What topics do you wish were more discussed within EA?
Khorton
Karma: 1,677
Khorton’s Shortform
What mistake do you most commonly see EAs making?
I would have appreciated if your summary had also included a line or two on what your main conclusions were.
I guess I don’t experience major problems with email (sending or receiving), so I don’t see very significant benefits. I just read your post as very costly ways to achieve marginal gains.
Ugh, can we not do the caps lock thing please?
I’m hesitant about this because I think it would be costly to implement, in terms of time and attention, and because I think it’s very weird and could negatively affect our reputation.
Putting that to one side, I’m trying to think through what the social norms would be around this for a few examples:
-If I emailed 80,000 Hours with a career question and £20, should I expect them to definitely respond? Does this lead to a market for private career coaching? On the other hand, what if I sent them a £500 email and they never responded—couldn’t I be rightfully upset?
-If Julia Wise were prioritising paid emails in her role regarding community health, is she more likely to miss emails from people on the periphery of EA or who have less money, who are potentially very vulnerable?
-Would this system represent a power shift toward people with more money, because they can more easily pay large amounts?
I really like that you separated out a cluster of related beliefs in the ‘long-term’ and ‘short-term’ camps. I don’t think the book ‘Why Nations Fail’ is that exciting, but I am happy to see someone trying to more concretely define the clusters of beliefs under ‘long-term’ and ‘short-term’. It also explains why EAs who focus on climate change from a global poverty perspective are often called ‘short-termist’.
I’ve read both of the reports Ben listed and think their recommendations have both strengths and weaknesses. I’m currently very uncertain about the best options for donating toward reducing CO2.
Your friend’s chosen charity seems to do sensible things to reduce CO2 in a transparent way on a reasonable small budget. Seeing as our community is still very uncertain about what’s ‘optimal’ in this space, I wouldn’t push EA recommendations too hard.
You could ask it as a question if your response would be ~3 paragraphs. I think that would work well, but I’m not sure if that would give you enough space to express your feelings.
I’m looking forward to 3a and 3b!
What temperature change does this assume? How do excess deaths scale with different degrees of warming?
I don’t know the answer, so I’m also kind of curious!
The set of tools EA provides for considering how to help others, and the network/community, could be useful for any altruist.
Utilitarianism is less compatible with Catholicism.
Thanks for the update. I’m disappointed there’s been so much turnover. I feel like we get new staff at the Funds more often than we get actual grant distributions!
I am very torn because on the one hand, I really want to appreciate people’s hard work, but on the other hand, just because people work hard doesn’t mean their work has actually improved the Forum.
It’s important to be kind, but it’s also important to be honest. While I think this post could have been better, the most important thing is that it exists at all. And it’s important that it’s not just a feature request—it’s important that the post is clear that some people think the site is getting worse overall.
That’s definitely true of Obama, but I’m not sure everyone on the left agrees. I think some of Obama’s tactics were horrifying, and would support much more liberal immigration, even though I consider myself centre left.
It might have been the career advice group, but I’m not sure.
I’m sure there was a ‘What should I major in?’ thread on Facebook, but I don’t have time to find it now.
If you have a spare elective, I’d suggest taking a class in educational psychology. It’ll help you learn how to learn (if you can apply what you learn about teenagers to yourself).
What is the global burden of menopause?
Symptoms include hot flushes, difficulty sleeping, vaginal irritation or pain, headaches, and low mood or anxiety. These symptoms normally last around five years, although 10% of women experience them for up to 12 years.
I couldn’t see a Disability-Adjusted Life Years rating for menopause. I’d imagine that it might have a similar impact to mild depression, which in 2004 was rated as 0.140.
Currently, about 200 million people are going through menopause, 80% of whom are experiencing symptoms. I’d expect this to increase to 300 million by 2050.
A leading menopause charity in the UK has an annual budget of less than £500k, despite the 4 million British women going through menopause, so I think menopause treatment in the UK could be improved with relatively little money.*
I’m not sure that would create very helpful spillovers to countries where Hormone Replacement Therapy isn’t cheaply accessible. On the other hand, online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is starting to be used to treat some symptoms, and that could probably be scaled up more easily.
*Improving diagnosis and doctor awareness of treatment options seems tractable, but there are some supply chain problems right now which seem less tractable. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49308083