It looks like I accidentally took credit for Zach Weems’ estimate, made here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/EACryonics/permalink/1737340919637664/
Josh Jacobson
Karma: 665
I’ve tried to estimate the number of life years saved by the typical organ donor, and the latest estimate was I think something like 0.1.
On the off chance you’re at all dissuaded by https://jewisheffectivegiving.org/ now existing, I want to provide my perspective that:
I’d much prefer there to be something that’s unaffiliated with an existing Jewish group
I’d much prefer there to be something that’s non-denominational
Effective giving != effective altruism
So I encourage you to not be put off at all by that existing; if anything, to me, it makes the need for an alternative greater.
It’s been years since I read it, but I recall Poor Economics (https://www.amazon.com/Poor-Economics-audiobook/dp/B006ST3XTW/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&qid=1625123657&refinements=p_27%3AEsther+Duflo&s=books&sr=1-4) providing significant insight on life at lower levels of income; I think it was probably also informative about the median case.
Given the donations / year figures, these seem relevant:
World Bank expenditures (inc. loans) per year: $10^11 ($61 billion)
UN expenditures per year: $10^11 ($48 billion)
EU expenditures per year: $10^12 ($182 billion)
ADB (Asian Development Bank) expenditures per year: $10^11 ($23 billion)
I think all figures were from around 2015, so these could now be different.
Some others are much smaller and therefore not included, such as GAVI, IMF, WHO, etc.
(Potential COI: I’ve received money from LTFF)
I think this is quite high value in expectation; it can be difficult for a grant round to coincide with an individual’s timing. I personally know of instances where someone would have applied for a grant, but there was no grant round open (& sometimes decision timing can be an issue as well), and therefore they moved to doing something else they felt was lower value.
Great development!
This is possibly slightly helpful toward your goal of identifying the most important institutions in the world: https://www.facebook.com/groups/733606323454075/permalink/734308670050507/ (graph without explanation at: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/josh3425/viz/tableua_1/Sheet1 )
The main difference between the programs is that Panama’s provides a path to citizenship without ever staying very long in-country, while Paraguay’s is maintainable as a permanent resiidency with only short occasional visits, but to gain Paraguayan citizenship you must spend the majority of 3 years in-country. One source for this (though I’ve looked at many): https://nomadcapitalist.com/second-passport/paraguay/
FWIW, a lawyer I’m speaking to about these options says that Paraguay’s program is expected to change in the near future as well; they sit on the Paraguayan committee that’s working on amending the law.
Limited Time Opportunity to Secure Panamanian Residency—EA Group Trip Offer [Imminent Rules Change]
I largely like this video, but I also think it’s good to be aware of some shortcomings of this: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KShgaczKHwvxBbQXK/i-want-to-do-good-an-ea-puppet-mini-musical (can’t get permalink to work from mobile, but intended here to link to my comment on that post).
We can use this mean monthly karma to scale all our posts by simply dividing the karma every post has by the mean karma of the month it was published. This allows us to determine which posts received the most praise in relation to how active the forum was at the time it was published.
I expect that the variance has fluctuated over time. If this were true, something like standard deviation away from the mean would be significantly more informative than simple adjustment on the basis of the mean.
FWIW, I also expect https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ngdvhPQ2NaLHCpG9T/getting-a-feel-for-changes-of-karma-and-controversy-in-the?commentId=fcEudfKQDzgZsnhhW that the point made in this comment is valid, and therefore it may be ~impossible (unless the timing of votes is preserved) to understand reception at-the-time.
I’m bothered by a certain type of way I observe a significant number of EAs orienting toward the non-EA world. To me, it feels like there can be a lack of understanding, appreciation, and respect for the work/thoughts/opinions/accomplishments/culture of non-EAs that I sometimes find particularly naive and alienating. These experiences in particular drive me to have hesitance in self-identifying as an EA.
FWIW, the three mentioned names to me point to different focuses:
EA for Jews: Seems to imply a customized form of EA more tailored to Jews; makes me think of donation opportunities in Israel, or Jewish giving groups, or something.
Effective Tzedakah: Feels all about affecting Jew’s donations to be more effective and less about things like research or careers. It does seem, of these three, the most accessible to non-EA Jews you may hope to attract, but possibly not beyond donations.
Jews in EA: Points to being an affinity group of EAs who want to get together with other Jews. Doesn’t seem like a recruitment organization, but (mainly) a group for those already in EA.
I do think any of these names can be used for the entire multitude of goals this initiative may have, but the focus and first-interpretation of the name seems likely to be understood quite differently.
Thanks, I was unfamiliar with their estimates for the proportion of the community they estimate.
”We estimate there are around 2315 highly engaged EAs and 6500 (90% CI: 4700-10,000) active EAs in the community overall.”
https://www.rethinkpriorities.org/blog/2020/6/26/ea-survey-2019-series-how-many-people-are-there-in-the-ea-community
That source also provides some other sources for estimates.
[Question] How many EAs are there?
I’ve just realized today (~5 days after posting) my footnotes did not transfer from the Google Docs draft. If you are returning to this post after previously reading it, you may want to take a brief look at the footnotes, as there are some potentially valuable resources linked in them.
There’s some discussion of this in the comments on LessWrong, including identification of some inaccuracies in this post, that you may want to check out.
Second Citizenships, Residencies, and/or Temporary Relocation
It’s unclear to me if my application was successfully submitted. I hit ‘submit’ (eventually multiple times) and did not see a confirmation message nor did the page change. There may be a bug in the submission of the form.
(Edit: I did receive an email confirmation of my application, however)
The welcome page does not load for me; I tried three different browsers.