Super important to test our assumptions, including on branding, especially since what sounds good to those already in the EA community might be totally different to what convinces āoutsidersā. Great work and thanks for writing up a post to get the word out!
Damin Curtisš¹
Karma: 391
This reminds me of a post describing firsthand accounts of what starvation actually feels like, or the process of being swallowed whole that makes up a large portion of wild fish deaths. Such posts are horrific, but very important in understanding why we do what we do. They can be very motivating. Thank you for writing, I am a big fan of your work in general.
This is so exciting to see! Iāve been facilitating for EA Virtual Programs for years, and have anecdotally seen a significant uptick in participants from the African continent in the last year+. Iām very excited to see the growth of EA values & community in new regions. Thank you for writing this retrospective! (also, 11 valuable new connections per participant seems quite good, I think? So well done on that!)
LMK what the outcome is (if it works smoothly on chromebook after you do this stuff)!
As a developer of fellowships and courses in EA, this is something I constantly consider as a failure modeābuilding something thatās interesting, and delights impressive participants, but doesnāt have a strong ToC that actually makes the world lower suffering in expectation. Thanks for making this post, itās a really important consideration that might be given too little credence much of the time!
Great to see! Does this signal an expanded interest in cause areas like wild animal welfare, assuming cost effectiveness/ā tractability/āetc were comparable?
This looks super cool! But is it only for linux for now? I also didnāt realize how much the AIM association would pique my interest, reading that is what made me actually open the website! Either way, looks great, thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much for the acknowledgement, Vasco! As you know, Iām a huge fan of your work, so itās great to know our chats have been productive for you. š¤
I get updates from all these lists emailed to me, and the EA Opportunities Board is one of my favorites because it often has part-time opportunities (eg fellowships, courses, part time work) which I think donāt make it into some of the other listsā headlines (either because the opportunity is small, or too EA-niche). Just my two cents.
It only asked me for my name (not citizenship, residency, or address), so not sure if they cross check with a citizens directory or something, but the UK didnāt require citizenship to answer a public consultation on the kinds of causes their international aid should go towards so it seems like they just allow anyone to give input.
Done, thanks for posting this! Concrete ways to take action in a high-impact, low-input way are really nice to see on the forum!
Just sent a letter. This post was what pushed me to do itāI am a CA voter and have never written a letter urging the governor to take action on legislation before, and I believe I wouldnāt have done so without 1. reading this post and 2. reading Will MacAskillās comment on this post. So thatās counterfactual impact on your part, nice one!
Iād love to see this with select US states (like California) included as their own bars. This is super interesting, thanks for making it!
Nice, just donated my $31.23 worth of Mana to GiveWell! Wouldnāt have known to do that otherwise, and took about 30 seconds. Thanks for the post :)
This is very exciting! Canāt wait to CEās successful formula applied to new high-impact areas & programs.
Big +1 to making weighted factor model spreadsheets for decisions! Theyāre soooo good (for small decisions too). Plus, once youāve made one, you can reuse the template :) All great advice Alexandra, thanks for writing this up!
Great idea! This could be a great way to think of gift ideas and get more people to donate around holidays/āspecial events. I wonder if thereās room to expand/āproliferate projects like this...
Iām so sorry to hear this news. Iām glad that this community can be a place of remembrance and to honor Sebastianās commitment to impact and giving. I especially wish strength and peace for Sebastianās family.
Very interesting write-up, thank you for it.
As pointed out in an earlier comment, raising the compensation for challenge trials and/āor seeking out participants with lower āwilling participation priceā seems promising as a way to get enough participants.
I would be interested to see an analysis on the ādonation equivalentā of participation.
E.G. if it would cost 10k to pay a willing participant, and an EA were willing to do it for free for social good, is this the āequivalentā of a 10k donation to an effective health cause? If not, approximately how much would it be worth? Putting a number on this would be interesting, and could help individuals decide whether to participate (comparing to their opportunity costs, etc).
Heck, maybe if we had a number, individuals who track donations could even log challenge participation as a number amount towards their donation goal (e.g. for those who donate 10% of their incomes), though thatās probably a whole different conversation.
Great stuff, Joey! Thanks for the update. I canāt wait to see what this new path leads to.