the LessWrong forum about Bitcoin and wish there was something similar in EA). I’ll definitely be following you on Twitter.

  On semiconductor stocks I’ve also gone for Applied Materials (AMAT), as well as TSM, AMSL, Google and SOXX.

• AndyMorgan 5 Dec 2022 23:01 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: sapphire’s comment on: Semi-con­duc­tor /​ AI stocks dis­cus­sion.

  I wish I had of written down my reasoning because I can’t remember haha. I’ll have a search around to see why I thought they were good to invest in and get back to you.

  In terms of TSM, AMSL and AMAT, I’m investing in them at a 2:2:1 ratio.

• AndyMorgan 18 Jan 2023 21:41 UTC

  22 points

  9 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Richard Y Chappell’s comment on: The EA com­mu­nity does not own its donors’ money

  Yeah, I strongly agree with this and wouldn’t continue to donate to the EA fund I currently donate to if it became “more democratic” rather than being directed by its vetted expert grantmakers. I’d be more than happy if a community-controlled fund was created, though.

  To lend further support to the point that this post and your comment makes, making grantmaking “more democratic” through involving a group of concerned EAs seems analogous to making community housing decisions “more democratic” through community hall meetings. Those who attend community hall meetings aren’t a representative sample of the community but merely those who have time (and also tend to be those who have more to lose from community housing projects).

  So its likely that not only would concerned EAs not be experts in a particular domain but would also be unrepresentative of the community as a whole.

• AndyMorgan 23 Feb 2023 22:08 UTC

  33 points

  9 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Wil Perkins’s comment on: EA is too New & Im­por­tant to Schism

  The way I see it the ‘woke takeover’ is really just movements growing up and learning to regulate some of their sharper edges in exchange for more social acceptance and political power.

  I don’t agree with this part of the comment, but am aware that you may not have the particular context that may be informing Geoffrey’s view (I say may because I don’t want to claim to speak for Geoffrey).

  These two podcasts, one by Ezra Klein with Michelle Goldberg and one by the NY Times, point to the impact of what is roughly referred to in these podcasts as “identity politics” or “purity politics” (which other people may refer to as “woke politics”). The impact, according to those interviewed, on these movements and nonprofits, has been to significantly diminish their impact on the outside world.

  I also think that it would be naïve to claim that these movements were “growing up” considering how long feminism and the civil rights movement have been around. The views expressed in these podcasts also strongly disagree with your claim that they are gaining more political power.

  I think these experiences, from those within nonprofits and movements on the left no less, lend support to what Geoffrey is arguing. Especially considering that the EA movement is ultimately about having the most (positive) impact on the outside world.