Rowan Clements 🔸

• Rowan Clements 🔸Jan 29, 2020, 1:30 AM

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  on: If Ve­ganism Is Not a Choice: The Mo­ral Psy­chol­ogy of Pos­si­bil­ities in An­i­mal Ethics

  Interesting! I’ve also experienced this, though the effect seems to be stronger for some animal products than others.

• Rowan Clements 🔸Jan 29, 2020, 1:28 AM

  2 points

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  on: Are there moral is­sues with donat­ing through a plat­form (such as a donor-ad­vised fund) that does not share name and con­tact info with char­i­ties?

  Good question.

  My intuition is that it depends on how large the donations are.

  I do some [volunteer] work with EA NZ, forwarding donations from New Zealanders to EA charities. Some of those charities have asked us to share the contact info of particularly large donors with them. (We check with the donors before doing so).

  I’m not entirely sure what the charities’ rationale for wanting the info is, but I get the impression that it’s a combination of the factors your friend raised. They have specifically mentioned wanting to thank major donors. Being able to contact those donors in the future may also help them fill funding gaps if there’s a shortfall or a time-sensitive project (though that’s just my speculation).

  Based on that, I’d say it isn’t as much of an issue for smaller amounts. And even for larger donations, I suspect the money is still more important than the donor information.

  So, if the convenience of using a platform makes it more likely for you to donate/​keep donating, I’d conclude that it’s probably worth it.

  As for what to put in your post, I’m not sure—are there obvious downsides to sharing the pros/​cons of each option? Do you think the extra layer of decision-making is likely to put people off donating altogether?

• Rowan Clements 🔸Jan 20, 2020, 4:36 AM

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  on: A glow­ing re­view of two free on­line MIT Global Poverty courses

  Thanks for the recommendation. I’m taking a development economics course/​paper at my university at the moment and have been a bit disappointed in the quality of the teaching. I might check these out as a supplement/​extension at some point.

• Rowan Clements 🔸Oct 20, 2019, 7:03 AM

  2 points

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  in reply to: MichaelStJules’s comment on: How can I hire an EA re­search as­sis­tant?

  Good point about reaching out to people involved in animal-specific groups.

  I know of EAs who work at Faunalytics and Animal Ethics, so they may be good places to try too.

  Animal Ethics explicitly offers to help people with animal-welfare related research /​ put them in touch with researchers in the field, so they may be receptive to questions.

• Rowan Clements 🔸Oct 20, 2019, 2:31 AM

  16 points

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  on: How can I hire an EA re­search as­sis­tant?

  Posting here on the forums seems like a good start— you may get some interest just by asking the question.

  As for other places to look, you could try posting on the EA Work Club or the Effective Altruism Job Postings Facebook group. Those seem to be dominated by listings for bigger/​flashier roles, but I suspect many people would like to work on smaller projects.

  Depending on what level of experience/​qualification you’re looking for, you could also try getting in touch with local EA groups that run out of universities. There may be students who are familiar with the subject area, have access to paid journal databases etc. and would be interested in part-time work on an EA-related topic.

  I somewhat fit into that category myself. I’m a student, work on contract as a research assistant for my university, and would be interested in picking up further hours on an EA-related literature review/​research project.

  I probably wouldn’t be the best choice in this case, as I don’t have a background in animal welfare. But I imagine there are other students in similar circumstances who might have the right background knowledge to be a good fit