ElliotTep

• ElliotTep 11 Dec 2025 4:44 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nathan Young’s comment on: Is EA pre­pared for an in­flux of new, medium-sized donors?

  Oh, this is nice to read as I agree that we might be able to get some reasonable enough answers about Shrimp Welfare Project vs AMF (e.g. RP’s moral weights project).

  Some rough thoughts: It’s when we get to comparing Shrimp Welfare Project to AI safety PACs in the US that I think the task goes from crazy hard but worth it to maybe too gargantuan a task (although some have tried). I also think here the uncertainty is so large that it’s harder to defer to experts in the way that one can defer to GiveWell if they care about helping the world’s poorest people alive today.

  But I do agree that people need a way to decide, and Anthropic staff are incredibly time poor and some of these interventions are very time sensitive if you have short timelines, so that just begs the question: if I’m recommending worldview diversification, which cause areas get attention and how do we split among them?

  I am legitimately very interested in thoughtful quantitative ways of going about this (my job involves a non-zero amount of advising Anthropic folks). Right now, it seems like Rethink Priorities is the only group doing this in public (e.g. here). To be honest, I find their work has gone over my heard, and while I don’t want to speak for them my understanding is they might be doing more in this space soon.

• ElliotTep 10 Dec 2025 2:57 UTC

  25 points

  8 ∶ 3

  on: Is EA pre­pared for an in­flux of new, medium-sized donors?

  I think the moment you try and compare charities across causes, especially for the ones that have harder-to-evaluate assumptions like global catastrophic risk and animal welfare, it very quickly becomes clear how impossibly crazy any solid numbers are, and how much they rest on uncertain philosophical assumptions, and how wide the error margins are. I think at that point you’re either left with worldview diversification or some incredibly complex, as-yet-not-very-well-settled, cause prioritisation.
  
  My understanding is that all of the EA high net worth donor advisors like Longview, GiveWell, Coefficient Giving, (the org I work at) Senterra Funders, and many others are able to pitch their various offers to folks in Anthropic.

  What has been missing is some recommended course prio split and/​or resources, but that some orgs are starting to work on this now.
  
  I think that any way to systematise this, where you complete a quiz and it gives you an answer, is too superficial to be useful. High net worth funders need to decide for themselves whether or not they trust specific grant makers beyond whether or not those grant makers are aligned with their values on paper.

• ElliotTep 5 Dec 2025 2:34 UTC

  9 points

  2 ∶ 1

  on: Stop Ap­ply­ing And Get To Work

  It’s great to hear that being on the front foot and reaching out to people with specific offers has worked for you.

  I actually want to push back on your advice for many readers here. I think for many people who aren’t getting jobs, the reason is not because the jobs are too competitive, but that they’re not meeting the bar for that role. This seems more common for EAs with little professional experience, as many employers want applicants who have already been trained. In AI Safety, it also seems like for some parts of the problem, an exceptional level of talent or skill is needed to meaningfully contribute.

  In addition to applying for more jobs or reaching out to people directly, I’d also recommend:

  1. broadening your search to a wider array of roles.

  2. apply to impactful work that is not on the 80k job board. most impactful jobs arent run at orgs where most people are ea.

  3. get a few years of training under your belt and come back to these jobs, with I think a much higher chance of success. (see my post here)

  I realise short timelines makes this all much harder, but I do think many people early in their career do their best work in the environment of an organisation, team, manager, etc.

• ElliotTep 18 Nov 2025 22:22 UTC

  7 points

  5 ∶ 1

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: Open Philan­thropy Is Now Coeffi­cient Giving

  As someone who just participated in a name change recently I can assure you the pros and cons of this name with other contenders was probably discussed ad nauseam by the team involved, and they decided on this name despite the nerdy and clunky vibe.

• ElliotTep 12 Nov 2025 1:39 UTC

  13 points

  6 ∶ 0

  on: Cause prio cruxes in 2026?

  Approx how much absorbency/​room for more funding is there in each cause area? How many good additional opportunities are there over what is currently being funded? How steep are the diminishing returns for an additional $10m, $50m, $100m, $500m?

• ElliotTep 17 Oct 2025 0:29 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: I’m an EA who benefit­ted from rationality

  Thanks for writing this, as someone who feels more at home in EA spaces I do sometimes feel like EAs are pretty critical of rationalist sub-culture (often reasonably) but take for granted the valuable things rationalism has contributed to EA ideas and norms.

• ElliotTep 6 Oct 2025 5:09 UTC

  10 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Davidmanheim’s comment on: Mov­ing to a hub, get­ting older, and head­ing home

  Hi David, if I’ve understood you correctly, I agree that a reason to return home as for other priorities that have nothing to do with impact. I personally did not return home for the extra happiness or motivation required to stay productive, but because I valued these other things intrinsically, which Julia articulates better here: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​zu28unKfTHoxRWpGn/​​you-have-more-than-one-goal-and-that-s-fine

• ElliotTep 28 Sep 2025 23:48 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Aidan Alexander’s comment on: Mov­ing to a hub, get­ting older, and head­ing home

  Ah man I feel you. To be honest I’ve been avoiding the abyss recently with some recent career vs family dilemmas. Lemme know if you want to have a chat sometime.

• ElliotTep 24 Sep 2025 22:43 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Dušan D. Nešić (Dushan)’s comment on: Mov­ing to a hub, get­ting older, and head­ing home

  For sure. I think Chana does a good job of talking about some of the downsides of living in a hub similar to what you mention: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​ZRZHJ3qSitXQ6NGez/​​about-going-to-a-hub-1

• ElliotTep 23 Sep 2025 23:22 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jonas Hallgren 🔸’s comment on: Mov­ing to a hub, get­ting older, and head­ing home

  Wow that’s gotta be one of the fastest forum post to plan changes on record. I’m glad to hear this resolved what sounds like a big and tough question in your life. As I mentioned in the post, I do think stints in hubs can be a great experience.

• ElliotTep 23 Sep 2025 23:19 UTC

  9 points

  3 ∶ 0

  in reply to: lilly’s comment on: Mov­ing to a hub, get­ting older, and head­ing home

  I do think the messaging is a little gentler than it used to be, such as the 80k content and a few forum posts emphasising that there are a lot of reasons to make life choices besides impact, and that that is ok. This is hard in general with written content aimed at a broad audience because some people probably need to hear the message to sacrifice a little more, and some a little less.

• ElliotTep 23 Sep 2025 23:16 UTC

  9 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Tristan W’s comment on: Mov­ing to a hub, get­ting older, and head­ing home

  This is a good question. I’m honestly not sure what I would have done differently overall. My guess is I would have gone back a little sooner, and invested a little more in maintaining friendships in Melbourne while away.
  
  Thinking about this sooner also might have changed how I approached dating while in London if I would have known in advance I was always heading home.

Mov­ing to a hub, get­ting older, and head­ing home

• ElliotTep 6 Aug 2025 23:01 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NunoSempere’s comment on: NunoSem­pere’s Shortform

  For anyone wondering whether to subscribe, I’ve been subscribed for a month and it’s an excellent newsletter. Once a week email covering things happening in the news with forecasts, reasoning, and aiming to cover what actually matters. It’s great.

• ElliotTep 23 Jul 2025 1:16 UTC

  8 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: A re­flec­tion: I worked too much

  Thanks for sharing Lucas. I appreciate the fact that I’m reading a post about you stepping back before burnout or something similarly difficult to recover from, and moving down to a level that feels sustainable long term.

• ElliotTep 9 Apr 2025 23:21 UTC

  10 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: EA Ad­ja­cency as FTX Trauma

  One thing that strikes me as interesting when I think about my own experience and my impression of the people around me is that it can be hard to tell what my own reasons are when I might distance myself from EA. I might describe myself as EA adjacent and this could be some combination of:

  1. Seeing the ‘typical’ EA as someone who is much more hardcore and believes in all of it.

  2. Some part of my brain is always unconsciously tracking status.

  3. I am worried about the impact it will have on my ability to get jobs in the future.

  4. I might be more persuasive or likeable to the person in front of me if I distance myself from EA.

  And as humans often do, I might just tell myself a story that is more flattering than what is actually happening. I might tell myself that this is a very strategic choice to persuade this person to care about AI Safety, or for my long-term career prospects, or to protect my organisation from future scandals, and EA being a low(ish) status in some circles right now might be doing the heavy lifting.

• ElliotTep 30 Jan 2025 3:59 UTC

  13 points

  5 ∶ 0

  on: In defense of the certifiers

  Just wanted to express that I really appreciate your newsletter as a source of thought leadership. Often I find myself wondering about one aspect of the animal advocacy movement or another, and then a few months later you provide a thoughtful summary of the state of play and next steps.

• ElliotTep 6 Jan 2025 10:11 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Angelina Li’s comment on: There is No EA Sort­ing Hat

  Thanks! I think that was actually Matt Reardon’s line. The man has dropped in golden paragraphs into 2 of my posts now.

• ElliotTep 18 Dec 2024 23:01 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jonas Hallgren 🔸’s comment on: There is No EA Sort­ing Hat

  Glad to hear. The goal was very much to write the kind of post people want to reference when chatting to friends who are making this mistake.

• ElliotTep 18 Dec 2024 23:00 UTC

  9 points

  4 ∶ 0

  in reply to: OllieBase’s comment on: There is No EA Sort­ing Hat

  Yeah absolutely. There’s so much noise and chaos and uncertainty in the world, I sometimes like the (arguably depressing) frame that the EA project is trying to increase your chance of doing good from 51% to 52%, and that this is totally worth fighting for, but also, just being clear on how hard it is to know the long term effects of any action.