I created this account because I wanted to have a much lower bar for participating in the Forum, and if I donât do so pseudonymously, I am afraid of looking dumb.
I also feel like my job places some constraints on the things I can say in public.
EffectiveAdvocateđ¸
Karma: 278
[Question] LookÂing for Quick, ColÂlabÂoÂraÂtive SysÂtems for Truth-SeekÂing in Group Disagreements
The EA Focusmate group has been a massive productivity boost, and to my own surprise, I even made some friends through it!
I just wish the group element on Focusmate were actually a little bit stronger (e.g., more means of interaction, other shared accountability), but this is a limitation of the platform, not the group.
Yes!
TLDR: This forum post is well-written but overlooks two key points: the high-status perception of OP funding within EA, which skews community inclusion and metrics, and the reputational risks for non-EA-branded donors and organisations in aligning with EA, leading to a disconnect in recognising their contributions.
This forum post effectively outlines the options and includes a (partial) call to action to stop complaining, acknowledge issues, and take steps forward. However, it overlooks two important aspects that I believe warrant discussion:
First, the post does not account for how funding from OP is perceived as a marker of being an EA organisation. This perception creates a feedback loop where organisations funded by Open Philanthropy are seen as high-status and placed centrally within the EA community. In contrast, organisations or sub-teams not viewed as fully aligned are often excluded from community metrics. This dynamic significantly influences which organisations are recognised as part of the EA community.
Additionally, in these kinds of statistics, there is little recognition of sub-teams within organisations or EA-adjacent groups that contribute to EA goals without formally associating with the movement. For example, many civil service roles are funded through diverse portfolios and remain underrepresented in these discussions. Similarly, some organisations prefer not to publicly align with EA for strategic reasons, despite their close alignment in practice.
Second, for figures like Dustin and Cari, donating to EA-branded organisations may make sense given their personal brands are closely tied to the community. However, for other donors, explicitly associating with EA poses reputational risks and diminishes the credit they receive for their philanthropic efforts. Schmidt Futures exemplifies thisâit is a family-funded organisation doing work aligned with EA interests but avoids formally associating with the movement, as I think thereâs little incentive to do so from their perspective.
Similarly, I work for an organisation largely funded by a donor not widely considered an âEA billionaire,â yet the organisation is almost entirely staffed by EAs doing aligned work. Despite this, the donor is unlikely to appear in lists of EA funding sources, highlighting a gap in how contributions are recognised.
As a bit of a lurker, let me echo all of this, particularly the appreciation of @Vasco Grilođ¸. I donât always agree with him, but adding some numbers makes every discussion better!
Thank you for fixing this!
I also donât think itâs a good use of time, which is why Iâm asking the question.
However, I believe attending is worth significantly more than three hours. Thatâs why Iâve invested a lot of time in this previously, though Iâd still prefer to allocate that time elsewhere if possible.
E: Itâs very helpful to know that the acceptance rate is much higher than I had thought. It already makes me feel like I can spend less time on this task this year.
Hi, I hope this is a good time to ask a question regarding the application process. Is it correct that it is possible to apply a second time after an initial application has been rejected?
I understand that the bar for acceptance might be higher on a second attempt. However, I feel this would allow me to save considerable time on the application process. Since I was accepted last year and a few times before, I might be able to reuse an old application with minimal editing. This could help meâand potentially many othersâavoid spending three or more hours crafting an entirely new application from scratch.
Looking forward to your response! đ
Does anyone have thoughts on whether itâs still worthwhile to attend EAGxVirtual in this case?
I have been considering applying for EAGxVirtual, and I wanted to quickly share two reasons why I havenât:I would only be able to attend on Sunday afternoon CET, and it seems like it might be a waste to apply if Iâm only available for that time slot, as this is something I would never do for an in-person conference.
I canât find the schedule anywhere. You probably only have access to it if you are on Swapcard, but this makes it difficult to decide ahead of time whether it is worth attending, especially if I can only attend a small portion of the conference.
Hi Lauren!
Thank you for another excellent post! Iâm becoming a big fan of the Substack and have been recommending it.
Quick question you may have come across in the literature, but I didnât see it in your article: Not all peacekeeping missions are UN missions; there are also missions from ECOWAS, the AU, EU, and NATO.
Is the data you presented exclusively true for UN missions, or does it apply to other peacekeeping operations as well?
Iâd be curious to know, since those institutions seem more flexible and less entangled in geopolitical conflicts than the UN. However, I can imagine they may not be seen as neutral as the UN and therefore may be less effective.
Could you say a bit more about your uncertainty regarding this?
After reading this, it sounds to me like shifting some government spending to peacekeeping would be money much better spent than on other themes.Or do you mean it more from an outsider/âactivist perspectiveâthat the work of running an organization focused on convincing policymakers to do this would be very costly and might make it much less effective than other interventions?
Thank you for the response! I should have been a bit clearer: This is what inspired me to write this, but I still need 3-5 sentences to explain to a policymaker what they are looking at when you show them this kind of calibration graph. I am looking for something even shorter than that.
Simple Forecasting Metrics?
Iâve been thinking about the simplicity of explaining certain forecasting concepts versus the complexity of others. Take calibration, for instance: itâs simple to explain. If someone says something is 80% likely, it should happen about 80% of the time. But other metrics, like the Brier score, are harder to convey: What exactly does it measure? How well does it reflect a forecasterâs accuracy? How do you interpret it? All of this requires a lot of explanation for anyone not interested in the science of Forecasting.What if we had an easily interpretable metric that could tell you, at a glance, whether a forecaster is accurate? A metric so simple that it could fit within a tweet or catch the attention of someone skimming a reportâsomeone who might be interested in platforms like Metaculus. Imagine if we could say, âWhen Metaculus predicts something with 80% certainty, it happens between X and Y% of the time,â or âOn average, Metaculus forecasts are off by X%â. This kind of clarity could make comparing forecasting sources and platforms far easier.
Iâm curious whether anyone has explored creating such a concise metricâone that simplifies these ideas for newcomers while still being informative. It could be a valuable way to persuade others to trust and use forecasting platforms or prediction markets as reliable sources. Iâm interested in hearing any thoughts or seeing any work that has been done in this direction.
Hi there!
I really enjoy the curated EA forum podcast and appreciate all the effort that goes into it. However, I wanted to flag a small issue: in my podcast app, emojis cannot be included in filenames. With the increasing use of the âđ¸â in forum usernames, this has been causing some problems.
Would it be possible to remove emojis from the filenames?
Thanks for considering this!
This is a very non-EA opinion, but personally I quite like this on, for lack of a better word, aesthetics grounds: Charities should be accountable to someone, in the same way as companies are to shareholders, and politicians are to electorates. Membership models are a good way of achieving that. I am a little sad that my local EA group is not organized in the same way.
Just to clarify, I assume that our distributions will not be made public /â associated with our names?
What surprises me about this work is that it does not seem to include the more aggressive (for lack of a better word) alternatives I have heard being thrown around, like âSuffering-freeâ, or âCleanâ, or âcruelty-freeâ.
I am aware of Metaforecast, but from what I understood, it is no longer maintained. Last time I checked, it did not work with Metaculus anymore. It is also not very easy to use, to be honest.
They seem really good! I feel like an idiot for asking this, but where on their website can I subscribe to the newsletter?
Voted! I also donated to get the digital download bundleâbecause, secretly, Iâm still a Nerdfighter!
EA đ Nerdfighteria