Max Görlitz

• Max GörlitzMay 12, 2022, 10:47 AM

  3 points

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  on: Have you ever made a valuable con­nec­tion with some­one via the Fo­rum?

  In two instances people DM’d me about things I posted on the forum which lead to meeting them in person at EAG. These connections probably wouldn’t have happened without the prior conversation on the forum and I expect to reconnect with these people in the future. I would thus consider them quite valuable.

• Max GörlitzApr 30, 2022, 8:02 AM

  24 points

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  on: How do we cre­ate a cul­ture of am­bi­tion with­out de­te­ri­o­rat­ing the com­mu­nity’s men­tal health?

  I think I read this somewhere, but can’t remember who to attribute the idea to: Maybe we need something like an EA safety net, similar to an insurance. Knowing that you will have enough money to take care of your family even if you fail at your ambitious project would at least take away some of the anxiety of not succeeding. This would also be helpful in case you suffer burnout (which we should prevent in the first place!).

[Question] How do we cre­ate a cul­ture of am­bi­tion with­out de­te­ri­o­rat­ing the com­mu­nity’s men­tal health?

• Max GörlitzMar 2, 2022, 9:33 AM

  19 points

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  on: The Fu­ture Fund’s Pro­ject Ideas Competition

  DIY decentralized nucleic acid observatory

  Biorisk and Recovery from Catastrophes

  As part of the larger effort of building an early detection center for novel pathogens, a smaller self-sustaining version is needed for remote locations. The ideal early-detection center would not only have surveillance stations in the largest hubs and airports of the world, but also in as many medium sized ones as possible. For this it is needed to provide a ready-made, small and transportable product which allows meta-genomic surveillance of wastewater or air ventilation. One solution would be designing a workflow utilizing the easily scalable and portable technology of nanopore sequencing and combining it with a workflow to extract nucleic acids from wastewater. The sharing of instructions on how to build and use this method could lead to a “do it yourself” (DIY) and decentralized version of a nucleic acid observatory. Instead of staffing a whole lab at a central location, it would be possible to only have one or two personnel in key locations who use this product to sequence samples directly and only transmit the data to the larger surveillance effort.

• Max GörlitzDec 2, 2021, 12:19 PM

  13 points

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  on: Has any­thing in the EA global health sphere changed since the cri­tiques of “ran­domista de­vel­op­ment” 1-2 years ago?

  One thing that came to mind is that in the last year, it seems the EA community has payed more attention to the progress studies (PS) movement. They probably take an approach to global health and poverty which is more focused on economic growth.

[Question] Has any­thing in the EA global health sphere changed since the cri­tiques of “ran­domista de­vel­op­ment” 1-2 years ago?

• Max GörlitzNov 30, 2021, 8:03 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: Patrick Gruban 🔸’s comment on: Med­i­ta­tions on Caring

  Yes, I think it is very much worthwhile to experiment with your own phrasings and with different people. There are nuances and potentially you will find out which phrases work best for you.

• Max GörlitzNov 30, 2021, 8:01 AM

  1 point

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  in reply to: EdoArad’s comment on: Med­i­ta­tions on Caring

  Cool! I remember doing tonglen a few years ago after I saw a nice info-graphic about it. Wish I could find it again, but thanks for reminding me of its existence.

  I agree, feeling more compassion is what I was trying to achieve here. Yet I didn’t explicitly try to counteract scope neglect in that way.

Med­i­ta­tions on Caring

• Max GörlitzNov 21, 2021, 10:14 AM

  9 points

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  on: You are prob­a­bly un­der­es­ti­mat­ing how good self-love can be

  I enjoyed this post and really appreciate all the great resources! Recently I have also been thinking about this and just posted a short article on how to make metta meditation a bit easier for people who struggle with it. Maybe it will be useful to some of you, I would love to hear your feedback.

  Here is an excerpt:

  Instead of beginning with yourself, you first picture someone with whom you have a really uncomplicated and positive relationship. Wishing them well is much easier. Not only does this help with getting into the groove of building up the feeling of metta, but a certain framing can help you transition the focus to yourself more easily. Personally, I find this works best with a pet.

  For example, I may start with thinking of my dog and wishing him well using my preferred metta phrases. Then I try to imagine viewing myself through the eyes of my dog and also silently saying phrases like “May You be well.” To me, it comes very natural to imagine that my dog loves me a lot and is really happy to see me. Because of that, it isn’t hard to put myself into the position of my dog, imagining him e.g. being petted by me and wishing me all the best.

  Now comes the interesting part. Mirghafori gives the instruction of “joining voices” with, in this case, my dog. That means switching the phrasing to “May I be well” instead of You. Instead of viewing myself from the outside perspective of a friend, I now try to have a loving awareness of the body and mind which I experience from the inside.

• Max GörlitzNov 16, 2021, 1:09 PM

  2 points

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  on: Sleep: effec­tive ways to im­prove it

  About mindfulness: I have been meditating daily for a few years and have tried a bunch of different apps.

  The one I can recommend the most and use personally is Waking Up (https://​​wakingup.com/​​). Not only is it IMO the best app for mindfulness meditation, but they are also EA aligned. They signed the GWWC pledge and were among the first batch of companies to do so. If you can’t afford the subscription, you can email them and get it for free.

  Would be curious to hear what experiences others have had with meditation apps.

• Max GörlitzNov 16, 2021, 10:58 AM

  2 points

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  on: Sleep: effec­tive ways to im­prove it

  Thanks for writing this up, this is a good list. I used to struggle with getting to sleep for years, taking 1-2 hours to fall asleep on most days. To everybody with sleep problems, I want to encourage you to experiment with some of the above mentioned interventions. It is possible to improve your sleep. I have tried most of the things on this list and have had great success.

  Just as an anecdotal data point:

  One of the problems I had specifically was just going to bed way too late because I didn’t get tired earlier than midnight. Being a night-owl isn’t a problem per se, but honestly the world is more tailored to benefit early-risers. It sucks to have to cut short on your sleep because you have a mandatory Uni course at 08:00.

  For a few months I have been taking this 300mcg melatonin every day exactly at 17:00 after reading this article. It reliably makes me tired at 22:00-23:00 and I fall asleep astoundingly quickly if I go to bed in that time range. Something interesting I noticed is that when I go to bed later than that time, e.g. at 02:00, my tiredness is gone again and I find it much harder to fall asleep. Not sure if this is just placebo. Keep in mind that this will vary from person to person and my experience is probably different from yours. Also I do at least 5 other things to sleep better so there are many confounders and I don’t know how much to attribute to using melatonin. Just experiment and see what works for you.

  (I’m not a doctor and this is not medical advice)

• Max GörlitzAug 23, 2021, 7:09 AM

  4 points

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  on: “The Precipice” by Toby Ord flash­cards now live :)

  Thanks for sharing Alex.

  I am also a big fan of Anki and SuperMemo and have spent hundreds of hours using both. Issa Rice already put up some great links to Master How To Learn and SuperMemo Guru under your previous post. I also wanted to point to the SuperMemo community wiki. Incremental reading in SuperMemo has been really useful to me and I think lots of people could benefit from it, but it is harder to get into. The community over there is really helpful. Also if anyone has questions about it, feel free to message me. I have also thought about writing up my thoughts regarding effective learning with those programs but haven’t gotten around to doing so. Partly also because there are already some decent resources, although I would agree that none are close to optimum yet.

• Max GörlitzJun 24, 2021, 1:11 PM

  5 points

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  in reply to: Pablo’s comment on: What are some key num­bers that (al­most) ev­ery EA should know?

  I would also definitely use it, just one suggestion: It would be cool if you include a field with the source link for the number so it is easy to go back and take a look. I know it will be quite some work so thanks a ton!

• Max GörlitzMay 13, 2021, 6:54 PM

  3 points

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  on: AMA: Tim Fer­riss, Michael Pol­lan, and Dr. Matthew W. John­son on psychedelics re­search and philanthropy

  What is especially neglected but promising within psychedelic science?

• Max GörlitzMay 13, 2021, 6:49 PM

  29 points

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  on: AMA: Tim Fer­riss, Michael Pol­lan, and Dr. Matthew W. John­son on psychedelics re­search and philanthropy

  How could psychedelics-assisted therapy be scaled up? Isn’t this super hard because you need at least two trained professionals on multiple lengthy occasions? Where will those people come from?

• Max GörlitzMay 13, 2021, 6:45 PM

  15 points

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  on: AMA: Tim Fer­riss, Michael Pol­lan, and Dr. Matthew W. John­son on psychedelics re­search and philanthropy

  How do you feel about people flying to e.g. Jamaica and going on psilocybin retreats? Is this a net positive or could it be a problem for changing the image of psychedelics towards a legal medicine?

• Max GörlitzMay 13, 2021, 6:38 PM

  31 points

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  on: AMA: Tim Fer­riss, Michael Pol­lan, and Dr. Matthew W. John­son on psychedelics re­search and philanthropy

  What is the best case against psychedelics being an important area?

• Max GörlitzMay 13, 2021, 6:37 PM

  22 points

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  on: AMA: Tim Fer­riss, Michael Pol­lan, and Dr. Matthew W. John­son on psychedelics re­search and philanthropy

  How much evidence is there for microdosing having an effect significantly larger than placebo? From this conversation with James Fadiman I got the impression that it is more underwhelming than I thought.

• Max GörlitzMay 13, 2021, 6:33 PM

  6 points

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  on: AMA: Tim Fer­riss, Michael Pol­lan, and Dr. Matthew W. John­son on psychedelics re­search and philanthropy

  Hi! Thanks for doing this. I read How To Change Your Mind a few years ago and quite enjoyed it, which lead me to following this space since then. A few questions come to mind right now but I’ll post them separately. Feel free to answer what is interesting and ignore what seems less important.

  First off: How do you see the regulatory environment around psychedelics changing in the next decade? IIRC from this podcast with Rick Doblin, it looks like MDMA could be decriminalized in the US in the next years and psilocybin might follow a few years after that. Is this correct?