Thank you all very much for sharing!
JDBauman
Karma: 505
Christianity and Longtermism Workshop | DC May 17
EA for Christians 2024 Conference in D.C. | May 18-19
Isn’t it in one sense trivially true that that most of everything in the west was founded by Christians? (most people in the west were Christian for a very long time)
But FWIW many EA charity founders are active Christians.
Bruce Friedrich, founder of GFI (an ACE top-rated animal charity) is firmly Catholic. See --> https://www.christiansforimpact.org/episodes/bruce-friedrich
Paul Niehaus, cofounder of Give directly is Christian. See --> https://youtu.be/J98CRcahYIc?si=IGAe5w86ceQly9wr
The founder of ID Insights and many Charity Entrepreneurship charities are religious, too. The EA Christian directory has a list of many.
What makes EA development charities special isn’t being Christian/non Christian. It’s being evidence -based, willing to update on new information, willing to share info, and being highly positively impactful on the margin, etc.
Most charities (Christian or non Christian) are not this.
Plenty of Christians would love more neartermist career content (and would be unlikely to engage with 80k as it’s currently branded). So over the past year a group of Christian EAs created an advisory for this, under the direction of EA for Christians
Thank you for this post.
I find the closing comment especially striking “So, I want a more synodal Catholic Church because I find secular communities like nerdfighters, like Effective Altruism9, like the Covid Tracking Project and yes, like some LGBT activists the church persecutes are running laps around the bishops on some of the most important issues of our time.”
As far as I can tell (and as much as it disappoints me as a fellow Christian), your conclusion is correct.
Thanks for writing this! A couple of random thoughts
I’m also surprised by the cost of these CEP retreats ($1,500+ per attendee). Assuming the organizer’s salary is already provided for, I expected the cost for the average attendee to be closer to $300-$750.
Also, I respect the establishment of a scoring system, but the weightings seem problematic. For instance, “someone reports starting a project in an EA-aligned cause area” receives a score of 50, and “someone meets someone who inspires them to take an opportunity or cause area more seriously” receives a score of 1.
That’s not intuitive to me. I would much prefer 50 people attending a retreat/EAGx and reporting they felt inspired to take a cause area or opportunity more seriously over 1 person reporting they started a new project. “Projects” are just too vague, but maybe you have something more specific in mind?Scoring systems like this will affect how community builders design events. e.g. Say I’m an events organizer and I want funding from the CEA events team. I know the CEA events team prefers projects over updated cause prioritization at 50:1. Then I’m going to shape my event in a way that makes starting new projects an especially large (plausibly) the largest focus of my event. Is that your intent? Are there already guidelines on how community builders should think about this?
I appreciate efforts to get Christians on board about AI risks, but respectfully, Antichrist memes aren’t generally taken very seriously. A fundamental issue seems to be that most people (Christians included) don’t take superhuman AI as a credible threat. How then could it be a candidate for the Antichrist?
Related to this thread, Rory Stewart is speaking on “Can EA convince governments to make international aid effective” at the EA Christian 2023 annual conference.
Excellent! Looking forward to seeing you there.
EA for Christians 2023 Annual Conference | London, 14-15 April
This looks excellent! I’m keen to support this in any way I can.
“Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.”Forget fish. Just send cash.
#1
Popular myth says “teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime”.
But 200+ studies say “give a poor man cash, lift him out of poverty”.
Let’s stick to the research.
#2
Teach a man to fish, feed him for a year (maybe).
Give a poor man cash, lift him out of poverty.
Hi Matt, I run EA for Christians.
This might not be the answer you’re looking for but FWIW if you (or anyone reading) have honest doubts about the Christian faith, and you feel you would benefit from respectful discussions about a specific faith/EA topic, I welcome you at our weekly discussion socials.
Most who come are Christian. But I have been told also by non-Christians that it is a welcoming and truth-seeking space.
Thanks, we did!
I’m very excited to see this. EA for Christians is working with local EAs in Kenya and Nigeria to do grassroots outreach. We would love to see more EA community building in an African context, including outreach that builds networks to impactful careers that don’t require difficult-to-obtain western visas.
Thank you for the post!
Are you aware of catholic institutes/seminars that discuss themes of AXR? Have you considered starting one?
I could connect you to other Catholics in the EA community who are interested. There’s a vibrant community of Christians engaging with these themes.
Thanks so much for sharing!