Minh Nguyen

Karma: 785

I proposed the Nonlinear Emergency Fund and Superlinear as Nonlinear Intern.^[1]

I co-founded Singapore’s Fridays For Future (featured on Al Jazeera and BBC). After arrests + 1 year of campaigning, Singapore adopted all our demands (Net Zero 2050, $80 Carbon Tax and fossil fuel divestment).

I developed a student forum with >300k active users and a study site with >25k users. I founded an education reform campaign with the Singapore Ministry of Education.

^
I proposed both ideas at the same time as the Nonlinear team, so we worked on these together.

Minh Nguyen Aug 28, 2022, 5:38 PM
6 points
0 ∶ 0
on: I’m building an EA-University / Institute (and I need your help)
Well, I’m an EA and I’ve scaled+secured funding for large-scale edutech ventures. My only comment would be to provide a compelling reason for someone to apply to DI. In edutech, I find there are 3 approaches:
1. Securing funding from other institutions. By far the most common approach. Actual user experience becomes secondary if you can somehow convince schools/workplaces to sufficiently fund this, and you essentially secure a captive audience. Obviously, incentives skew here.
2. Be fun and engaging to use, and then offer premium features.
3. Present a viable alternative (in at least one niche area) to traditional education certificates
I have previously tried out an idea similar to yours. Singapore has the Skillsfuture program that subsidises job skills retraining. In theory, this is a forward-thinking move. However, in practice, the vast majority of the funding is given to the best marketers, not the best teachers. Mid-career tech transitions (usually forced) are an absolute bloodbath, and I suspect people in this job search are less receptive to adopting EA principles than they would be early in their career. After a while, the brain kind of goes into “I need a job regardless of whether it aligns with any principles”, if that makes sense.
That said I don’t know your context and future predictions based on past trends are notoriously bad, so I certainly encourage you to try.

Minh Nguyen Aug 23, 2022, 4:38 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Mo Putera’s comment on: Protest movements: How effective are they?
(Also, to be honest, it makes me look bad when I claim something is cost-effective but can’t provide a single real-world example with numbers to back up that claim.)
I think it’s an epistemic issue inherent to impacts caused by influencing decision making.
For example, let’s say I present a very specific, well-documented question: “Did dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki save more lives than it took?”
The costs here are specific: Mainly deaths caused by the atomic bombs (roughly 200k people)
The lives saved are also established: Deaths caused by each day the Japanese forces continued fighting, projections of deaths caused by the planned invasion of mainland Japan and famines caused the naval blockade of Japan.
There are detailed records of the entire decision making process at both a personal and macro level. In fact, a lot of the key decision makers were alive post-war to give their opinions. However, the question remains controversial in public discourse because it’s hard to pin a number to factors influencing policy decisions. Could you argue that since the Soviet declaring war was the trigger for surrender, mayyyybe the surrender would have happened without the bombs?
Activism is way more nebulous and multivariate, so even significant impacts would be hard to quantify in an EA framework. Personally, I do see the case for underweighing activism within EA. So many other movement already prioritise activism, and in my experience it’s super difficult to make quantitative arguments when a culture centres around advocacy. However, I would really like to see some exploration, if only so I don’t have to switch gears between my diff friend groups.

Minh Nguyen Aug 23, 2022, 4:00 AM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Zach Stein-Perlman’s comment on: Most social activity will reside in VR by 2030
I’ve dabbled in studying technological adoption (telegraph, phone, radio, TV, internet etc).
If I had to make this case, I would define parameters as:
What % of people use this medium every day/week/month? A more interesting sub-question would be to compare users of multiple platforms or users that “leapfrog” and use newer platforms without using older ones. For example, many people in developing regions use mobile internet but don’t own PC. Mobile gaming is close to making more annual revenue than console and PC combined. And some crypto apps like Axie Infinity have reported high number of users who do not have a fiat bank account.
What % of people would cite this medium as a means of contacting friends/family/spouses?
What % of people use this medium as primary means of making new friendships/relationships? For example, we’ve recently passed a threshold where 40% of newly married couples met online, which a strong indicator of social habits shifting online.
I’m not in tune with the VR industry, but it’s not the worst bet if you think VR adoption will follow the same rapid growth trajectory as mobile platforms.

Minh Nguyen Aug 23, 2022, 3:42 AM
9 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Protest movements: How effective are they?
This is very valuable!
I’m an undergrad, and I’ve been juggling EA and non-EA activism for several years.^[1] I always felt EA could benefit more from research on social movements, because activism can yield very cost-effective results with shockingly little expenditure. I do get why it’s not a big focus for the broader movement (protests being hard to quantify, controversy, EAs not really being activist types), but I’d certainly consider it neglected.
For example, climate activism is, in my opinion, a successful example of global activism bringing a niche x-risk into the mainstream, resulting in real policy change. Climate support suffers from pluralistic ignorance, where individuals underestimate public support for certain beliefs, and hence publicly understate their own support. Essentially, “I support climate action but don’t believe others do.” is an incredibly common concern I’ve heard, and it seems the only consistent way to bypass this is frequent public displays of widespread support.
More research on how public opinion for important issues can be funneled into solutions is very valuable.
1. ^
  I ended up on BBC, Al Jazeera and others for climate activism. It was very interesting to watch people say “I agree climate change is a big deal but I disagree with your methods” in a thousand different ways.

Minh Nguyen Aug 23, 2022, 3:28 AM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Radical Empath Ismam’s comment on: Protest movements: How effective are they?
Not OP but I have organised protests and researched the topic to inform my organising.
My answer is that it’s like any strategy: you have to make the right tradeoffs aligning with your goals. You will find many example of massively unpopular but effective protests (MLK’s protests for example had a >70% disapproval rating) or larger more popular protests that did not achieve their goals (pro-democracy protests in HK). A general rule like “don’t protest like this, it doesn’t historically work” is massively dependent on your specific context, and how the organisers execute. It’s entire possible for the same strategy to have inconsistent results.
I find it more productive to view protests as campaigns with defined goals. For example, economic disruptions and strikes would work if your issue has a broad support base, like issues of inequality, climate change or cost of living. It is highly unlikely to work in cases of minority rights, such as gay rights or protection of racial-religious minorities. Because if you do that, the majority could easily distance themselves from you and not display solidarity. Gender issues are a mixed bag.
Sorry if that’s not a helpful answer, but if you give me an example I can probably tailor the recommendations better.

Minh Nguyen Aug 23, 2022, 3:14 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Should EA shift away (a bit) from elite universities?
Yeah there’s way too many variables.
Anecdotally, the most engaged young EAs I’ve come across are usually heavily into liberal arts (a lot of philo and history majors) or CS majors. I’d find it difficult to make meaningful major-specific strategies off of that.

Minh Nguyen Aug 23, 2022, 3:10 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Marcel D’s comment on: Should EA shift away (a bit) from elite universities?
This actually aligns with my experience as well. Without external prompting, I find that students from “elite” schools were the most proactive. In Singapore there’s only been one high school chapter. EA SG would have supported any HS student who asked, but that school was the only one that had any. Likewise, I later cofounded a climate advocacy org with someone I messaged on Twitter who was the first person to conduct climate protest in Singapore, and us cofounders were from the two top schools even though we would have taken anyone. I suppose it’s combination of curiosity+privilege.

But in any case, I think it’s good not to assume current movement trends reflect some universal truth. I think EA should broaden its reach as much as it can, and methodical attempts at boosting participation is good. Heck, if you look at the most common alma maters of EAs, there’s some distinctly non-Ivy, non Russell Group unis at the top distributions that prove anomalous outrach efforts can make a difference. No reason to say no to that.

Minh Nguyen Aug 21, 2022, 2:25 PM
6 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Andrew Carnegie and Public Libraries: A Model of Effective Altruism
Carnegie’s philanthropy really fascinates me. His support for the Efficiency Movement, for example, strikes me as a sign that he would have liked Effective Altruism. I also spent much of high school doing education policy advocacy and building online student/support resources used by thousands of students, so the exponential benefit of knowledge sharing very much resonates with me.
However, I often wonder: Would interventions that we retroactively consider “very good examples of EA” have been considered EA at the time?
For example, correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t think I’ve ever come across research covering education and literacy initiatives in an EA context. Global health research focuses on reducing disease burden, and not education or knowledge infrastructure initiatives that are comparable to what Carnegie did.
And certainly, contemporary EAs could argue that Carnegie could have spent his fortune reducing developing world disease burden or reducing the risk of great power conflict. Fun fact, Carnegie offered to purchase the Philippines’ independence for $20 million ($700 Million today) and campaigned for Filipino independence until his death.
Some historical interventions like the eradication of smallpox or the Green Revolution fit quite closely within existing EA frameworks, but others like Carnegie’s libraries or Ralph Nader’s advocacy for seat belt and safety regulation strike me as harder to fit under current EA frameworks.
I think this is an important question to ask. If EAs in fifty years are applauding interventions that the current EA movement is undervaluing, then I feel that reflects a misjudgement somewhere.

Minh Nguyen Aug 21, 2022, 12:45 PM
10 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Should EA shift away (a bit) from elite universities?
As someone who’s been to a <5% acceptance rate school and a school that no one outside my city knows exists, I agree with this assessment.

To ground this discussion, I’ll be using stats from the 2020 EA demographics survey.
Specifically, this chart of EA’s alma maters.
As you can see, that’s a huge overrepresentation from elite universities. Over ¹⁄₃ of respondents come from Oxbridge or T20 universities. The top-heaviness is even wilder if you dig into EA’s funding sources. By 80k’s own estimates, 80% of EA’s funding essentially comes from the work of Dustin Moskovitz from Harvard and Sam Bankman-Fried from MIT.^[1]
There’s arguably some justification for this:
1. Impact has a top-heavy distribution. I forget which post I saw, but the basic premise was that in the same way EA charities can be 1,000 times more impactful than the average charity, the work of a few influential EAs can be 1,000 times more impactful than the average EA. Some examples cited were AI research and policy. Personally, I agree. Do I want to think of myself as a temporarily embarrassed billionaire philanthropist? Sure. But realistically, why the hell would I have a problem with someone doing a lot of good? Go nuts.
2. On the wealth front, you could argue that’s just a reflection of existing systemic inequality. Global and societal wealth is largely concentrated in the top 10% or top 1%, and any nonprofit seeking funds would essentially mirror that distribution. And in any case, unless EA prioritises wealth redistribution as a nonnegotiable movement goal/cause area, isn’t it a good thing that there are billionaires using their wealth, privilege and influence to fund solutions instead of demanding normal people donate? I try to donate, but I’m thankful the movement doesn’t have to live or die based on whether a thousand EAs buy slightly more expensive ergonomic chairs or nice meals every Friday.
However, I think the argument for diversity remains compelling:
1. In terms of neglectedness, this early in the movement, it’s just logical to reach out to underrepresented demographics. A worldwide movement of a few thousand people should be evolving and adapting, and the 99% of institutions that are underrepresented present a compelling case. If this were a cause area exploration, it would be really weird to settle for engaging the top 1% just because they responded first.
2. EA is ultimately about using evidence and reason to do the most good. Compared to other goals like making a lot of money, this goal benefits from diversity of perspective. If EA wants to solve humanity’s problems, you’d think it would be beneficial to have more perspectives that are closer to explored cause areas, or perspectives that can make a case for a currently-neglected cause area.
Overall, I agree. And for certain EAs reading this who remain unconvinced, I doubt EA would have grown to what it is today if Will Macaskill had decided that American EAs weren’t worth the trouble of reaching out to, or that certain initially-unpopular cause areas weren’t worth acknowledging.
1. ^
  Yes, I know FTX has a very EA-aligned team and is not just SBF. However, if you attempt to break down the actual alma maters of the FTX leadership, you’ll find it only strengthens my point.

Minh Nguyen Aug 20, 2022, 4:29 PM
9 points
0 ∶ 0
on: How many EA Billionaires five years from now?
I obviously know little of the billionaire shadow cabal which runs the world, but I’ll comment on this:
Establishing a prominent, highly visible, highly scalable flagship project could greatly increase publicity and the receptiveness of high net worth individuals.
I’ve founded a few advocacy orgs before. People seem much more enthusiastic to support a big ambitious project than a disparate bunch of good ideas. Currently, there are multiple fairly small established organisations, but nothing like The Gates Foundation seeks to eradicate malaria. In practical terms, there’s no reason why multiple highly effective initiatives are less worth funding, but it’s a psychology thing IMO.
Do correct me if you think this is wrong, haha.

Minh Nguyen Aug 20, 2022, 4:13 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Effective Altruism Risks Perpetuating a (Severely) Harmful Worldview
Aight some comments:
As others mentioned, crisis periods are pretty frequent: post 9-11 era+GFC, post-Soviet conflicts, the entire Cold War, WW2, the interwar years, WW1+Spanish Flu+rise of Communism, the Victorian colonial era etc.
As a climate activist, I disagree on climate action being hindered by EA. Combatting climate change has received hundreds of billions in funding, decades of advocacy and near-unanimous intergovernmental cooperation. It’s neglected on a macro scale, but on the radar of a lot of influential, competent and conscientious people. Plus, anecdotally, I find that many EAs are either heavily reducing their own carbon footprint, working on farmed animal welfare which does contribute to decarbonisation or themselves working directly in climate work and engaging with the EA community in other meaningful capacities.
My general sense is that your criticisms are valid, but sort of assuming “if EA had several orders of magnitude more influence, what problems might it cause when it influences mainstream discourse”. It’s theoretically sound but the uncertainty of projections so far out is hard to prove or disprove.

Minh Nguyen Aug 19, 2022, 12:34 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: John_T_Maier’s comment on: Cause Exploration: Child and Adolescent Mental Health in LMICs
Seconding the effectiveness of peer support interventions being potentially underexplored (disclaimer: it’s my submission lol).

Minh Nguyen Aug 19, 2022, 11:11 AM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Rhodri Davies on why he’s not an EA
hmmmmn further implementation questions hehe

The community building part doesn’t surprise me, I’ll read stuff other people have written, unless there’s an unpopular take you have that you’d like to mention. And of course shotgunning program and grant applications
I’m interested in the civilisational collapse thing. I always considered it a valid and meaningful area of investment. I’m curious how you’d recommend someone early in their career get in on this? Because I always implicitly assumed “the government was handling it”, and that you’d need 30 years of civil service experience before getting to do anything.
What would you recommend to get started on forecasting? I have a fairly above-average track record especially for unusual occurences, and would not mind doing it as a hobby or full time. My issue was that I hated seeing decision makers ignore my findings/predictions, hence why I first went so hard into advocacy. I struggle to see how forecasting could go mainstream, but I find I’m earlier to trends than I expect.

Minh Nguyen Aug 19, 2022, 12:55 AM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Rhodri Davies on why he’s not an EA
I’m volunteering there at EAGx, since I’m a matriculating student at the university itself!

In general, I’ve just been trawling around for more interesting projects to work on that have high uncertainty and require various skillsets. I get very uninspired with normal school/academic stuff, and I’m noticing other people can climb the career ladder better than I can so might as well lean into building. So I’m just starved for ideas.

Minh Nguyen Aug 18, 2022, 10:32 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Rhodri Davies on why he’s not an EA
Well … I’m not surprised, although I did not specifically know there was bad blood there. Were people reacting negatively to monetizing Pandora’s Lootbox, so to speak?
Also, I went down the rabbit hole of your profile for a bit; I’m broadly curious what interesting megaprojects you’d personally like to see attempted? I’m risk-taking, bored and like to think I’m entrepreneurial, so I’d like to take a wack at some speculative ideas that don’t exist yet.

edit: bruh i saw the edit, now i have to edit

Well honestly, I think EAs on an individual+philosophical level disagree more than they publicly show. Just meeting actual EAs, I see the occasional clash between neartermism vs longtermism, messaging, community building, animal vs human prioritisations. Of course this hasn’t spiral into anything bad, but it’s there. I think if every EA was billionaire, we’d see more awkward distancing as everyone pushes forward with their own thing. I don’t think Bill Gates actively associates with AMF, Givewell or EA even though the Gates Foundation is actively working to eradicate malaria among other illness.

As for the object-level, yeah some are weird, but the net benefit is still great. I chalk it down to duds being inevitable when you take that many risks. For comparison, Steve Jobs certainly drove the consumer electronics industry forward, but he oversaw plenty of stupid duds that almost destroyed Apple. And he almost named the MacIntosh the “Bicycle”.

Minh Nguyen Aug 18, 2022, 9:55 PM
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Linch’s comment on: Rhodri Davies on why he’s not an EA
I mean, SpaceX, OpenAI, Neuralink and Tesla all have goals ostensibly related to x-risk and longtermism, and hve made strides in those areas. I can’t think of many billionaires running one x-risk/longtermist focused company, let alone several.
Plus his review of What We Owe The Future is “Worth reading. This is a close match for my philosophy.”
I get that he’s controversial and objectionable in other areas, but he’s clearly a longtermist.

Minh Nguyen Aug 18, 2022, 8:49 PM
1 point
0 ∶ 0
on: The Basefund Survey
This is a super interesting idea!

For potential donors who are risk-averse or financially insecure and unsure about their first few donations, I think this will significantly boost willingness to donate. I’d also expect redemption rates to be pretty low. All this strikes me as feasible to test on a limited scale. Some implementation concerns:

(Asking anyone who might know) How much might this complicate funding allocation/accounting/planning? I’m not 100% privy to the inner workings at Givewell or OpenPhil, maybe this will increase funding uncertainty and planning. I’d assume that any significant implementation would grow to comprise most donations, since it’s better to have the option than not. edit: I’m assuming the emergency fund would communicate/integrate closely with funds themselves, since it would seem smoother and more secure that way instead of operating 100% independent

What happens in financial crises with abnormally high withdrawal rates? Short-term crashes are practically inevitable, and I’m imagining the headache that comes with a “bank run”.

I’m pretty sure some nonprofit somewhere has thought of this, and come up with useful answers or other creative implementations. Perhaps a solution is to simply provide a warranty? (i.e. no questions asked return policy with ²⁄₃ years) This way, funds can maintain an element of financial certainty, and they can give the money back at their discretion anyway.

I’m curious to discuss this more and lend my limited fundraising/entrepreneurship/UX perspectives. I think the premise itself is promising, and plays on the EA community’s strengths of mutual helpfulness and goodwill.

Minh Nguyen Aug 18, 2022, 3:37 PM
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Are AGI timelines ignored in EA work on other cause areas?
Judging by the ratio, I’d like to clarify that I’m not disagreeing at all.

I’m saying that
1. For the entire 1950-1990 period, if we follow present-day trends of AI risk gaining prominence within EA relative to global health, the nuclear risk faction could have made a credible case that it deserved the most priority by far. Humanity was just incredibly close to nuclear war at multiple points.
2. However, crowding out other causes meant that things like global health would have been neglected for decades, even though the cause landscape remained roughly the same since no nuclear war occurred. There are projects like the Global Seed Vault that do combine ideas within nuclear risk and global health, but the actual neartermist global health faction would overall be drowned out.
3. Even if EA research had concluded a lack of tractability, that doesn’t mean they can steer discourse and resources back towards other causes that are tractable. If nuclear war was a cause area that received way more attention and funding in the movement, it will induce bias.
I’m not opposing investigations of inter-causal impacts, I’m cautioning that such a focus might overestimate the X-Risk impacts, because people catastrophise on highly uncertain scary risks and develop tunnel vision. You could make the opposite case, too. I think most EAs heavily underestimated COVID’s impact on other cause areas, considering COVID was never an existential-level pandemic threat.

Minh Nguyen Aug 18, 2022, 2:08 PM
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Are AGI timelines ignored in EA work on other cause areas?
It’s definitely a blindspot, since I generally don’t see overlap between highly engaged EAs doing both AI risk work and global health work/animal welfare work. At this early stage of the movement, I’m seeing most of work done by early-mid career professionals who have prioritised building their expertise in applying EA to one field to yield exponential impact.

That said, some caveats:
- “What AGI does” is not common consensus to begin with. Yes, there are compelling and influential theories, but an actionable, quantitative prediction of exactly how AGI will affect other causes is quite far off.
- Existing AI risk organisations are mostly focusing on the technical details of AI, which reflects in their hiring. To actionably assess socioeconomic impacts would require hiring huge and well-resourced teams of economists, doctors, policy analysts that are specialised in both AI and policy topics. I’m not aware of a major hiring push in this direction, at least in EA. Some governments like Singapore and China are actively studying the societal impacts of AI.
- I sometimes tell fellow EAs that cause tunnel vision can hinder progress. If the EA movement had been around in 1950, it would have spent 40 years dominated by the “nuclear war risk” faction, with dubious impact at the expense of research on other causes. After all, why would developing world poverty matter in a nuclear winter, which has such a high probability of occurring?
However, I get what you’re saying. Overall, I do think cross-cause collaboration would yield some benefit, even if just in a speculative wargaming capacity. COVID-19 has showed that one existential risk coming to fruition, even on a limited scale, can greatly alter trajectories elsewhere.

Minh Nguyen Aug 18, 2022, 1:35 PM
26 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Rhodri Davies on why he’s not an EA
Another spiritual EA predecessor is the Efficiency Movement . Focusing on improving the efficiency of existing institutions to improve public welfare, EM had a lot of support from philanthropists like Rockefeller and Carnegie, politicians like Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover and other notable figures like Brandeis and Bedeux. While not a 1-to-1 comparison, I think the focus on methodology and process analysis to maximise societal good across diverse cause areas appealed to the same demographic.

It’s like if EA managed to secure the backing of all the FAANG founders, several POTUSes and broad support in activist organisations. Apparently, it did inspire business process innovations, modern conservationism and antitrust initiatives, tackling major issues of the time.

I can’t find info on the “downfall” of EM. It seems to have just faded out of the public spotlight postwar. Perhaps it focused too much on few influential decision makers instead of appealing to the public. Like how Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin and SBF are extremely supportive of EA, but the public doesn’t associate any of them as “EA public figures” unless they actively look.