Henry Stanley 🔸

• Henry Stanley 🔸May 4, 2025, 10:35 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: JoA🔸’s comment on: Don’t Void Your Pets

  Regarding the latter: calling a philosophical position “a pathology” with no further justification is not the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forum

  Agreed; same for the reference to the position here being strong because “it straightforwardly verifies sensible views on the topic”.

• Henry Stanley 🔸May 4, 2025, 12:47 PM

  7 points

  4 ∶ 2

  on: Don’t Void Your Pets

  Although they’re presented in adjacent sentences, this:

  I’d say that domesticated life seems both (i) clearly good overall, and (ii) the best form of life that’s realistically available for many non-human animals.

  seems distinct from:

  (I know I’d much rather be reincarnated as a well-cared-for companion animal than as a starving, parasite-ridden stray. Yeah, even at the cost of a minute spent tied to a lamppost!)

  I would also prefer to be a companion animal over being a stray – but I would probably prefer not to exist than exist as a companion animal.

  Needless to say I don’t think companion animal lives are “clearly” good overall. I think “a minute tied to a lamppost” is a bit sanguine. Companion animals are subjected to all sorts of unpleasant experiences: surgeries like neutering/​spaying, boredom, lack of autonomy over basic functions and routine, confinement, breeding-related health issues.

  I suspect this varies a lot—e.g. I think rabbits probably have overall net negative lives, being prey animals and often neglected, kept in cages outside with little to do, fear from predators, unable to perform their natural habits. Cats and dogs probably have a better time.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 18, 2025, 4:39 PM

  7 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: case­bash’s Shortform

  I tend to agree; better to be explicit especially as the information is public knowledge anyway.

  It refers to this: https://​​forum.effectivealtruism.org/​​posts/​​HqKnreqC3EFF9YcEs/​​

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 18, 2025, 12:27 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Chris Leong’s comment on: Epoch AI alumni launch Mech­a­nize to “au­to­mate the whole econ­omy”

  Interesting that you chose not to name the org in question—I guess you wanted to focus on the meta-level principle rather than this specific case

Epoch AI alumni launch Mech­a­nize to “au­to­mate the whole econ­omy”

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 18, 2025, 9:55 AM

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Hu­man and HPV Genes Com­bine to Form Ex­tra­chro­mo­so­mal DNA that Pro­motes Oropha­ryn­geal Tu­mor Growth

  Interesting stuff but I think this is a bit too technical/​in the weeds for the average EA forum reader—and it’s not super clear what the EA angle is here.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 7, 2025, 2:54 PM

  6 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ben_West🔸’s comment on: An­thropic is not be­ing con­sis­tently can­did about their con­nec­tion to EA

  most people’s coworkers aren’t trying to reshape the lightcone without public consent so idk, maybe different standards should apply here

  Exactly. Daniela and the senior leadership at one of the frontier AI labs are not the same as someone’s random office colleague. There’s a clear public interest angle here in terms of understanding the political and social affiliations of powerful and influential people—which is simply absent in the case you describe.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 2, 2025, 8:26 AM

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform

  From an animal welfarist perspective you could even have the recipe contain a message about how making chicken soup is unethical and should not be attempted.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 1, 2025, 2:19 PM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Im­por­tant Up­date: Pivotal(TM) Trade­mark Announcement

  Oddly I used to work at Pivotal^[1] - have very fond memories of the London office with its full breakfast every morning...

  Has since been acquired by VMware and gradually killed, and then VMware was acquired again by Broadcom who have really really killed it

  1. ^

     There’s almost no mention of it online now as the brand has been killed off

For­ma­tion of Macros­trat­egy Refine­ment Division

• Henry Stanley 🔸Jan 14, 2025, 2:47 PM

  7 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: How to Source Caviar Sus­tain­ably and Sup­port Stur­geon Recovery

  To what extent do you think this fits the typical EA brief of ‘important, neglected, tractable’? Even if we think that supporting sturgeon populations is intrinsically valuable—given that the fall in sturgeon populations is caused by overfishing for caviar, isn’t is more obvious to just… not consume it?

• Henry Stanley 🔸Dec 16, 2024, 10:52 AM

  9 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: AMA: 10 years of Earn­ing To Give

  You’ve mentioned your experience with burnout in a previous post—I wondered if you were willing to share more about that, and how it influenced your approach to EtG if at all.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Nov 7, 2024, 2:52 PM

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: I got dysen­tery so you don’t have to

  Very impressive—I don’t think I have the stomach (so to speak) to put myself through this kind of suffering. Thanks for doing something so selfless and unpleasant for the benefit of anonymous others ❤️

• Henry Stanley 🔸Oct 31, 2024, 3:16 PM

  7 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: To­day we fight for the fu­ture of one billion chick­ens.

  Hooray—this is awesome work. Fight the good fight.

  I donated to THL last year because of this case; was advised by Founders Pledge that without funding the appeal might fall through and was keen for that not to happen. I wonder what other time-sensitive efforts in this space with room for more funding?

• Henry Stanley 🔸Sep 2, 2024, 10:14 AM

  16 points

  5 ∶ 0

  on: The EA Hub is retiring

  Thanks for all the hard work that went into building/​rebuilding/​maintaining EA Hub!

  It’s always sad to see old projects get shuttered, especially ones that were a labour of love, so kudos on recognising that it’s the right time to do this.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 30, 2024, 6:00 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Henry Stanley 🔸’s comment on: Hen­ryS­tan­ley’s Quick takes

  Not a wholly-unserious suggestion. SWP could do a tie-in with the artist creating these fun knock-offs, capitalise on Swift madness, rehabilitate shrimp as cute in the process.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 30, 2024, 4:07 PM

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  on: Hen­ryS­tan­ley’s Quick takes

  Time for the Shrimp Welfare Project to do a Taylor Swift crossover?

  https://​​www.instagram.com/​​p/​​C59D5p1PgNm/​​?igsh=MXZ5d3pjeHAxeHR2dw==

  

Hen­ryS­tan­ley’s Quick takes

• Henry Stanley 🔸Apr 2, 2024, 9:09 PM

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Kyle Smith’s comment on: AIM (CE) new pro­gram: Found­ing to Give. Ap­ply now to launch a high-growth com­pany!

  In addition, the “not funding a company that will make the world worse” constraint on this program likely makes unicorn status substantially less likely

  Citation needed on this—I’m not sure what net-bad unicorns you’re thinking of (and I’d be interested to know), but I think at the outset they probably mostly looked like not-making-the-world-worse ideas and by the time they’re getting to unicorn status the original incubator has very little influence over what they do.

  I actually think the overlap between those interested in EA and founding unicorns is weak

  Perhaps, although as the post says you don’t need to found a unicorn to have a very promising exit and give a large amount to charity. I’m one of the people who became a software engineer back when 80K recommended it as a promising career path. I think more of us should start EtG startups—and suspect there are many like me who don’t feel themselves a good fit for direct work (or just like tech) and would make good founders.

• Henry Stanley 🔸Nov 21, 2023, 5:08 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Henry Stanley 🔸’s comment on: 10 years of Earn­ing to Give

  (I ask because I think burnout is a serious problem and its seriousness is probably generally under-appreciated in this community)