Jordan Arel

Karma: 435

My goal has been to help as many sentient beings as possible as much as possible since I was quite young, and I decided to prioritize X-risk and improving the long-term future at around age 13. Toward this end, growing up I studied philosophy, psychology, social entrepreneurship, business, economics, the history of information technology, and futurism.

A few years ago I wrote a book “Ways to Save The World” which imagined broad innovative strategies for preventing existential risk and improving the long-term future.

Upon discovering Effective Altruism in January 2022 while studying social entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California, I did a deep dive into EA and rationality and decided to take a closer look at the possibility of AI caused X-risk and lock-in, and moved to Berkeley to do longtermist community building work.

I am now looking to close down a small business I have been running to research AI enabled safety research and longtermist trajectory change research, including concrete mechanisms, full time. I welcome offers of employment or funding as a researcher on these areas.

Jordan Arel Oct 13, 2022, 10:04 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101”
How many highly engaged EAs are there? In 2020, Ben Todd estimated there were about 2666, (7:00 into video). I can’t find any info on how many there are now, where would I find this, and/or how many highly engaged EAs are there now?

Jordan Arel Oct 13, 2022, 8:01 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Howie_Lempel’s comment on: Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101”
Mm good point! I seem to remember something.. do you remember what chapter/s by chance?

Jordan Arel Oct 9, 2022, 6:24 PM
9 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101”
I really want to learn more about broad longtermism. In 2019, Ben Todd said that in a survey EAs said that it was the most underinvested cause area by something like a factor of 5. Where can I learn more about broad longtermism, what are the best resources, organizations, and advocates on ideas and projects related to broad longtermism?

Jordan Arel Oct 6, 2022, 6:14 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Ask (Everyone) Anything — “EA 101”
Sorry, stupid question, but just to clarify, questions should be posted in this thread, or in the general “questions” section on the forum?

Jordan Arel Sep 27, 2022, 3:52 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Kyle J. Lucchese’s comment on: What Criteria Determines Who Gets Into EAG & EAGx?
Thanks Kyle! Hm, this confirms my suspicion that according to what he said he should have gotten into EAGx, though maybe it was because he applied to conferences in a different region. I will investigate further and have him email them. Thanks again!! 🙂

Jordan Arel Sep 26, 2022, 3:37 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Cause area: Short-sleeper genes
Thanks tou for writing this. This is an incredibly good idea for a cost-effective cause in my opinion. I need about 9 ¹⁄₂ hours of sleep every night and it is possibly the single greatest obstacle to achievement I face. I think for long-sleeper people like myself, further investigation could have an especially high upside if successful.

Jordan Arel Sep 26, 2022, 3:28 PM
5 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Orexin and the quest for more waking hours
Thanks Christian! This was a well-written initial foray. I need about 9 ¹⁄₂ hours of sleep every night and it is possibly the single greatest obstacle to achievement I face. I think for long-sleeper people like myself this could have an especially high upside if effective. I will definitely look into it more.

Jordan Arel Sep 26, 2022, 2:51 PM
2 points
1 ∶ 0
on: 7 Learnings and a Detailed Description of an AI Safety Reading Group
Thanks for sharing these learnings and for running this group Ninell! I would have been moderately less likely to start start studying AIS on my own if it were not for this group, and I appreciate how thoughtful you were and how much work you put into this group and this post.

Jordan Arel Sep 25, 2022, 6:24 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Aaron Bergman’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
Very good point. Considering last dollar spent or marginal dollar spent lowers these numbers by quite a lot—though I think even an order of magnitude still gives you quite high numbers

Jordan Arel Sep 25, 2022, 6:07 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Karthik Tadepalli’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
Yes, I think it is a very difficult and perhaps neccesarily uneasy balancing act, at least for those whose main or sole priority is to maximize impact. Minimum viable self-care is quite problematic, but it is not plausible we can maximize impact without any sacrifice whatsoever either

Jordan Arel Sep 23, 2022, 8:28 PM
1 point
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: ChristianKleineidam’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
In the GiveWell article I quoted they estimate an uber-5-year-old life saved costs $7000, for 37 DALYs, which equals about $189 per life year saved. But if it was actually $4500 per life as you suggest, that would be closer to $121 per life year saved or about 5 months of life for $50 instead of 3 months as I said, but I would rather err on the conservative side.

Jordan Arel Sep 23, 2022, 3:41 AM
3 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Jay Bailey’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
Damn. Yeah I guess I implicitly think like this a lot, I feel very torn between telling you it’s okay don’t worry about it each person has their own comfort level, versus yeah, it’s real and those are real people and we’re really sacrificing their lives for petty pleasures.

I think a few things that help me:
1. Personally I feel I have much higher leverage with direct work rather than donations, so while money is a consideration it isn’t as important as time and focus on what’s highest leverage. Also, with direct work you can sometimes get sharply increasing returns, an effective entrepreneur or content creator may be many orders of magnitude better than an unsuccessful one. This may or may not apply to you.
2. I don’t feel things I can spend money on is a primary determinant of my happiness . Most luxuries on the hedonic treadmill don’t actually significantly make me happier long-term, what makes me happy is doing healthy things like diet & exercise (which also improve my productivity), spending time with people I love, and most of all, living by my values and knowing I am doing my best to help those in need (and so being able to help them a massive amount is a positive)
3. I don’t believe other people are full separate or different than myself. In some profound and deep sense helping them feels like helping myself, firstly enlightened self-interest where it feels good and makes me happier to help others, but in another sense maybe we fundamentally are the same universal consciousness behind each mask of individuality, a position called “open individualism.” Basically my consciousness is literally the same consciousness in each conscious being. Sorry if it sounds a little new-agey, but it really does help me not feel like I’m sacrificing so much, even if there’s only a small chance it’s true, since I have such absurd leverage the selfish expected value that it might be true could still bex extremely high.
Hope this helps, let me know your thoughts!

Jordan Arel Sep 22, 2022, 6:09 AM
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Announcing “Effective Dropouts”
This was amazing. As a professional dropout, I would like to join your organization so that I can immediately quit it.

I have dropped out of college 3 ¹⁄₂ times now, the ¹⁄₂ time was during Covid when I didn’t quite start the school year before dropping out and deciding to become a homeless vagabond.

I always wanted to become an Ivy League dropout, USC isn’t Ivy League but close enough, it’s way more expensive than most Ivy League schools at least, and now I feel much more confident in whatever I do next. Lots of great entrepreneurs were dropouts from fancy pants schools. I think accomplishment is very closely correlated to dropping out, so just imagine how promising I must be having dropped out such an unusually high number of times.

In all seriousness, I am extremely proud of having dropped out so many times. Each time it was the right decision, and I believe dropping out of things in general when there is a higher expected value option available shows a willingness to kick the sunk-cost fallacy in the pants and follow your dreams. Especially if those dreams include being a homeless Covid vagabond living in a tent in your friend’s backyard.

Jordan Arel Sep 22, 2022, 5:53 AM
6 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Tyler Johnston’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
Wow. This is a really great concrete story of the benefit of signaling. Yeah, I find it so fascinating how Effective Altruism has evolved, and I really love all parts of it and think it is a very natural progression which somewhat mirrors my own. It is really unfortunate that not everyone sees this whole context, and I agree worth putting some effort into managing impressions even if it is in a sense a sort of marketing “pacing” which gradually introduces more advanced concepts rather than throwing out some of the crazier sounding bits of EA right off the bat

Jordan Arel Sep 22, 2022, 4:11 AM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: TW123’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
Great point, I thought I could go in more detail but I actually originally intended to make this post a fraction of the length it ended up being already. But that could be a great companion post, maybe a list of specific ways that we could be frugal and a detailed analysis of when it would make sense to spend money in order to save more valuable time and resources. And I appreciate those links will definitely check them out!

Jordan Arel Sep 22, 2022, 4:07 AM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: pete’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
I like this! It’s a very clean solution that saves a lot of time and hassle. Maybe the downside is that it takes away some autonomy and feels a little paternalistic and onerous to have a list of rules, but I think it could be simple enough and is not an unreasonable ask such that the benefits may outweigh the downsides.

Jordan Arel Sep 22, 2022, 4:03 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Henri Thunberg 🔸’s comment on: Why Wasting EA Money is Bad
Hm, yeah I thought about that but was thinking the way the grammar worked out it wouldn’t really make sense to interpret it as the EA Funds project. But after getting this feedback I think there is a low enough cost it makes sense to change the name, so I did!

Jordan Arel Sep 14, 2022, 3:16 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Denkenberger🔸’s comment on: How have nuclear winter models evolved?
Ah yes, I think this was what was referred to in the book. Thank you!

Jordan Arel Sep 2, 2022, 6:30 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: a_e_r’s comment on: Is there a “What We Owe The Future” fellowship study guide?
This is awesome, thanks Aris!!

Jordan Arel Aug 22, 2022, 6:15 PM
11 points
0 ∶ 0
on: How and when should we incentivize people to leave EA bubbles and explore?
I agree this seems like a huge problem. I noticed that even though I am extremely committed to longtermism and have been for many years, the fact that I am skeptical of AI risk seems to significantly decrease my status in longtermist circles, there is a significant isularity and resistance to EA gospel being criticized, and little support for those seeking to do so