My approach to improving the world is to:
live sparingly so I can maximize my donations to highly effective charities (based on EA-related organizations’ recommendations such as GiveWell, Founders Pledge, and Animal Charity Evaluators)
pursue an as impactful as possible career based on my personal skills and experiences (I am currently working for New School Foods, a startup which is developing whole muscle plant-based fish at price parity)
live a vegan and environmentally-conscious lifestyle (to reduce animal suffering and mitigate climate change)
promote the EA philosophy (I co-led the Effective Altruism Waterloo group in university and have since facilitated 5 cohorts of the EA Virtual program, plus initiated a podcast episode on the topic of effective altruism run by the University of Waterloo Engineers Without Borders chapter)
learn more about about effective altruism sub-areas through reading EA-related books and articles as well as listening to EA-related podcasts
write about EA (I have made 2 posts on the EA forum)
volunteer at EA-related organizations (I am currently a volunteer for ALLFED)
use my spare time to help others pursue a career in alternative proteins (I created a career guide and podcast series for this)
Excellent perspective.
The most convincing argument I’ve come across against cultivated meat is from Joe Fassler’s 2021 article in The Counter where he notes: “If cultured protein is going to be even 10 percent of the world’s meat supply by 2030, we will need 4,000 factories like the one GFI envisions, according to an analysis by the trade publication Food Navigator. To meet that deadline, building at a rate of one mega-facility a day would be too slow.
All of those facilities would also come with a heart-stopping price tag: a minimum of $1.8 trillion, according to Food Navigator. That’s where things get complicated. It’s where critics say—and even GFI’s own numbers suggest—that cell-cultured meat may never be economically viable, even if it’s technically feasible.”