JP Addison🔸

Karma: 5,244

Head of the CEA Online Team, which runs this Forum.

A bit about me, to help you get to know me: Prior to CEA, I was a data engineer at an aerospace startup. I got into EA through reading the entire archive of Slate Star Codex in 2015. I found EA naturally compelling, and donated to AMF, then GFI, before settling on my current cause prioritization of meta-EA, with AI x-risk as my object-level preference. I try to have a wholehearted approach to morality, rather than thinking of it as an obligation or opportunity. You see my LessWrong profile here.

I love this Forum a bunch. I’ve been working on it for 5 years as of this writing, and founded the EA Forum 2.0. (Remember 1.0?) I have an intellectual belief in it as an impactful project, but also a deep love for it as an open platform where anyone can come participate in the project of effective altruism. We’re open ²⁴⁄₇, anywhere there is an internet connection.

In my personal life, I hang out in the Boston EA and Gaymer communities, enjoy houseplants, table tennis, and playing coop games with my partner, who has more karma than me.

JP Addison🔸 17 Dec 2024 20:58 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Seeking Support: Help Fish Welfare Initiative Develop Remote Sensing Technology
I used to work in remote sensing in a past life. I don’t have much to say about the science of measuring water quality, but I do want to comment on the data collection question.
You mention satellites and drones. If you can get the info you need from existing satellite imagery that’s great. To the extent that you need something more, I can recommend using manned aircraft over drones.
The world is well set-up for pilots to fly small aircraft. The type of drone you would need to cover a large area would have to be a very autonomous, fixed-wing aircraft. You don’t need this. You can contract a pilot & plane for hundreds of $s an hour and cover a whole lot of ground per hour. I would bet you could survey the whole of India’s fish farms annually for less than a single FTE in a western country working on drones.
Once you realize this, you might start thinking about other approaches than visible light. Can you identify substances that shouldn’t be present in a humane fish farm and measure them with a spectrometer mounted on an aircraft?

JP Addison🔸 12 Dec 2024 21:33 UTC
6 points
1 ∶ 1
in reply to: Habryka’s comment on: Technical Report on Mirror Bacteria: Feasibility and Risks
I really appreciate that the comment section has rewarded you both precisely equally.

JP Addison🔸 4 Dec 2024 13:54 UTC
9 points
6 ∶ 0
in reply to: Ben Millwood🔸’s comment on: What is the admissions bar for EA Global?
I love the way you were non-opinionated about this comment, and left it up to the agree-disagree votes.

JP Addison🔸 5 Nov 2024 22:40 UTC
9 points
4 ∶ 1
in reply to: MathiasKB🔸’s comment on: Politics and the EA Forum
Ah, um, confusingly the default for personal is “Hidden”, and what you’ve done is effectively changed your settings for Personal Blogs to “Neutral.”

JP Addison🔸 5 Nov 2024 19:23 UTC
66 points
23 ∶ 6
on: Politics and the EA Forum
You can read our politics policy here.
Political issues are clearly relevant to improving the world. However, in our experience, we’ve seen that partisan political discussion tends to have a strong polarizing effect on public forums; it consumes a lot of a community’s attention and can lead to emotionally charged arguments. Overall, we think the EA Forum will be healthier, and better-positioned to achieve its goals, if we limit the space given to political topics.

JP Addison🔸 5 Nov 2024 19:20 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 1
in reply to: MathiasKB🔸’s comment on: Politics and the EA Forum
You probably have customized your feed to show personal blogposts. The default feed has them hidden.

JP Addison🔸 13 Sep 2024 22:05 UTC
21 points
7 ∶ 0
on: Brief Updates on EAIF
I really appreciate brief update posts like this, that help me keep some awareness of other meta projects. Thanks!

JP Addison🔸 28 Aug 2024 22:04 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: richard_ngo’s comment on: Lizka’s Shortform
Another comment from me:
I don’t like my mod message, and I apologize for it. I was rushed and used some templated language that I knew damn well at the time that I wasn’t excited about putting my name behind. I nevertheless did and bear the responsibility.
That’s all from me for now. The mods who weren’t involved in the original decision will come in and reconsider the ban, pursuant to the appeal.

JP Addison🔸 28 Aug 2024 21:40 UTC
−5 points
1 ∶ 4
in reply to: richard_ngo’s comment on: Lizka’s Shortform
In the post that prompted the ban, they asked whether murdering meat-eaters could be considered ethical. I don’t want to comment on whether this would be an appropriate topic for a late night philosophy club conversation, it is not an appropriate topic for the EA Forum.

JP Addison🔸 28 Aug 2024 21:38 UTC
10 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: richard_ngo’s comment on: Lizka’s Shortform
That is not the post in question. We removed the post that prompted the ban.

JP Addison🔸 28 Aug 2024 19:32 UTC
−1 points
0 ∶ 9
in reply to: Lizka’s comment on: Lizka’s Shortform
Moderation update: We’re issuing dstudiocode a one-month ban for breaking Forum norms in their recent post and subsequent behavior. Specifically:
- Posting content that could be interpreted as promoting violence or illegal activities.
The post in question, which asked whether murdering meat-eaters could be considered “ethical,” crosses a line in terms of promoting potential violence.
As a reminder, the ban affects the user, not just the account. During their ban period, the user will not be permitted to rejoin the Forum under another account name. If they return to the Forum after the ban period, we’ll expect a higher standard of norm-following and compliance with moderator instructions.
You can reach out to forum-moderation@effectivealtruism.org with any questions. You can appeal this decision here.

JP Addison🔸 5 Aug 2024 16:43 UTC
39 points
13 ∶ 0
on: On Owning Our EA Affiliation
I very much appreciate you writing this, and writing it so well. I really resonate with a lot of this, though of course maybe my role as a professional EA community person makes it harder for me and others to trust my take.

JP Addison🔸 1 Jul 2024 23:21 UTC
6 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Nathan Young’s Shortform
I’m excited that we exceeded our goals enough to have the issue :)

JP Addison🔸 25 Jun 2024 21:01 UTC
7 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Ozzie Gooen’s comment on: Ozzie Gooen’s Shortform
I don’t know about you but I just learned about one of the biggest updates to OPs grantmaking in a year on the Forum.
That said, the data does show some agreement with your and commenters vibe of lowering quantity.
I agree that the Forum could be a good place for a lot of these discussions. Some of them aren’t happening at all to my knowledge.^[1] Some of those should be, and should be discussed on the Forum. Others are happening in private and that’s rational, although you may be able to guess that my biased view is that a lot more should be public, and if they were, should be posted on the Forum.
Broadly: I’m quite bullish on the EA community as a vehicle for working on the world’s most pressing problems, and of open online discussion as a piece of our collective progress. And I don’t know of a better open place on the internet for EAs to gather.
1. ^
  Part of that might be because as EA gets older the temperature (in the annealing sense) rationally lowers.

JP Addison🔸 19 Jun 2024 13:01 UTC
8 points
4 ∶ 0
on: Loving a world you don’t trust
I can’t recommend the podcast audio enough. 🥲

JP Addison🔸 18 Jun 2024 21:16 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Announcing AI Welfare Debate Week (July 1-7)
Maybe halfway relevant: An Argument for Why the Future May Be Good by @Ben_West.

JP Addison🔸 12 Jun 2024 17:49 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: JP Addison🔸’s comment on: EA EDA: Looking at Forum trends across 2023
Oh, random thought: I think there are sometimes effects where the late holiday seasons often sees a dip like you observe. Maybe there’s a seasonal adjustment you could do?
(If you did, you would be going beyond what we do internally though, so, like, not a criticism.)

JP Addison🔸 12 Jun 2024 17:44 UTC
2 points
1 ∶ 0
on: EA EDA: Looking at Forum trends across 2023
Great stuff. I’m glad you looked into the data, and posted it publicly. Congrats on getting the draft over the line 🙂. I’m glad our public API was able to help, sorry about the lack of documentation. (Oh, you know about our open source repo though?) I want to check on one point that it behaved correctly: did the site redirect you to the bot site?

JP Addison🔸 1 Jun 2024 8:36 UTC
12 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Announcing a $6,000,000 endowment for NYU Mind, Ethics, and Policy
Congratulations!

JP Addison🔸 20 May 2024 20:57 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: JP’s Shortform
Working questions
A mental technique I’ve been starting to use recently: “working questions.” When tackling a fuzzy concept, I’ve heard of people using “working definitions” and “working hypotheses.” Those terms help you move forward on understanding a problem without locking yourself into a frame, allowing you to focus on other parts of your investigation.
Often, it seems to me, I know I want to investigate a problem without being quite clear on what exactly I want to investigate. And the exact question I want to answer is quite important! And instead of needing to be precise about the question from the beginning, I’ve found it helpful to think about a “working question” that I’ll then refine into a more precise question as I move forward.
An example: “something about the EA Forum’s brand/reputation” → “What do potential writers think about the costs and benefits of posting on the Forum?” → “Do writers think they will reach a substantial fraction of the people they want to reach, if they post on the EA Forum?”