I am going to engage less with EA forum/LW as a result of this and a few similar interactions, and I am especially going to be more hesitant to be critical of EA/LW sacred cows.
This makes me sad as I enjoy reading your comments and find them insightful. That said, I understand and support your reasoning. I feel as though some amount of “mistake mindset” has disappeared a little in the two years I’ve been reading the forum.
I appreciate the effort to make the general consensus around trust towards EA-orgs more legible.
Given the criticism that the three mentioned receive (much of it directed towards CEA), it’s interesting (and IMO good) to see that most people emailed are broadly trusting of them.
Thanks for sharing your post!
Pharmaceutical companies won’t go and release hundreds of dud or dangerous drugs just because they can. That would ruin their brand and shut down their business.
I briefly skimmed through the wikipedia list of withdrawn drugs. I looked at those withdrawn in the US or worldwide since 2007 (only eleven).
As far as I could tell (and I easily could have missed something) none of the associated pharma companies seem to have been financially ruined. The only ones who no longer existed (Wyeth and Celltech) were bought out by other pharma companies for princely sums (Wyeth by Pfizer for $68billion and Celltech by UCB for £1.5billion) before the recalls happened.
I guess doesn’t seem clear to me that pharma companies face threatening risks of ruining their brands and shutting down their business if they produce more inefficient or even more dangerous drugs than already. Even thalidomide didn’t destroy its parent company (Grünenthal).
I’m sure someone who knows more can correct me, but the only example of this happening in recent times Purdue Pharma.
Some useful advice I was once given:
->Try and apply to enough jobs / opportunities so that when the rejection letters / emails come in you no longer remember applying
I hope this is somewhat helpful!
Ah, thank you!
I searched for that comment. I think this is probably the one you’re referencing.
I haven’t read too much into this and am probably missing something.
Why do you think FTXFF was receiving grants via north dimension? The brief googling I did only mentioned north dimension in the context of FTX customers sending funds to FTX (specifically this SEC complaint). I could easily have missed something.
Thank you for putting this together!
I’d discussed with another organizer how so many useful EA resources were scattered around in different hidden google docs. You’ve done something worthwhile linking many of them in one place.
Thank you for writing this up!! I found it insightful and helpful.
It’s extremely hard to correlate low energy to the correct causes and ruling out sleep is one of the most effective things you can do.
As someone who’s had at times a less than optimal sleep cycle, I strongly agree with this. Removing sleep as a potential cause can make it much easier to spot why one is consistently tired / drained.
Having an accountability buddy. I suspect most people already know what this is (having someone who knows your daily/weekly/monthly goals and helps you stay committed to them).
It’s probably a more commonly known practice than those in the other comments but still an underrated one.
One other place doing work that seems relevant/adjacent is the Qualia Research Institute.
Looks like they were serious! Google announced earlier their MusicLM.
Hello! I’m a bio/ biomedical student / EA Ireland organizer. Am interested in GCBRs, policy and technical responses and the dual-use dilemma. Just finished running some proto-fellowships on biosecurity.
Wonderful work! I have nothing I can offer other than encouragement as this defiantly seems worth researching!
I agree with this, but also think the forum “not being cuddly for Sean” and “not driving contributors away” aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe I am not seeing all the tradeoffs though.