CB🔸

Karma: 1,051

I’m living in France. Learned about EA in 2018, found that great, digged a lot into the topic. The idea of “what in the world improves well-being or causes suffering the most, and what can we do” really influenced me a whole lot—especially when mixed with meditation that allowed me to be more active in my life.

One of the most reliable thing I have found so far is helping animal charities : farmed animals are much more numerous than humans (and have much worse living conditions), and there absolutely is evidence that animal charities are getting some improvements (especially from The Humane League). I tried to donate a lot there.

Long-termism could also be important, but I think that we’ll hit energy limits before getting to an extinction event—I wrote an EA forum post for that here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wXzc75txE5hbHqYug/the-great-energy-descent-short-version-an-important-thing-ea

CB🔸Nov 20, 2024, 9:44 PM
5 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Fund Causes Open Phil Underfunds (Instead of Your Most Preferred Causes)

For the typical EA, this would likely imply donating more to animal welfare, which is currently heavily underfunded under the typical EA’s value system.
Opportunities Open Phil is exiting from, including invertebrates, digital minds, and wild animals, may be especially impactful.
I strongly agree: the comparative underfunding of these areas always felt off to me, given their very large numbers of individuals and low-hanging fruits.
However, it feels like more and more people are recognizing the need for more funding for animal welfare, given the results of the recent debate.

CB🔸Nov 18, 2024, 9:45 PM
11 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Refusing to Quantify is Refusing to Think (about trade-offs)
Another comment : regarding the value of longtermist intervention, while I understand numbers can be very high, my main uncertainty is that I’m not even sure a lot of common interventions have a positive impact.

For instance, is working against X-risks good when avoiding an S-risks would allow factory farming to continue? The answer will depend on many questions (will factory farming continue in the future, what is the impact of humanity on wild animals, what will happen regarding artificial sentience, etc.), none of which have a clear answer.

Reducing S-risks seems good, though.

CB🔸Nov 18, 2024, 9:41 PM
8 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Refusing to Quantify is Refusing to Think (about trade-offs)
Very interesting and well formulated! It highlights several hidden assumptions that can significantly reduce your ability to have an impact.

Indeed, from what I’ve seen, the (natural) tendency of giving very low moral value to other animals (eg less than 1000 that of a human) often stems from gut feeling, with added justifications afterwards.

CB🔸Nov 18, 2024, 7:43 PM
6 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Share what GWWC and the 10% Pledge has meant to you
I was mentioned in a newspaper article this summer regarding this exact topic (with a typo in my name, oops!). Here is the translation:

CB is convinced of the potential of this. Just a few years ago, his job as an IT engineer earned him an annual salary of 32,000 euros. After two years, he realizes that he can give a lot of this money away, without sacrificing his happiness or quality of life. “Of course, you have to be able to secure a minimum threshold of material conditions,” anticipates the 29-year-old, who made the pledge in 2019. But generally, people increase their standard of living after their studies, or after a raise: bigger houses or cars, more spending on certain items… But we get used to these expenses very quickly, and research shows that they don’t bring significant additional happiness.”

The psychology of happiness is quite clear on this point: the accumulation of material possessions does not make us much happier. Once the peak of satisfaction has passed, our level of happiness returns to its initial, pre-purchase level—a phenomenon known as hedonic adaptation (or “hedonic treadmill”, to mean that our level of happiness tends to return to the same reference point). CB quickly gave up this headlong rush. The Lyonnais doesn’t own a car, and is satisfied with the basic, such as the Interrail Pass and youth hostels for his vacations. From the very first year of his involvement, he set himself the goal of donating anything above the minimum wage. Today, he donates 30 to 40% of his income to organizations carefully selected for their effectiveness—although he admits he would probably go back to a lower percentage if he had children.

For these donors, the satisfaction that comes with acting altruistically far outweighs any sense of sacrifice. CB has long defined himself as a passive person, skeptical about making a difference in the world. “I don’t have the network or the resources to influence laws and change public policy, even though it’s essential to act in favor of the climate, for example.” His discovery of effective altruism changed all that. “I discovered the existence of organizations specializing in the rigorous evaluation of associations, which define which interventions work well and which don’t. And that made a huge difference to me. That reassured me enormously. If there are experts, I can support them with a donation. It’s within my reach, and it can have a gigantic impact. It’s kind of a division of labor.”

Full article: https://www.ladn.eu/nouveaux-usages/donner-10-de-ses-revenus-pour-ameliorer-le-monde-cest-de-la-division-du-travail/

CB🔸Nov 17, 2024, 12:00 PM
10 points
1 ∶ 0
on: The Case For Giving To The Shrimp Welfare Project
Very convincing post ! The case for helping shrimp is strong.

Indeed, if people focused on having an impact won’t support this project, who else will ?

I also donated to them this year.

CB🔸Nov 13, 2024, 1:00 PM
3 points
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on: Basics of Handling Disagreements with People
Thank you for this article! I found it helpful and very clear.

CB🔸Nov 8, 2024, 4:10 PM
3 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Why you should allocate more of your donation budget to effective giving organisations
This is a convincing post.
I didn’t think often about doing that, but the multiplier effect seems considerable—dedicating fundraising to professional seems like a good bet.

CB🔸Nov 8, 2024, 2:27 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Signaling with Small Orange Diamonds
Personally, I’ve added the diamond in my LinkedIn, Forum and local EA slack profile.

People on LinkedIn can check my description if they are curious about it.

Haven’t noticed any downside yet (although it would be hard to know).

It’s just that I feel like the culture of not showing our donations is not a good thing. It leads us to think nobody else donates, so we donate much less than we would have done otherwise. So it’s worth signaling that yes, people are donating.

CB🔸Nov 7, 2024, 10:55 PM
1 point
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in reply to: Rick Holland’s comment on: AMA: Rick Holland, Fundraising expert and Director of Confident Philanthropy
Ok, it feels like the DAF and the donor didn’t have to deal with that in the past (and have limited time availability for technical elements).

I’m also asking French charities and getting some feedback since a few apparently dealt with that.

CB🔸Nov 7, 2024, 12:04 AM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: AMA: Rick Holland, Fundraising expert and Director of Confident Philanthropy
Hello !
I have a bit of a specific question: Do you know any organisation that could act as a bridge between a US donor and a French non-profit? I’m part of a French organization in such a situation. No problem if you don’t have an answer.
The US donor is donating through a DAF and wants to give to a tax-deductible US 501(c)(3) nonprofit—that would send the money to the French org.
The answers I got so far from asking around:
- One option is asking the US nonprofits I know of to receive and transfer the money.
  - However, this requires on their side to make an Equivalency Determination that certifies the US and French organisations are close enough for the money transfer, which seems a costly and heavy process (this ED is $1500, not sure about this one).
  - An org with Expenditure responsibility could apparently do this as well, but I don’t know any.
    I know a French charity which received money from large funders (ex. EA Funds), and they just had to sign a grant agreement without complicated paperwork—so maybe this is it.
- Another option is getting a fiscal sponsorship. I’ve heard that Ambitious Impact redirects towards PPF (which takes a 6% cut on the donation), there’s also NPT (3-7% cut in our case).
Which of these options seems like the best? I’d be curious to hear about your opinion.

CB🔸Oct 29, 2024, 10:53 AM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: Farmed animals may have positive lives now or in a few decades?
Thanks for the answer ! I wish more people thought about these questions.

CB🔸Oct 28, 2024, 9:02 PM
3 points
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in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: Farmed animals may have positive lives now or in a few decades?
Thanks for the answer !

This is really interesting. Do you think that the fact cows are separated from their child, and arguably really don’t like that, would change significantly the results?

CB🔸Oct 26, 2024, 9:55 AM
5 points
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on: Farmed animals may have positive lives now or in a few decades?
Very interesting, thanks a lot !

Do you have any data on pigs or cows ? I know they represent a smaller number of animals, and there is less data from the welfare footprint project, but I’d be curious to know your opinion.

The calculations would also be complicated by the necessary inclusion of veal for cows, and gestation crates for pigs, since these are a necessary part of current systems and certainly bad most of the time.

But since grass-fed cows are likely to be better treated than other animals, it would be good to know if their lives are positive and can maybe provide a template for other forms of animal agriculture (although economic incentives don’t push in this direction).

CB🔸Oct 23, 2024, 5:25 PM
1 point
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in reply to: Richard_Leyba_Tejada’s comment on: Successif: helping mid-career and senior professionals have impactful careers
Hi ! In the end I didn’t read about transactional analysis.

But I did try to ‘give permission’ to some people who were thinking of launching a project.

CB🔸Oct 23, 2024, 10:08 AM
2 points
3 ∶ 0
on: Three journeys for effective altruism
Not much to add, this is inspiring !

CB🔸Oct 19, 2024, 4:13 PM
1 point
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on: Are Organically Farmed Animals Already Living a Net-Positive Life?
This is an interesting question, and I’d really like to know the answer.

From what I got, chicken have a lot of trouble making hiérarchies when there are a lot of them (e.g. thousands) and it’s something important for them so this might be a negative element. But frankly not sure.

CB🔸Oct 19, 2024, 1:35 AM
1 point
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in reply to: Isaac King’s comment on: Value lock-in is happening *now*
Yes, but transport on Earth is mostly cheap, which cancels out a lot of the natural inequalities in geography. Meanwhile, transport to Mars would be super costly.

I think a significant difference with current countries is that having an additional person on Mars would be incredibly expensive compared to living on Earth—in terms of rocket, fuel, shipping stuff from Earth, getting additional supplies, getting super high-tech materials and minerals for maintenance…

CB🔸Oct 18, 2024, 3:31 PM
1 point
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in reply to: jacquesthibs’s comment on: How much I’m paying for AI productivity software (and the future of AI use)
I tried to acquire superwhisper—but it’s only available on mac and iphone, so in the end I couldn’t use it (I’ll look into other speech to text translators)

CB🔸Oct 18, 2024, 2:34 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: MinusGix’s comment on: Discussion thread: Animal Welfare vs. Global Health Debate Week
Interesting. It feel like this still requires a lot of effort to make it usable in the context of alternative proteins (plus marketing, developing incentives, fighting the opposition, etc.), but if it works, that could indeed be a good news.

CB🔸Oct 18, 2024, 2:31 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Isaac King’s comment on: Value lock-in is happening *now*
When I talked about the economic incentive, I was mostly asking about what is the economic incentive long-term? What can be done in space cheaper than on Earth ?

Mining seems much more complicated than on Earth, due to lack of water, and the fact that minerals are not being very concentrated, which makes it much more expensive to extract than on Earth.

Interplanetary presence might be more plausible if there’s another space race.