Ian Turner

• Ian Turner 1 Dec 2025 20:08 UTC

  4 points

  1 ∶ 1

  on: Vac­cine Ob­struc­tion­ism Kills

  There’s not much to disagree with here, but I downvoted this anyway because it feels uncomfortably close to in-group cheerleading.

• Ian Turner 25 Nov 2025 21:43 UTC

  6 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: One woman is kil­led ev­ery 11 min­utes. Is EA pay­ing at­ten­tion?

  Over 100 experimental and quasi-experimental studies have now assessed prevention programmes, with interventions like SASA! and IMAGE in South Africa showing sustained declines in violence (Pronyk et al., 2006)[18]. Yet these successes are rarely translated into EA-style impact evaluations or funding models.

  Isn’t it just that these programs are simply not cost effective? Forum posts in 2022 and 2023 looked at this and the (very generous) cost estimates there were still way higher than other interventions with similar quality evidence.

• Ian Turner 18 Nov 2025 3:30 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Yarrow Bouchard 🔸’s comment on: Yar­row Bouchard’s Quick takes

  LeCun is also probably one of the top people to have worsened the AI safety outlook this decade, and from that perspective perhaps his departure is a good thing for the survival of the world, and thus also Meta’s shareholders?

• Ian Turner 10 Nov 2025 22:01 UTC

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: One-Minute Ask: Help Pass the End Kid­ney Deaths Act to Save Lives and Re­duce Kid­ney Deaths in the U.S.

  Manifold market on whether or not this act (or similar legislation) passes: https://​​manifold.markets/​​patbl/​​will-the-end-kidney-deaths-act-or-s

• Ian Turner 6 Nov 2025 1:27 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: huw’s comment on: huw’s Quick takes

  In my experience, you get better advice anyway if you frame the question as though you are a professional. So instead of, “here is a picture of my rash, what do you think?”, you say, “A patient has provided this picture of a rash, what is your diagnosis?”.

• Ian Turner 6 Nov 2025 1:21 UTC

  5 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: The Last Stop on the Crazy Train

  I think this sounds nice but seems to presuppose that we know what to do to make the long-term go well. The situation with AI should inform us that it’s actually quite possible to go in with good intentions and instead of making things better, actually make them worse.

• Ian Turner 20 Oct 2025 20:44 UTC

  7 points

  1 ∶ 1

  on: En­ter­tain­ment for EAs

  I think the forum itself falls into this category.

• Ian Turner 15 Oct 2025 15:17 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: You should prob­a­bly track your time (and it just got eas­ier)

  I use https://​​dailytimetracking.com/​​ and find it to be fairly unburdensome, though it might not be great for those with more porous work-life boundaries.

• Ian Turner 10 Oct 2025 23:40 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Nithin Ravi🔸’s comment on: You Should Get a Reusable Mask

  3M lists dealers on their website, those are probably fine to buy from? Though Amazon is on the list, so perhaps 3M is not concerned about fakes on Amazon. Or maybe you just have to make sure the seller is Amazon itself.

• Ian Turner 8 Oct 2025 17:31 UTC

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jeff Kaufman 🔸’s comment on: You Should Get a Reusable Mask

  Amazon has a pretty significant problem with counterfeit merchandise. It’s essentially a flea market. Personally I wouldn’t buy anything there where safety is an important consideration.

• Ian Turner 8 Oct 2025 17:28 UTC

  5 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jeff Kaufman 🔸’s comment on: You Should Get a Reusable Mask

  You can get extra filters cheaply.

  I would note that during the 2020 pandemic, it was not easy to get replacement filters. I recall that in April 2020 replacement filters were hard to get on less than a 2-3 month lead time.

• Ian Turner 8 Oct 2025 17:22 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Kestrel🔸’s comment on: Kestrel’s Quick takes

  Open Philanthropy made a grant to PATH for malaria vaccine implementation, maybe you would want to consider that program? There were also malaria vaccine research grants to WHO, Imperial College London, University of Georgia, University of Oxford, Yale University, Hospital for Sick Children, and probably others, however I feel like these grants may not correspond to “programs” per se, especially something that individual donors could give to.

  Another one to consider is Target Malaria, which is working on gene drives for mosquito control.

• Ian Turner 5 Oct 2025 14:54 UTC

  6 points

  4 ∶ 1

  on: We’ve au­to­mated x-risk-pilling people

  To be honest, I’m a bit concerned about this.

  Is this the kind of thing that depends on being right? Or is this something that one could do for any belief, including false ones? Could one automate persuasion about the dangers of vaccines?

• Ian Turner 2 Oct 2025 13:54 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Michelle_Hutchinson’s comment on: My thoughts on par­ent­ing and hav­ing an im­pact­ful career

  Interesting, thanks for sharing. I see it is not very active, maybe it gets more activity around EA Global events? Unfortunately I am not on Facebook.

• Ian Turner 1 Oct 2025 20:30 UTC

  13 points

  7 ∶ 0

  in reply to: titotal’s comment on: Are Billion­aire Philan­thropists Effec­tive in their Altru­ism?

  Personally I think it is an error (albeit a common one, both among EAs and among EA critics) to offer greater criticism to those who do something, than to those who do nothing. It is good and appropriate to suggest how we can all do better, but if you find yourself criticizing Bill Gates more than Jeff Bezos, I think you’re doing it wrong.

• Ian Turner 1 Oct 2025 20:27 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: My thoughts on par­ent­ing and hav­ing an im­pact­ful career

  Thanks Michelle for sharing this. One thing I observe in the responses to this classic post is a desire to connect with other EA parents. I wonder if it’s worth establishing a Slack or Discord space for people to connect? For example I would love to discuss what people who attend an EA Global event do for childcare.

• Ian Turner 1 Oct 2025 16:36 UTC

  21 points

  12 ∶ 2

  on: Are Billion­aire Philan­thropists Effec­tive in their Altru­ism?

  I dunno man. I think this piece suffers from a common channel of thought when discussing philanthropy generally, which is that if someone wants to spend their money on yachts, nobody complains, but as soon as somebody tries to do something altruistic, everyone feels like it’s okay to criticize and complain.

  If your objection is that billionaire philanthropy gives too much power to billionaires… wouldn’t that apply to all billionaire spending? Really your objection is just that we shouldn’t have billionaires.

  If your objection is that billionaire philanthropy could be more effective (it definitely could), I think this observation should be carefully framed so that we don’t penalize people for doing some good, even if they aren’t doing the most good. Those who spend their money on yachts should get more criticism than those who build opera houses.

• Ian Turner 28 Aug 2025 19:56 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: How to stay mo­ti­vated to donate?

  My understanding is that GiveWell also emerged from a giving group at Bridgewater.

• Ian Turner 26 Aug 2025 18:29 UTC

  17 points

  8 ∶ 0

  on: Poli­tics is an EA blindspot

  This post makes an argument that politics is important, but I don’t really see any argument that it is neglected or tractable?

• Ian Turner 26 Aug 2025 18:28 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 2

  in reply to: Anton’s comment on: Poli­tics is an EA blindspot

  You could imagine some kind of quota, where for any partisan political issue, you can only post about it on side X if there is any X quota remaining (which can only happen if posts are added from the perspective of side Y).

  But, what would we do if (as seems likely) everything gets polarized? Animal welfare, AI, even GHD are starting to show signs of political polarization. Would everything then be subject to quota?