Jeroen Willems🔸

Karma: 1,378

Organizer @ EA Belgium, YouTuber @ A Happier World.

My name is pronounced roughly as “yeroon” (IPA: jəˈʀun). You can leave anonymous feedback here: https://admonymous.co/jeroen_w Currently residing in Brussels, Belgium. I obtained my master’s degree in audiovisual arts, specializing in television, from RITCS in 2020. During my studies, I learned how to direct, write scripts, film, edit and develop concepts. I have since applied and refined all these skills by creating YouTube videos for my channel, A Happier World. A Happier World is a YouTube channel that explores exciting ideas with the potential to radically improve the world. The videos tackle the world’s most pressing problems and offer effective ways we can solve them. Topics covered include global health, poverty, animal welfare, artificial intelligence, pandemics, climate change, and even moral philosophy. I have been actively involved with EA Brussels/Belgium since 2016. My experience in hosting and organizing events has provided valuable insights into effectively communicating EA ideas. Pronouns: he/him

Jeroen Willems🔸Apr 19, 2025, 4:51 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: evhub’s comment on: Jeroen_W’s Shortform
You’re right that this is an important distinction to make.

Jeroen Willems🔸Apr 18, 2025, 9:36 PM
14 points
3 ∶ 0
in reply to: joko’s comment on: Jeroen_W’s Shortform
You make a fair point, but what other tool do we have than our voice? I’ve read Matthew’s last post and skimmed through others. I see some concerning views, but I can also understand how he arrives at them. But what puzzles me often with some AI folks is the level of confidence needed to take such high-stakes actions. Why not err on the side of caution when the stakes are potentially so high?
Perhaps instead of trying to change someone’s moral views, we could just encourage taking moral uncertainty seriously? I personally lean towards hedonic act utilitarianism, yet I often default to ‘common sense morality’ because I’m just not certain enough.
I don’t have strong feelings on know how to best tackle this. I won’t have good answers to any questions. I’m just voicing concern and hoping others with more expertise might consider engaging constructively.

Jeroen Willems🔸Apr 18, 2025, 9:11 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: David Mathers🔸’s comment on: Yarrow Bouchard’s Quick takes
Good point, I guess my lasting impression wasn’t entirely fair to how things played out. In any case, the most important part of my message is that I hope he doesn’t feels discouraged from actively participating in EA.

Jeroen Willems🔸Apr 18, 2025, 2:19 PM
17 points
8 ∶ 0
on: E2G help available
On top of mentioning a specific opportunity, I think this post makes a great case in general for considering work like this (great wage & benefits, little experience necessary, somewhat mundane, shiftwork). I do feel a bit uncomfortable about the part where you mention using personal sway to influence the hiring process though, as this could undermine fair hiring practices, but I could be overreacting.

Jeroen Willems🔸Apr 18, 2025, 1:11 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 1
in reply to: Yarrow🔸’s comment on: Yarrow Bouchard’s Quick takes
Thanks for sharing this, while I personally believe the shift in focus on AI is justified (I also believe working on animal welfare is more impactful than global poverty), I can definitely sympathize with many of the other concerns you shared and agree with many of them (especially LessWrong lingo taking over, the underreaction to sexism/racism, and the Nonlinear controversy not being taken seriously enough). While I would completely understand in your situation if you don’t want to interact with the community anymore, I just want to share that I believe your voice is really important and I hope you continue to engage with EA! I wouldn’t want the movement to discourage anyone who shares its principles (like “let’s use our time and resources to help others the most”), but disagrees with how it’s being put into practice, from actively participating.

Jeroen Willems🔸Apr 18, 2025, 12:57 PM
37 points
6 ∶ 5
on: Jeroen_W’s Shortform
I’m not sure how to word this properly, and I’m uncertain about the best approach to this issue, but I feel it’s important to get this take out there.
Yesterday, Mechanize was announced, a startup focused on developing virtual work environments, benchmarks, and training data to fully automate the economy. The founders include Matthew Barnett, Tamay Besiroglu, and Ege Erdil, who are leaving (or have left) Epoch AI to start this company.
I’m very concerned we might be witnessing another situation like Anthropic, where people with EA connections start a company that ultimately increases AI capabilities rather than safeguarding humanity’s future. But this time, we have a real opportunity for impact before it’s too late. I believe this project could potentially accelerate capabilities, increasing the odds of an existential catastrophe.
I’ve already reached out to the founders on X, but perhaps there are people more qualified than me who could speak with them about these concerns. In my tweets to them, I expressed worry about how this project could speed up AI development timelines, asked for a detailed write-up explaining why they believe this approach is net positive and low risk, and suggested an open debate on the EA Forum. While their vision of abundance sounds appealing, rushing toward it might increase the chance we never reach it due to misaligned systems.
I personally don’t have a lot of energy or capacity to work on this right now, nor do I think I have the required expertise, so I hope that others will pick up the slack. It’s important we approach this constructively and avoid attacking the three founders personally. The goal should be productive dialogue, not confrontation.
Does anyone have thoughts on how to productively engage with the Mechanize team? Or am I overreacting to what might actually be a beneficial project?

Jeroen Willems🔸Mar 2, 2025, 10:51 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Joseph’s comment on: A small case for small events: EA Belgium Summer Retreat 2023 & 2024 analysis
No guest bedrooms. We encouraged tents and sleeping bags. Some people just went home for the night, while others came only for one day. This meant for both editions only 5-8 people ended up staying overnight, with most of them sleeping indoors in the living room.

A small case for small events: EA Belgium Summer Retreat 2023 & 2024 analysis

Jeroen Willems🔸Mar 1, 2025, 9:12 AM

20 points

5 comments2 min readEA link

Jeroen Willems🔸Feb 18, 2025, 11:53 AM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jamie_Harris’s comment on: Ideas EAIF is excited to receive applications for
Got it, thanks for the reply!

Jeroen Willems🔸Feb 5, 2025, 11:52 AM
10 points
3 ∶ 0
on: Jeroen_W’s Shortform
What are some reasons to remain optimistic about the world from an EA perspective? Or how can we keep up with the most important news (ex. USAID / PEPFAR) without drowning in it?
The news is just incredibly depressing. The optimism I once had before the pandemic is just gone. Yeah, global health and development may still continue to improve. And that’s not insignificant. But moral circle expansion? Animal welfare? AI risks?

Jeroen Willems🔸Feb 4, 2025, 2:04 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jonas Søvik’s comment on: Some tools I think you should know if you don’t already
Same, I love it as well. Though my Facebook connection is broken and will likely never be fully repaired. I can remain logged in until I send a picture, then the connection breaks. And I keep forgetting. I’ve talked with the support team about it and it seems quite hopeless.

Jeroen Willems🔸Jan 19, 2025, 5:32 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: ezrah’s comment on: There is No EA Sorting Hat
Yeah, and even when finding a classic EA “high impact job” doesn’t work, finding a good E2G job may not work either. And you may not find the time to volunteer. It sucks, but you just try with what you have and what you can. This will be different for everybody. It may require a lot of self-forgiveness. I sure struggle(d) with it. But this is different from completely giving up on having an impact!

Jeroen Willems🔸Jan 16, 2025, 8:40 PM
11 points
6 ∶ 0
in reply to: Dylan Richardson’s comment on: What are we doing about the EA Forum? (Jan 2025)
My guess is, but I could be wrong, EA forum content is often just difficult to share with a broader audience as it’s usually not the target audience? And even when it’s ideas worth sharing with a broader audience, it may still be filled with EA jargon / way of speaking that’s difficult to follow for a lot of people. I am saying this assuming most people’s followers aren’t EAs but friends, colleagues and family. Even within EA, people are focused on different cause areas and many may not priorize reading stuff outside their cause area. I am not saying all of this is bad, I haven’t thought that through, but it does make sense to me. It’s similar to academic papers in a way, you generally wouldn’t share those on your social media platforms. But you do send them to people you think could be interested, just like how in EA I feel like posts are shared in messages with each other all the time.
I do think encouraging to share and add a picture can help and is a good idea!

Jeroen Willems🔸Jan 5, 2025, 8:58 AM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Ideas EAIF is excited to receive applications for
Thanks for the write-up! This is a very useful post.
I have been wondering though, since the shift in strategy, is EA outreach still a priority? Such as YouTube channels, podcasts, other online media,… targeting a broader audience. And if not, why?
Even though I have a personal vested interest in this topic (running a YouTube channel previously funded by EAIF), I do believe that projects like these could be highly effective and worth funding, regardless of my own involvement.

Jeroen Willems🔸Jan 3, 2025, 11:31 AM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Be the First Person to Take the Better Career Pledge!
My main point of criticism, that I didn’t see anyone else mention in the top-level comments, is that the pledge just seems too vague and broad. A 10 percent pledge is very concrete and measurable. Of course there is a difference in opinion in terms of what charities count as impactful, just like with careers. But with careers the difference in opinion is too broad for this pledge to be useful. Some could just interpret this pledge as “I’ll become a doctor or work for an ngo” without giving much extra thought. While with the 10% pledge there is a clear significant minimum commitment. I don’t think it solves the issue of value drift either. I imagine that in reality, when value drift happens, the individual won’t be quick to admit their values have drifted even if they aren’t actively looking for the most impactful career opportunities anymore. And there is also a higher chance people will just forget about the pledge and ignore any reminders. You could try and make the pledge more measurable, but then I think you’ll quickly run into Goodhart’s Law. I’m skeptical there is a way to have a career pledge and avoid these issues. I could be wrong, and I do welcome trying out new things like this!

Jeroen Willems🔸Dec 30, 2024, 6:35 PM
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: OscarD🔸’s comment on: Detection of Asymptomatically Spreading Pathogens
I’m finishing up a video covering NAO and wastewater monitoring, though not based on this specific talk.

Jeroen Willems🔸Oct 8, 2024, 10:39 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Julia_Wise🔸’s comment on: Jeroen_W’s Shortform
Thanks for pointing this out! I wasn’t really sure where my question fell on the axis of “general EA animal welfare knowledge” (ex. prioritizing chickens > cows) to “specific detail about how ACE evaluates charities”. By posting a quick take on the forum, I was hoping it was closer to the former, that I was just missing something obvious and that ACE wouldn’t even have to be bothered. I shouldn’t have overlooked the possibility that it might be more complicated!

Jeroen Willems🔸Oct 7, 2024, 4:12 PM
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Max Taylor’s comment on: Jeroen_W’s Shortform
Thank you so much for this elaborate and insightful response, Max! I understand the argument much better now.

Jeroen Willems🔸Oct 5, 2024, 8:58 PM
29 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Jeroen_W’s Shortform
I was going through Animal Charity Evaluators’ reasoning behind which countries to prioritize (https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-review/the-humane-league/#prioritizing-countries) and I notice they judge countries with a higher GNI per capita as more tractable. This goes against my intuition, because my guess is your money goes further in countries that are poorer. And also because I’ve heard animal rights work in Latin America and Asia is more cost-effective nowadays. Does anyone have any hypotheses/arguments? This quick take isn’t meant as criticism, I’m just informing myself as I’m trying to choose an animal welfare org to fundraise for this week (small, low stakes).

When I have more time I’d be happy to do more research and contact ACE myself with these questions, but right now I’m just looking for some quick thoughts.

Jeroen Willems🔸Sep 10, 2024, 11:07 PM
6 points
4 ∶ 0
on: Stepping down from GWWC: So long, and thanks for all the shrimp
Giving What We Can has grown tremendously over the past couple of years under your leadership. It’s been inspiring to witness how the organization has flourished! The redesign, the video content, the doubling in pledges, the fundraising feature, the donation platform, all the new research,… these are real milestones to be proud of. Thank you so much for the important work you’ve done! I am confident that Sjir and the rest of the team will continue building on the strong foundation you’ve created. I’m excited to see what you’ll do next, but make sure to take the well-earned rest you deserve!

Jeroen Willems🔸

A small case for small events: EA Belgium Sum­mer Re­treat 2023 & 2024 analysis

A small case for small events: EA Belgium Summer Retreat 2023 & 2024 analysis