I didn’t know if it was okay for me to push the whole transcript onto here, is that usually done that way?
Joseph Quevedo
[Question] Is there an online group that gathers people interested in the intersection of EA and left-wing or progressive thought?
How the Wealthy Use “Charity” to Screw Everyone Else with Amy Schiller—Factually! - #238 (by Adam Conover)
As a Venezuelan, I often wonder if there could be a way to apply an Effective Altruist mentality/framework on how to do things that would be the most effective in moving towards a freer and happier society.
A rough translation of HumVenezuela’s (a group of humanitarian NGOs in the country) report for the “Complex Humanitarian Emergency” in 2023: “measurement as of November 2023 show a total of 20.1 million people with humanitarian needs, of which 14.2 million had critical needs in different areas of their lives, with different degrees of severity, reaching thresholds of severe needs a total of 4.2 million people.” https://reliefweb.int/report/venezuela-bolivarian-republic/informe-de-seguimiento-la-emergencia-humanitaria-compleja-en-venezuela
I’m also really sad to say Maduro’s group is discussing some laws that could impair the work of humanitarian NGOs: “The legislation grants powers to the government of Nicolás Maduro to open administrative proceedings against non-governmental organizations that can lead to the suspension of their activities up to their dissolution. The law is controversial and has been criticized by non-governmental organizations, which have denounced that it is aimed at criminalizing NGOs and human rights activists, and that it would have negative effects on both the defense of human rights and humanitarian aid in the country.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Solidarity_Law
This is a great resource, and one I’ve been using myself, even though I’m a software engineer, I’ve been doing the Python FreeCodeCamp courses because I love FCC and I don’t use Python daily at work.
I think there should be a Slack workspace or a Discord server for people doing this—I’ve felt that getting the maths in or the pre-requisite Machine Learning concepts is not a matter of just watching a few YouTube videos.
I am currently going through the Data Analysis with Python course on FreeCodeCamp.
I have to say, just watching a video and then answering a question is not very interactive, and has made it hard for me to keep engaging with the course.
When I was doing the certification projects for Scientific Computing with Python in December, I was interested in progressing with my project. Still, lately, I’ve been dreading or uninterested in watching one more video of this guy going through a Jupyter notebook.
Another thing I disliked about it is that the “exercises” already have the answers in them.
I searched for this link in Reddit and found someone recommending a FreeCodeCamp course on Data Analysis with Python with Jovian, it supposedly being more interactive (you do have to pay for submitting assignments), but I was able to see the assignments, so it might be useful in case someone wants more practice and hands-on things to do.
I think I won’t switch courses halfway, I don’t want to get stuck in tutorial hell.
So I finished the Data Analysis with Python course on FCC. I have to say, the certification projects may have some library usages that were not displayed on the videos for the course (as of today). One example is scikit’s linregress: you won’t see an explanation on that, but you’ll be required to do a linear regression, good luck if you have no math background in functions.
How do you deal with the frustration of trying to find an Entry-level Machine Learning job as a Software Engineer not based near Bay Area or London?
Yes, I think there is a growing group of “left-wing/progressive” people that attack EA with mostly lazy/old arguments. To me, I feel they have a sizable audience that genuinely care about the state of the world, and maybe we could have something like an “Anti- Anti-EA F.A.Q.”, seeing as how Anti-”TESCREAL”ists are surging