Greg_Colbourn(Greg Colbourn)

Karma: 1,429

Greg_Colbourn 11 Apr 2020 15:43 UTC
18 points

in reply to: Greg_Colbourn’s comment on: Why I’m Not Vegan
I’m thinking that for me it would be something like ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a year! Maybe ¹⁄₁₀ tops. And for those such as the OP who think that “there’s just no one inside to suffer”—would you risk making such a swap (with a high multiple) if it was somehow magically offered to you?

Greg_Colbourn 11 Apr 2020 15:38 UTC
16 points

in reply to: Henry_Stanley’s comment on: Why I’m Not Vegan
Pretty grim thought experiment—but I wonder: what amount of living as a chicken, or pig, on a factory farm would people trade for a year of extra healthy (human) life?
Assume that you would have the consciousness of the chicken or pig during the experience (memories of your previous life would be limited to the extent to what a chicken or pig could comprehend), and that you would have some kind of memory of the experience after (although these would be zero if chickens and pigs aren’t sentient). Also assume that you wouldn’t lose any time in your real life (say it was run as a very fast simulation, but you subjectively still experienced the time you specified).
Edit: there’s another thought experiment along the same lines in MichaelStJules’ comment here.

Greg_Colbourn 25 Mar 2020 15:35 UTC
3 points

in reply to: Halffull’s comment on: Halffull’s Shortform
Maybe also that the talk of preventing a depression is an information hazard when we are at the stage of the pandemic where all-out lockdown is the biggest priority for most of the richest countries. In a few weeks when the epidemics in the US and Western Europe are under control, and lockdown can be eased with massive testing, tracing and isolating of cases, then it would make more sense to freely talk about boosting the economy again (in the mean time, we should be calling for governments to take up the slack with stimulus packages. Which they seem to be doing already).

Greg_Colbourn 18 Feb 2020 15:32 UTC
12 points

on: Illegible impact is still impact
I don’t know that this is still or ever really was part of the mission of the EA Hotel (now CEEALAR), but one of the things I really appreciated about it from my fortnight stay there was that it provided a space for EA-aligned folks to work on things without the pressure to produce legible results. This to me seems extremely valuable because I believe many types of impact are quantized such that no impact is legible until a lot of things fall into place and you get a “windfall” of impact all at once
Yes, this was a significant consideration in my founding of the project. We also acknowledge it where we have collated outputs. And whilst we have had a good amount of support (see histogram here), I feel that many potential supporters have been holding back, waiting for the windfall (we have struggled with a short runway over the last year).

Greg_Colbourn 31 Jan 2020 14:37 UTC
2 points

in reply to: Khorton’s comment on: Concerning the Recent 2019-Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
Makes sense from the point of view of killing germs, and temperatures being tolerable for us also being tolerable for germs. My intuition is that it’s easier to get dirt (which contains germs) off hands with warmer water (similar to how it’s easier to wash dishes with warmer water).

Greg_Colbourn 31 Jan 2020 11:02 UTC
2 points

in reply to: Khorton’s comment on: Concerning the Recent 2019-Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
Alcohol-based hand sanitiser is also good. Often better than hand washing in practice as very few people actually wait for the water to get warm, or spend 20 seconds lathering the soap.

Greg_Colbourn 29 Jan 2020 17:50 UTC
3 points

in reply to: MarisaJurczyk’s comment on: The EA Hotel is now the Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (CEEALAR)
Props for putting in the work to keep this organization alive and well. It’s a wonderful asset to the EA community. :)
Thanks!
CEALAR
I agree that the extra E is a bit jarring at first (someone else has pointed this out too). I worry that without it it’s too similar to CEA though; and the “Enabling” also seems useful in helping to describe what we do.

Greg_Colbourn 29 Jan 2020 17:35 UTC
9 points

in reply to: RyanCarey’s comment on: The EA Hotel is now the Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (CEEALAR)
Interesting—you mean this? Worth considering for an alternative name/brand [Jonas’ comment above] down the line a bit.

Greg_Colbourn 29 Jan 2020 16:50 UTC
11 points

in reply to: Pablo_Stafforini’s comment on: The EA Hotel is now the Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (CEEALAR)
Congratulations for putting in all the time and effort required to get the (former) EA Hotel registered as a proper charity!
Thanks!
poll on an EA Facebook group
We did do this for the initial naming. It seems like a very lengthly process though, looking at the example of FRI. I’ll also note that the names that got to the top of the latest poll I’ve seen (from 14 Dec) don’t seem that great (but then my judgement perhaps isn’t the best in this area, given the reception so far to “CEEALAR”!)

Greg_Colbourn 29 Jan 2020 14:35 UTC
11 points

on: The EA Hotel is now the Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research (CEEALAR)
Note we are still offering the same as before, with the caveat that we aren’t subsidising people earning-to-give (as was originally envisaged with the EA Hotel). We are still open to short-term visitors.

Greg_Colbourn 28 Jan 2020 11:55 UTC
10 points

in reply to: Davidmanheim’s comment on: Concerning the Recent 2019-Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
Estimate of swine flu fatality rate was ~0.5% in July 2009 with 100,000 cases reported. It ended up dropping over an order of magnitude.

Greg_Colbourn 28 Jan 2020 9:39 UTC
5 points

in reply to: Peter_Hurford’s comment on: Concerning the Recent 2019-Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
~1/6 of the world population were infected by the 2009 swine flu (mortality rate was much lower though, at ~1/3000 of those infected).

Greg_Colbourn 27 Jan 2020 19:34 UTC
10 points

in reply to: Matthew_Barnett’s comment on: Concerning the Recent 2019-Novel Coronavirus Outbreak
A better comparison would be to look at death rate for those infected: ~0.1% for seasonal flu.

Greg_Colbourn 29 Dec 2019 9:19 UTC
3 points

in reply to: CEEALAR’s comment on: 8 things I believe about climate change
Just flagging that I posted this comment (the parent) from the wrong account (EA Hotel), should’ve been from this one! [mods, I don’t suppose there is any way of correcting this?]

Greg_Colbourn 11 Dec 2019 19:00 UTC
12 points

in reply to: Milan_Griffes’s comment on: EA Meta Fund November 2019 Payout Report
We asked for feedback on the first rejection.

Greg_Colbourn 11 Dec 2019 17:28 UTC
20 points

in reply to: Milan_Griffes’s comment on: EA Meta Fund November 2019 Payout Report
We didn’t apply (although did tick the “Forward my application to the EA Meta fund” box on our application for the October 2019 round of the Long Term Future Fund).
We got rejected in the March 2019 round of the Meta Fund, and didn’t receive any feedback.
In July I made an application to the Meta Fund for an “EA Events Hotel” to be also based in Blackpool, UK (for a hotel dedicated to workshops/events/retreats/bootcamps, given it’s difficult to host many people at the EA Hotel for events in addition to the longer term people). This also got rejected without feedback.
Given this situation, we haven’t further engaged with the Meta Fund (we’ve had more engagement with the Long Term Future Fund, despite the Meta Fund being the more natural fit for the EA Hotel).

Greg_Colbourn 26 Nov 2019 13:02 UTC
6 points

on: ALLFED 2019 Annual Report and Fundraising Appeal
Great report, and exciting times for ALLFED!
I notice that you don’t include peanuts, which are one of the cheapest sources of calories currently widely available. Is this because they require a warm environment?

Greg_Colbourn 7 Nov 2019 21:51 UTC
28 points

in reply to: Julia_Wise’s comment on: EA Hotel Fundraiser 5: Out of runway!
Fair point, but Nicole refers to:
Some concern about the handling of past PR situations
Also it’s worth mentioning our actual subsequent track record over the past year (i.e. 0 further PR situations).

Greg_Colbourn 7 Nov 2019 21:30 UTC
3 points

in reply to: Julia_Wise’s comment on: EA Hotel Fundraiser 5: Out of runway!
Regarding explicit direction vs advice—for me it was the fact that something I thought had been dealt with acceptably seems to have—unbeknownst to me—remained a live issue in terms of it effecting funding decisions. More explicit direction at the time in terms of “if you want to get funding from CEA you need to do this” seems like it would’ve been better in hindsight.

Greg_Colbourn 7 Nov 2019 21:15 UTC
13 points

in reply to: Julia_Wise’s comment on: EA Hotel Fundraiser 5: Out of runway!
Hi Julia, ok but to me the point you raised about media was tangential, i.e. it was not directly related to the PR situations themselves. For those curious—I missed a meeting with a professional communications advisor at EAG London last year, on account of missing an email (in which the meeting was arranged for me) sent the day before whilst I was driving to London. I was overwhelmed at the time with interest in the hotel, and that wasn’t the only email (or meeting) I missed.