catherio

Karma: 301

catherio 23 Feb 2023 21:48 UTC
40 points
18 ∶ 2
in reply to: 𝕮𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖗𝖆’s comment on: Taking a leave of absence from Open Philanthropy to work on AI safety
RE direct work, I would generally think of the described role as still a form of “leadership” — coordinating actors in the present — unlike “writing research papers” or “writing code”. I expect Holden to have a strong comparative advantage at leadership-type work.

catherio 13 Dec 2022 21:20 UTC
7 points
0 ∶ 0
on: catherio’s Shortform
Offering a (mutually counterfactual) donation match to GiveDirectly 💖

I’m offering a mutually counterfactual donation match to GiveDirectly, for anyone who wants to extend beyond their usual donation budget to take advantage of this!

https://twitter.com/catherineols/status/1602770363204583424

(That is: If you donate $ that you would not otherwise have donated anywhere, reply with screenshot and I’ll 1:1 match with money I likewise would’ve kept for personal spending (above my usual 10%/yr); will close on Friday evening at 6pm PT or after I pay out $10k, whichever is first.)

I’m doing this in honor of the work Nathan Young and Émile Torres are doing to mutually improve discourse around criticism of longtermism and EA. These two ideological adversaries have set up this joint fundraiser. Emile is a critic of longtermism and of EA leadership; I find their writing/epistemics at times inflammatory and misleading, but there’s central aspects of their critiques I find good/worthy.

I have a sense that Emile’s dialog with Nathan has been visibly raising the bar on twitter discourse; making criticisms more specific, and the general tone of the discussion more targeted and constructive, with fewer exaggerated blanket statements. I love this deeply.

GiveDirectly is also a very worthy cause, particularly by being so incredibly straightforward, reasonable, and palatable to people from very different ideological backgrounds.

Feel free to post receipt screenshots in comments here instead of on twitter!
https://twitter.com/catherineols/status/1602770363204583424

catherio 22 Nov 2022 8:01 UTC
5 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Eli_Nathan’s comment on: The Next EA Global Should Have Safe Air
(2) Much more cantankerously: “If your dear friends are suffering deeply, and you have created a system that can help, do not spend any spare time (outside your EA day job) on teaching them the system. You need to spend that spare time on altruistic things, not your friends’ suffering. Certainly do not allow any motivated non-EA friends to spend THEIR time helping you build a scalable version for your entire community” is not a moral system or set of community norms I can get behind.

catherio 22 Nov 2022 7:58 UTC
8 points
4 ∶ 0
in reply to: Eli_Nathan’s comment on: The Next EA Global Should Have Safe Air
(1) I do want to note that I don’t think one should evaluate microcovid as though it was an altruistic action selected by a prioritization process! It was more like a selfish and friend-oriented project, which we made scalable enough to unlock big positive externalities in our broader community and beyond. The first version of the system was purely to save my own group house! (That said, I do think it’s well-described as a project in the spirit of rationality, and a good example of rationality in action.)

catherio 27 Dec 2021 20:29 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Making large donation decisions as a person focused on direct work
I’d guess you would be better than many at vetting
I agree with this!

catherio 27 Dec 2021 20:29 UTC
27 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: catherio’s comment on: Making large donation decisions as a person focused on direct work
Separately but somewhat relatedly: Having worked at Open Phil, it’s definitely the case that smaller opportunities just don’t clear the bar of being worth spending time vetting. I think a powerful way that “individual” donors can contribute is in helping get small things “off the ground”, so that they can grow to a size where they’re later in the right range for large institutional donors. In that sense it’s bit like angel investing.

catherio 27 Dec 2021 20:27 UTC
23 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Making large donation decisions as a person focused on direct work
One idea that isn’t on your list is to start a “donor circle”. I found this really powerful in the past, and I’d greatly like to do again in the future!

My previous “donor circle” experience was for making a ~$10k grant near the start of COVID: I got a few dozen other friends on board who also wanted to give $1k-$100k each, and we all started a messenger chat and a spreadsheet to look through various opportunities.

Everyone contributed as much research manpower as they wanted; one person stepped up with “co-lead” level of involvement, but many others contributed as well. Together we identified a whole bunch of opportunities, came up with criteria, and made “recommendations” that the less-research-involved members of the circle then followed as they saw fit. Overall we ended up collectively giving about $400k, which was a size at which it felt really worthwhile for ~2-4 people to do a “side project” for.

(see writeup here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/opdMXibKjkoL69s96/prioritizing-covid-19-interventions-and-individual-donations).

Some things that were really cool were:

(1) once you’re (collectively) a >$100k donor, you can get on the phone with people who might not otherwise give you time, and donate to groups that aren’t taking “normal-person-sized” donation. E.g. a representative from CEPI was willing to spend time with us, and CEPI is mostly courting >$1m donations.

(2) our writeup and criteria ended up influencing a medium-sized foundation; their decisions >$10m in grants used our list of criteria as a rubric.

(3) the presence of others who were excited to use my recommendations made it feel more directly socially rewarding and valuable to spend time on the project.

I think this works best when everyone in the donor circle agrees up-front on approximate “type” of opportunity the group is looking for, or criteria, or something like that.

I’m not sure when exactly a donor circle is the right strategy, but in general I do think that banding together with others, and building strong “working relationships” with other practitioners, is really important for any meaningful endeavor.

catherio 16 Mar 2021 0:54 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: billzito’s comment on: When to get a vaccine in the Bay Area as a young healthy person
Right. AFAICT the openings available are in Sacramento, Auburn, or other places >1 hr drive.

catherio 14 Mar 2021 22:34 UTC
21 points
0 ∶ 0
on: When to get a vaccine in the Bay Area as a young healthy person
I also want to offer an “offsets” perspective, for anyone who can access a vaccine but feels uneasy about doing so.

Namely: in classic EA fashion, I hypothesize “choose to let yourself slip further back in line” is not the most effective way to put your resources towards getting the vaccine to someone else sooner.

Let’s say the cost to you of delaying your own vaccination (in mental health, lost productivity, money spent not taking public transit, whatever it may be for you) is something you value at one day of lost time.

I would much rather see you choose to get vaccinated as soon as you are able, and spend an entire day volunteering to help get underserved populations signed up for vaccine appointments counterfactually sooner.

(Perhaps phonebank with http://vaccinateca.com/? Perhaps reach out to essential workers you know personally, and offer to drive them?)

I don’t have a rigorous argument here, I’m just broadly happier to see effort/resources going towards active thinking about how to accelerate distribution into the arms that need it the most, rather than that same amount of effort/resources burned on someone who could’ve been vaccinated and gain some freedom instead continue staying home being cranky and cooped-up and unproductive.

catherio 14 Mar 2021 22:25 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: When to get a vaccine in the Bay Area as a young healthy person
Note that just because you are “a person in the Bay Area” doesn’t mean your vaccination options are limited to “get a vaccine in the Bay Area”.

You can drive to Sacramento or Auburn (where appointments are not being saturated), or fly to Phoenix and volunteer there, or other options.

Location is of course just one part of a vaccination plan (alongside “are you claiming eligibility in some group?” or “are you trying to last-dose standby?” or “are you volunteering at a vaccination site?” or other paths) but it seems highly relevant to point this out in a world where available appointments are perhaps being saturated within the Bay Area, and not elsewhere, within accessible distance.

catherio 25 Feb 2021 22:09 UTC
20 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Milan_Griffes’s comment on: Some preliminaries and a claim
Attempting here to respond to & engage with the request, not “this post” in any sense beyond the request itself.

I’m feel sad that you don’t want me to upvote this post. I would like to increase the number of people who have read & reflected carefully on the things you point to (even though I have not yet read all eight links), and upvoting this post seems like the easiest way for me to do that. Is there some other way I can do that?

catherio 31 Aug 2020 23:11 UTC
6 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: microCOVID.org: A tool to estimate COVID risk from common activities
Just want to chime in and say
1) yes, we think that thinking about chains of onwards infections is important, and
2) we haven’t done this in great detail, and
3) we would ***LOVE*** if someone wrote up an analysis of this. Issue for it: https://github.com/microcovid/microcovid/issues/17

catherio 29 Aug 2020 22:29 UTC
12 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: catherio’s comment on: Customized COVID-19 risk analysis as a high value area
Update: our tool is now public https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/MACKemu3CJw7hcJcN/a-tool-to-quantitatively-estimate-the-covid-risk-to-you-from

catherio 24 Jul 2020 18:10 UTC
7 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Davidmanheim’s comment on: Customized COVID-19 risk analysis as a high value area
Yes David, we would love to build off that risk model and include it in our group house microcovid estimates project. Knowing how to value a “microcovid” is an important step in choosing how many microcovids per year you should select as your tolerance.

catherio 24 Jul 2020 2:41 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Customized COVID-19 risk analysis as a high value area
(combined with other comment)

catherio 24 Jul 2020 2:39 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Customized COVID-19 risk analysis as a high value area
(combined with other comment)

catherio 24 Jul 2020 2:31 UTC
23 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Customized COVID-19 risk analysis as a high value area
Strong agree!
Our house has a custom model & “points system” for group houses that we are working as fast as we can to release legibly (constrained by most of us having full-time jobs etc.).
(Basically: quantifying different activities in terms of microcovids i.e. literal 1-in-a-million chance of getting COVID)
We are already spending our spare time on informal custom consults. We really don’t want to be doing this as an ongoing “job” in the long run, but we really DO want the information to be out there to help people.
We would LOVE LOVE LOVE to train people in what we know, so they can run consults!
Please reach out to me (ideally on messenger, or my username @mit.edu) if you would like to help us turn our V1 version into something scalably usable by EAs & group houses!

In the meantime, we have a stack of sources here that feed into our microcovid estimates, which you can consult: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pkYTQA5hR-52pUbfGqjTFR1yieocOmEj1O0RnV2x6jI/edit#slide=id.g8b0e9b222b_0_179

Creating template “scenario plans” that could be used if someone gets sick, ot if infection rates rise above a certain amount in an area, etc.
Here is Ibasho’s isolation protocol, with clear criteria about what counts as “sick” etc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OpWFFoUB4gULcpOZMZL4A1xdDfu-qvgSQDCFi8dXa6E/edit#

Writing weekly summaries of the outlook, progress on vaccines and treatments, etc. so that people are less likely to compulsively news search
We are already doing this and sharing on a messenger thread. Anywhere already existing that we could post them to be useful?

catherio 6 Jun 2020 9:01 UTC
0 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: alex lawsen (previously alexrjl)’s comment on: What are some good charities to donate to regarding systemic racial injustice?
Campaign Zero is getting a *lot* of criticism, e.g. https://twitter.com/PowerDignity/status/1268735286646726656
They do “sound good” because they’re paying attention to “data”, but personally I wouldn’t feel comfortable supporting them unless you had a very good reason to think that the criticism is not legitimate.

catherio 14 May 2020 9:56 UTC
6 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: Open Philanthropy: Our Progress in 2019 and Plans for 2020
Hi Ryan—in terms of the Fellowship, I have a lot of thoughts about what we’re trying to do, which feel better suited to “musing, with uncertainty” than “writing an internet comment”, so let me know if you want to call/chat about it some time? But the short answer is I think the key pieces to keep in mind are to view the fellowship as 1) a community, not just individual scholarships handed out, and as such also 2) a multi-year project, built slowly.
What links here?

catherio 7 May 2020 21:49 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: HStencil’s comment on: Prioritizing COVID-19 interventions & individual donations
We didn’t look into these specifically. We’d welcome additional research to investigate what their programs are and whether there’s room for more funding!