JWSymonds🔹

Karma: 1

JWSymonds🔹 19 Mar 2026 17:19 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: What I didn’t expect about being a funder
Great little insight into the mind of what goes on behind the scene, thanks for sharing it.
Coincidentally, I just posted on my work company slack channel recommending aisafety.com and staff to bookmark it, use it as a resource (just as ai language and tools are being considered more and more in my particular digital product design and ecommerce area). But also that it’s been partly funded by Long View Philanthropy, and explained it’s an organisation I donate to that gives grants based on x y z criteria.
But as I was writing the Slack post, I was thinking ‘I wonder what its like actually doing this?’. Opened up the EA Forum Digest after and your articled was there, ha! Just nice timing!
Thanks again,
John

JWSymonds🔹 24 Nov 2025 21:24 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Exercise for ‘What do you think?’
My original reason for joining the introductory course was really to improve my vocabulary and confidence when engaging with charities and Non-profit organizations. But I have approached it actually as a formal introduction to a contemporary branch of moral philosophy with practical application. It has been a pleasure, I haven’t pushed myself to learn so much in so long it’s been a breath of fresh air. Not to mention it re-affirmed my decision to pledge 10% of my income to Giving What We Can.
I think for me it’s that latter part of how to practically apply EA principles in everyday life, that is missing and not reminded is also fine and possible. Because for some individuals who cannot fully commit to EA with their time and resources, they can only return to it conscientiously as kind of a code of conduct they wish to live by to be a better person as a result of learning about EA.
For example “We are always in triage” and “Be a good ancestor”—I feel like these can be written as “Ordinary Mind” EA. That is to say, as an individual you are being effective with your mind to notice an opportunity or decision that is altruistic / doing the most good at that precise moment in time. Whereas “Calculating Bayes-Rules” and “Calibrating Predictions” are parked in the “R&D Mind” EA when deep in projects, working as a team and applying the models / frameworks.
I suppose an analogy would be if EA had a collection of Analects, what would they be as a moral guide to live by?
I understand the key values in determining cause areas to do the most good, but how to apply that in mind in everyday life? Surely the “Scout Mindset” (which I have since borrowed and now using as a professional behavioural goal for my team where I work) is morally sensible in many aspects of life? Basically I feel like the personal psychological benefits of realising and applying the values in everyday life could be as socially and collectively rewarding as effective-giving itself to cause areas?
I think maybe a section on “Ordinary Mind” EA would be a great summary and chance for those that don’t fully commit to flying the EA flag straight away but still wish to put the principles or code into practice on their own terms.

JWSymonds🔹 3 Nov 2025 21:19 UTC
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: Exercise for ‘Our Final Century?’
Ah this touches my heart because it sends me back quite a few years to when I was keenly reading the words and wisdom of Subcomandante Marcos, representative and voice of the Zapatista, the indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico.
There is a collection of readings, letters and excerpts, titled ‘Our Word is our Weapon’ and within it a reading ‘To Plant The Tree of Tomorrow’. He recounts a very old story as a metaphor to answering the question ‘What the Zapatista Want?’ in response to mixed media messages (I have posted a link to the copy of the reading free online at the end, I encourage anyone to read, it is as beautiful as it is profound to the point).
My reason for recounting it in the context of EA and this exercise is what Marcos precedes and follows the story telling with:
===
“Now, it is not going to be easy for the media to understand us. For some strange reason, the Zapatistas speak to the future. I mean our words don’t fit in the present, but are made to fit into the puzzle that is yet to be finished.”

″...And if I am telling you this story, it is not just to give our regards to the first ones, nor is it just to make you a gift of a little piece of that memory that seems lost and forgotten. No, not just for those things, but also to try to answer the question of what the Zapatistas want.
To plant the tree of tomorrow, that is what we want. We know that in these frenetic times of “realistic” politics, of fallen banners, of polls substituting for democracy, of neoliberal criminals who call for crusades against what they are hiding and what feeds them, of chameleon-like metamorphoses, saying we want to plant the tree of tomorrow sounds foolish and crazy; but nevertheless, to us it is not a phrase born of drama or obsolete utopianism.
We know all that, and nevertheless, that is what we want. And that is what we are doing. How many people in the worlds that make up the world can say as we do, that they are doing what they want to? We think there are many, that the worlds of the world are filled with crazy and foolish people each planting their trees for each of their tomorrows, and that the day will come when this mountainside of the universe that some call Planet Earth will be filled with trees of all colors, and there will be so many birds and comforts that … yes, it is likely no one will remember the first ones, because all the yesterdays which vex us today will be no more than an old page in the old book of the old history.
The tree of tomorrow is a space where everyone is, where the other knows and respects the other others, and where the false light loses its last battle. If you press me to be precise, I would tell you it is a place with democracy, liberty, and justice: that is the tree of tomorrow.
This is what the Zapatistas want. It might seem I’ve been vague in my answer, but I haven’t. I have never spoken so clearly before. In any case, times will come in which these words will fit, and together their embrace will expand, and they’ll be heard and guarded, and they’ll grow. That is what the words are for, and yes, also those who go speak them”
===
His words “a world in which many worlds fit” and ”… worlds of the world are filled with crazy and foolish people each planting their trees for their tomorrows’ struck me years ago deep in my heart. But I never felt until now I was helping contributing to that tomorrow world I will happily not see, but wish to help ensure has a reality.
EA has and is the potential to be that great forest that is discovered in the future and appreciated for that minority of people who planted it knowing they will never see it, but were aware of the importance of ancestry.
“To the first ones Those who came later understood. Health to you.”
Open Source Link to full reading:
58. Closing Words at the National Encuentro in Defense of the Cultural Heritage—AUGUST 14, 1999
To Plant The Tree of Tomorrow

JWSymonds🔹 27 Oct 2025 22:33 UTC
2 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Exercise for ‘Radical Empathy’
Dear friend and manager of a 19th century industrial whale slaughterhouse.
First of all, I hope you are well and happy and your family is likewise well and happy.
This may seem like the most radical idea and message, which I share to you without personal, political or religious bias and based on the most rational and reasonable evidence.
I kindly ask you to consider every word—because this message is from the future, 200 years in the future, where your actions are still felt but since made an illegal act.
You are actively and unknowingly participating in a major moral catastrophe of your time.
The animals you hunt and slaughter share the same joys, feelings and emotions you share with your own family. This means they also share the same pains, loss and suffering you share each time you initiate your practice.
We know this because in my time we have audio or sound technology that is capable of hearing and listening to their conversations known as Echolocation. We have been able to play their form of communication and engage in conversation proving non-human intelligence. We have been able to observe communication between groups of these animals over very close and very vast distances, proving social bonds, play, hierarchy and interconnectedness. To your ears it would sound much like music, and not only that, the animals have been singing like this for over 50 million years.
We know this because of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Which, although a new fringe idea for you, is in my time a proven science used to explain the entire natural world that you, I and all life is connected via a chain and process of natural selection, including the point at which a species goes extinct and dyes out forever.
We know this because in my time we have a record of your industry’s total impact on the animal population you hunt which reduces the species by 98.5% and consequently severely impacts the rest of the ocean food chain right down to the smallest organisms and creatures. The animals you hunt and slaughter feed on these organisms which in turn changes the oxygen, carbon and nutrient levels in the entire ocean significantly impacting or denying the existence of trillions of other animals that would have lived had the animals been able to maintain their numbers to much healthier levels.
Whilst today you are partaking in proven unimaginable levels of pain and suffering through your practice, you have the capacity to recognise it, to feel the same compassion you feel to your family as to the animals, to stop, to research, to plan a different course of action for the future. A future where the valuable ocean knowledge and experience you have acquired can be put to other purposes such as sourcing alternative fuels or educating others about the suffering of these incredible animals.
This letter is both a warning and an opportunity—choose wisely.
Yours sincerely
John