ImmaSix

• ImmaSixJan 1, 2019, 6:02 AM

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  on: What’s the Use In Physics?

  A possible note of caution for applied physics research or technology development in industry: you might want to take into account differential technological progress: develop safety first, before developing more powerful technologies (such as creating faster hardware). I assume that it depends much on your research field whether you should be concerned about differential technological progress. Does anyone have more thoughts about this?

• ImmaSixJul 24, 2016, 11:19 AM

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  on: Some Or­gani­sa­tional Changes at the Cen­tre for Effec­tive Altruism

  We think that policy is an important area for effective altruism to develop into, and we feel we have had some significant success within policy so far. Recent developments in British politics mean that our plans regarding our policy work are currently in flux; depending on how this plays out, we could do considerably more or considerably less policy work.

  What are the uncertainties involved? What sort of events would lead you to do considerably more policy work? What sort of events would lead you to do considerably less policy work? Can you say anything about that?

• ImmaSixJun 19, 2016, 5:39 AM

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  on: The Effec­tive Altru­ism Newslet­ter & Open Thread – May 2016

  Getting tax-deduction in the Netherlands for donations to international EA charities is not straightforward. I’ve done some research made a write-up to explain how it works.

  Summary: Some charities have a tax-deductible status (ANBI) in the Netherlands. If not, you can use Transnational Giving Europe or make a donation to Effective Altruism Foundation in Switzerland marked for regrant.

  Full write-up (Dutch)

  (Hasty) translation

• ImmaSixMay 5, 2016, 6:37 PM

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  in reply to: MichaelDickens’s comment on: Philo­soph­i­cal Cri­tiques of Effec­tive Altru­ism by Prof Jeff McMahan

  Mentioning the criticism by developmental economists on the EA’s mainstream approach on poverty, however, triggers me to learn more.

Meetup : Nether­lands: meta-meetup (strat­egy EA Nether­lands)

Meetup : Nether­lands: high-im­pact careers

• ImmaSixDec 6, 2015, 12:01 PM

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  on: Up­dates from Giv­ing What We Can

  GWWC would like to focus on the later stages of the membership pathway, like long-term involvement. What does GWWC do for people who have been a member for a long time? What is the relative importance of that, compared to involving potential members and new members? Is losing members a significant risk?

• ImmaSixDec 6, 2015, 11:52 AM

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  in reply to: tomstocker’s comment on: Up­dates from Giv­ing What We Can

  Could you elaborate a bit more about GWWC’s comparative advantage in research? What is GWWC in a good position to do, and what could better be done by e.g. GiveWell or academic research?

• ImmaSixOct 23, 2015, 8:14 PM

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  in reply to: Tom_Ash’s comment on: Burnout and self-care

  I see deciding wisely about the unavoidable trade-offs between self-care and altruism as a skill that a person could build over the course of years. It is okay to feel a bit of stress or tension sometimes. It is okay to make a mistake sometimes too. (I made mistakes in both directions.)

  Keeping a separate donation budget, and keeping track of my spendings, helped me a lot. I should maybe start something similar for volunteering time and mental energy. Any ideas?

• ImmaSixAug 20, 2015, 8:16 PM

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  on: How to get more EAs to con­nect in per­son and share ex­per­tise?

  Another factor is that the less connected people are often shy about reaching out to the busy, high-performing EAs they don’t personally know.

  Most of the discussion here has been about the facilities, mostly online like EAhub, skillshare, LWSH, EASH, buddy systems, hangout events, and meetups. Even when the facilities are excellent, user-friendlly and findable, people might be too shy to actually ask.

  Overcoming shyness is something different from creating tools, and probably more difficult. What could we do about that?

  Some ideas (it would be great if you came up with something better):

  • explicitly claiming that requests for help are welcome

  • example stories of how individuals got connected and benefited from the connection

  • possibility for anonymous questions

  Some of them are already implemented to some extent.

• ImmaSixAug 19, 2015, 6:30 PM

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  on: How to get more EAs to con­nect in per­son and share ex­per­tise?

  Small idea: a second regular Hangout workathon at a time that is more friendly for European or Asian timezones.

  Somewhat bigger: organize an EA-coworking weekend. People from different countries/​cities come to together for a few days in a central place to on EA related or personal projects, for example finding out the destination of your next donation. This would require people to travel, but it might be worth it. I won’t have the resources to organize it myself in the next few months, but feel free to take over the idea.

  Even bigger: organize more weekend camps. GBS Switzerland organized a few summer and winter camps in Switzerland, and there is the LessWrong community weekend. At the latter, a lot of people from outside hubs attended.

• ImmaSixAug 19, 2015, 5:45 PM

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  in reply to: Tom_Ash’s comment on: How to get more EAs to con­nect in per­son and share ex­per­tise?

  The possibility exists, but how many people have ever done this in practise?

  Irrespective of how many other people do it (please don’t worry about that too much), I would encourage everyone to overcome their shyness and actually ask for help, information or social support by whatever medium. Personally, I felt delighted when someone sent me a question. Even though I am quite busy, responding was probably well worth my time.

• ImmaSixAug 19, 2015, 5:39 PM

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  in reply to: zdgroff’s comment on: How to get more EAs to con­nect in per­son and share ex­per­tise?

  I’m afraid you are right.

  If no other EAs live near you, you might consider to travel and couch surf in EA hubs. I’ve done this a few times in the UK, Switzerland and Berlin, and people were surprisingly welcoming.

  Unfortunately I cannot reciprocate, because I live in a very EA-low area and will stay there in the future.

Meetup : Small ac­tions, big im­pact (part 2)

• ImmaSixMar 27, 2015, 4:22 PM

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  on: Tech job Q&A

  A lot of discussion is about web development, and most bootcamps focus on that. What other fields are particularly interesting? Most job descriptions I find are not about web development and data science. How much does the European job market differ from the US?

• ImmaSixMar 27, 2015, 4:15 PM

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  in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Tech job Q&A

  What is in your company the difference between data science and ‘engineering’?

• ImmaSixMar 27, 2015, 4:08 PM

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  on: Tech job Q&A

  A concern mentioned on 8000hours.org is a possible oversupply due to bootcamps. MOOCs might also contribute to this—you can learn programming anywhere without formal education. To what extent is this true?

• ImmaSixMar 23, 2015, 8:33 PM

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  in reply to: Lukas_Gloor’s comment on: Non-English lan­guage effec­tive al­tru­ism (in­clud­ing a list of venues)

  Good point. And North European countries are relatively rich, have a happy population, and a language related to English (English is relatively easy to learn). (warning: correlation, not necessarily causation).

• ImmaSixMar 23, 2015, 8:29 PM

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  on: Non-English lan­guage effec­tive al­tru­ism (in­clud­ing a list of venues)

  I think the value of non-English EA groups is not their language, but mostly their location. In-person social support and discussion is not replaceable by any type of online communication even using the most modern technology.

  It is worth noting that widely discussed EA actions and choices often have to be ‘translated’ to the job market and education system of the specific countries.

• ImmaSixMar 22, 2015, 7:43 AM

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  on: What small things can an EA do?

  Can anyone think of small actions you can take to improve a specific skill? I am mostly looking for something concrete that you can do in one afternoon or less.

  Examples:

  • improve your rationality with module on clearerthinking.org. Is this actually effective? It looks useful.

  • try out programming on code academy