Views expressed are my own.
lukasb
In the beginning of the Christiano part it says
There can’t be too many things that reduce the expected value of the future by 10%; if there were, there would be no expected value left.
Why is it unlikely that there is little to no expected value left? Wouldn’t it be conceivable that there are a lot of risks in the future and that therefore there is little expected value left? What am I missing?
What is the best leadership structure for (college) EA clubs?
A few people in the EA group organizers slack (6 to be exact) expressed interest in discussing this.
Here are some ideas for topics to cover:
The best overall structure (What positions should there be etc.
Should there be regular meetings among all general members/ club leaders?
What are some mistakes to avoid?
What are some things that generally work well?
How to select leaders
I envision this as an open discussion for people to share their experiences. At the end, we could compile the result of our discussion into a forum post.
Good point. I’ll bring this up with other group leaders.
Great post! Thanks.
I’m impressed with the success you guys had! I’m excited to see your organization develop.
[Comment pointing out a minor error] Also, great post!
thank machine doggo
I like this framing a lot. I particularly like the idea of replacing the phrase “doing good” with “helping others” and “maximization” with “prioritization.”
I understand the impulse to mention volunteering before donations and careers because people naturally connect it with doing good. But I think it would be misleading for the following reasons:
As you said, there is currently very little emphasis on volunteering in EA
In most cases, individuals can do much more good by changing their career path or donating
I think we should be as accurate as we can when communicating EA. Being inaccurate might give people the wrong idea and make the movement seem dishonest.
I help a run a university group and in that context mentioning careers first is probably best choice, because
American undergrads often want to have an impactful career, so “helping others with your career” isn’t a strange concept to them
It’s probably the most important thing for individuals to focus on
It’s what our club focuses on the most
But things might be different if you aren’t talking to undergrads.
This seems like a good idea.
I submitted the following comment:
I urge the FDA to schedule its review of Paxlovid and to make the timeline 3 weeks or less, as it did with the COVID vaccine.
1000 people are dying of COVID in the US every day. With an efficacy of 89%, Paxlovid could prevent many of these deaths. The earlier Paxlovid is approved, the more lives will be saved.
Thank you for your consideration.
I wasn’t sure what topic to put it under so I chose “Drug Industry—C0022.”
For context here’s a LessWrong post talking about the Paxlovid situation.
Fair enough. I would guess you can usually have a higher impact through your career since you are doing something you’ve specialized in. But the first two examples you bring up seem valid.
What does TUA stand for?
Thanks for writing this! It seems like you’ve gone through a lot in publishing this. I am glad you had the courage and grit to go through with it despite the backlash you faced.
I agree that there is an analogy to animal suffering here, but there’s a difference in degree I think. To longtermists, the importance of future generations is many orders of magnitude higher than the importance of animal suffering is to animal welfare advocates. Therefore, I would claim, longtermists are more likely to ignore other non-longtermist considerations than animal welfare advocates would be.
Thanks!
Regarding the example, spending $5k on EA group dinners is really not that much if it has even a 2% chance to cause one additional career change.
How much of the impact generated by the career change are you attributing to CEA spending here? I’m just wondering because counterfactuals run into the issue of double-counting (as discussed here).
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the title. It clearly states the central point of the post.
Nice work! Just wanted to flag that the eaopp.com link is down for me.
This looks exciting! I plan to apply.
One reaction I have looking at the syllabus is that it’s too theoretical for me in the beginning. I feel like it would be better to have an applied component from the start. Maybe the first two weeks could be theory paired with writing a short distillation in the first week, getting feedback, and then refining it. The feedback loop of actually writing is probably by far the best way to improve distillation skills. This is just an impression I have though, so I could be wrong.
Thanks for pointing that out!