Hiya! I work on data stuff at CEA. I used to be the content lead on the EA Global team at CEA, and before that I did economic consulting. I was born and raised in Hong Kong đđ°.
Think Iâm making a mistake? Want to give me feedback? Hereâs my admonymous. You can also give feedback for me directly to my manager, Oscar Howie.
Given that this comment has gained some traction, consider making a top level post with more instructions to get people to do this?
Iâd also be interested in a bit more exposition on the theory of change re: writing the AG â I get why writing to your representative is probably useful, but do AGs typically take letters from the public into account when deciding whether to make an objection?! (Iâd bid for you to make the top level post even if you donât address this question though, just for visibility reasons.)
Nice, sounds like a fun event! Thanks for pointing to the initial list of concrete projects, I found them interesting, especially:
Pedantry metrics â I found that an interesting way to think about degrees of falsehoods /â how misleading statements can be. Maybe thereâs some sort of evals flavored project there?
Argument parser â I like the idea of creating some sort of LLM tool to âneutralize persuasion /â rhetoricâ.
Iâd be kind of interested to see someone try those ideas out if you re-run this hackathon. And wow, I found the demo on detecting fraudulent research super cool. Agreed that itâd be exciting to see this go viral.
Nice! By the way, I really appreciate how consistently your team helps ground discussions like this in data. I opened this post and as I was scrolling through, I thought, âoh I bet David has already responded with something helpful.â Itâs a great public service!
I found this such a beautiful piece of writing! :â)
@Anna Weldon Iâve said this before, but I am just SO excited for the managerial expertise and excellence you are bringing to CEA. We (CEA and EA) are so lucky <3
Thanks for such a thorough compendium of advice, this seems like a great resource!! đ
This is so great, congratulations team!! <3
One thing this makes me curious about: how good is the existing evidence base on electric stunning is better for the welfare of the shrimp, and how much better is stunning? I didnât realize SWP was thinking of using the corporate campaign playbook to scale up stunning, so it makes me curious how robustly good this intervention is, and I couldnât quickly figure this out from the Forum /â website. @Aaron Boddyđž is there a public thing I can read by any chance? No pressure!
FWIW, âhow good is stunning for welfareâ is the main question I have about the impact of HSI right now (whereas other crucial considerations like âhow many shrimp do you targetâ, âwill farmers use the stunnersâ, âhow should we value shrimp /â their expected sentienceâ all feel clearer to me).
I often find myself thinking about this post, and I now often use the phrases âmorality as taxesâ and âwholeheartednessâ. Thank you for writing it :)
Nice. Iâd find this super interesting!
(A nitpick responding to just one point and not the whole post)
I feel a bit wary of using SWP as your default example here because this comment from @Aaron Boddyđž makes me think that SWP doesnât have a ton of room for rapidly deploying more funding right nowâIâd expect further donations to have lower marginal ROI than directly buying more stunners which I /âexpect/â is what youâre assuming in the counterfactual (which is not a dig at SWP, seems fine for them to use extra donations for lower marginal ROI things if their top priority tickets are comfortably funded!)
A broader point: Iâd expect the marginal ROI of additional funding in the invertebrate welfare space to diminish much faster than the marginal ROI of AMF donations.
I am glad youâve come to a decision here, even though it sounds like a painful one! I really appreciated being able to read this, thank you for sharing!
I think animal welfare work is more likely to be recommended by my all-things-considered normative views than what Iâve been doing, though Iâm not confident that cluelessness doesnât undermine this, too.
@JesseClifton Iâd be really curious to hear your thoughts on why animal welfare work seems better under your normative beliefs, if youâre open to sharing. (Not sharing my views because I donât want to anchor you.) Someone Iâm close to is trying to figure out what they believe about cluelessness, and I thought they might benefit from hearing someone else think through this!
This is such good news!! Iâm so relieved, even if there will still be a fight in the near future.
I found this ep interesting and inspiring @Cameron Meyer Shorb đž, thanks for doing it :) Like Luisa, I hadnât heard the idea re: selective reforestation before, and found it super interesting.
This is so heart-warming! Thanks for sharing Jamie!
I think more people should consider leaving more (endorsed) short, nice comments on the Forum + LW when they like a post, especially for newer authors or when someone is posting something âbraveâ /â a bit risky. Itâs just so cheap to build this habit and I continue to think that sincere gratitude is underrated in ~all online spaces. I like that @Ben_Westđž does this frequently :)
Random, I realized I misread your comment the first time around â yeah I do think the above consideration (maybe alumni have unusual local knowledge on small CB projects that influence them) is interesting pushback. Thanks!
Thinking about it again, Iâm weakly positive about people in general taking advantage of âlocal knowledgeâ when donating, and people knowing which CB efforts helped them is a good example of âlocal knowledgeâ effects.
(I do still think the second consideration holds â bigger funders have a much better birds eye perspective on the meta ecosystem as a whole than the average EA, even if they have worse local knowledge.)
I love this post, thanks for writing it! :) This line particularly stood out to me: âA job is just a platform for impact.â So good!
Iâm so sorry to hear about your difficult life circumstances last year! I know we donât know each other personally, but Iâve often enjoyed your comments over the years.
If we are giving what we can (not in the capitalized sense), sometimes we arenât in a position to give as much and have to radically accept that.
I liked this framing! I feel tempted to add something like, âthis is a marathon not a raceâ /â âitâs ok to take a breakâ.
Thanks Aaron! I think Iâm now a bit confused what a prospective funder would be funding.
Is it something like, the volunteer group would run a hiring round (managed by anyone in particular?) for a part-time leader (maybe someone in the group?), but no one specifically has raised their hand for this? And then perhaps that person could deploy some of the $15k to hire a research associate if theyâd like?
I respect that this is an early stage idea yâall are just trying to get started /â donât have all the details figured out yet, just trying to understand (mostly for the sake of any prospective funders) who they would be betting on etc. :)
Also: Iâm so excited someone is trying to take a crack at this issue. Suffering caused by screwworms does seem immense. I feel a bit unsure on the specifics of how this project will evolve, but Iâm rooting for you! <3
The âshow upâ spirit feels emblematic of a quality I love about EAs. It reminds me of this quote I like: âOften, the important things are accomplished not by those best suited to do them, or by those who ought to be responsible for doing them, but by whoever actually shows up.â
I feel extremely unsure about this one. Iâm voting slightly against purely from the perspective of, âwow, there are projects in that direction that feel super neglectedâ.