I graduated from Carnegie Mellon in ā22 with a BS in Information Systems and minors in Economics/āSoftware Engineering.
I currently work as a Software Engineer at a mid-sized medical company and advise family members on their donations.
My main interests are:
- Animal Welfare (particuarly numerous/ānegelected species)
- Reducing Suffering in the Long Term Future
I think itās similar to the FPP dynamics youāre referencing. Essentially, itās most advantageous to vote for candidates with broader appeal in the hopes they actually make it to the general election.
RCV wasnāt always proposed as a way to improve democracies. Take for instance this ballot initiative in my home state of Colorado https://āāballotpedia.org/āāColorado_Proposition_131,_Top-Four_Ranked-Choice_Voting_Initiative_(2024)
I very narrowly leaned yes on this (rather than a clear yes), because the Top Four Ranked Choice as proposed, would have only allowed political moderates to even make it to the ranked choice election.
I still generally support RCV and thereās definitely other reasons why these initiatives failed (like being anti-endorsed by incumbent/āestablishment politics) but wanted to point out that specific implementations of RCV arenāt always in favor of increasing democracy and this may be part of why many initiatives failed.
Itās certainly a problem that AVA LA is inaccessible for organizations operating in LMICās. Weāre navigating some unfortunate tradeoffs here primarily because of wealth inequality in the world (something that is far outside the scope of animal advocacy to fix). I think funders are far more likely to come to a US based conference as most funders are US (and to a lesser extent Europe) based.
A couple questions I have:
Do you have suggestions for alternative cities that are both accessible to funders (primarily based in the US and to a lesser extent Europe) and cheaper? Mexico City, some Texan cities, etc.. come to mind but still face tradeoffs.
I do think Reducetarian faces some of these tradeoffs a little better by being in slightly cheaper cities.
What is the benefit of coming to AVA that your organization is missing (i.e. are you primarily seeking funding, connections, etc...)?
I agree, it felt like a smug condemnation of anti-capitalism; followed by a statement about smug condemnations being bad!
āAt the very least, you shouldnāt smugly condemn those who endorse doing something about those kids dyingā
What would it even look like to truly live in accordance with this? I try to make altruistic decision with this lens (of a close to AGI world). Outside of altruism, I need to preserve my own sanity and just exist day by day!
Side note: beeper will kill the e2e encryption for any messaging platforms you trust. It looks like a good tool for everything but signal for me personally!
Thanks for writing this! Iāve wondered this and would be interested in seeing something similar for screwworms as well, if you ever get around to estimating that.
Iām also curious to know why you chose the same median welfare range as black soldier flies. Is this just the best guess you had, or is there a reason that mosquitoes would have similar experiences to them?
I actually do fit the persona quite well, so for me it wasnāt inputting the information; I just didnāt realize you needed to mark no on the giving pledge question (and it seemed like changing my answer to ānoā after I had already marked āyesā didnāt change the state of the form until I refreshed the page).
So, I would say it was mostly lack of instruction/āinability to change the state of that specific question.
Hope thatās clear! Totally understandable if it doesnāt really matter given that I am just trying it out but already engaged in EA/āpledges (so not really the target demographic).
Feedback on the tool:
I wanted to try it out, but it kept telling me to try the demo version instead if I wanted to see what it was like (maybe because I marked that I already pledge?). Even when I went to the demo link I couldnāt try the original position framework, it just referred me again to the demo link.
Update:
I got it to work by restarting and selecting no this time (it looks like it only evaluates once if it will show the empathy experience, so even if I went back and changed my answer to the pledge question, it still locked me out of the experience).
Any chance you can include videos/āimages in the experience portion or would this feel emotionally manipulative to your target audience?
Sound cool, excited to see what you can achieve!
Iāve never seen a BOTEC of DALYs/ā$ for land use reform so unsure how it compares to other interventions, but my impression is that it is in the EA discourse because OP funds it. I lean towards it not being an effective use of funds, but I have low confidence in that.
https://āāwww.openphilanthropy.org/āāfocus/āāland-use-reform/āā
Having defined budgets has been very helpful for me! Otherwise, I fall prey to the perils of maximization.
:(
IFF cultured meat is a technological inevitability. I donāt think this is necessarily true, we could also improve the efficiency of factory farming and create a very bad future for animals.
I think one thing lacking in the EtG community is actually feeling like youāre a part of the EA space. Since my day to day interaction is outside of the EA space, it can feel very difficult to remain value-aligned and socially close to people who share the same value system unless I put in a very concerted effort.
Based on my anecdotal experience, it could be very high value to have some sort of social community developed around this!
This isnāt exactly what you asked for, but the Rethink Priorities Cross-Cause Cost-Effectiveness Model tool or their Portfolio Builder Tool may be of interest to you!
What are your takeaways for backfire effects from interventions to reduce aquaculture?
Wonderful! I think I may have came off as anti-ballot measure in my comment but I actually canvassed for DD, 308, & 309. Thanks for sharing and thinking critically about future ballot initiatives. Iām excited to see what we come up with. :)
EATS act would just allow lower-welfare imports AFAIK. Iām wondering if anyone has an idea of how much this would actually impact welfare (i.e. in a massive state like California, is there enough price incentive to set up factory farms on the border post-EATS?)
In the US context, I am curious how tractable mail-in ballot reform is. This was passed in Arizona in 1991 and Colorado in 2013, although Iām unsure what the progress looks like at a large scale.
Not sure that existence is net positive in expectation, but improving futures seems more robust!