sanyer

• sanyer 7 Apr 2026 6:34 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jeff Kaufman 🔸’s comment on: A sim­ple idea for mak­ing dona­tion match­ing counterfactual

  I think you’re probably right. The possibility of the funder being their own matcher-of-last-resort probably destroys the scheme. I hadn’t thought about this before, thanks for pointing it out.

  One potential way to fix this would be to require the identification of donors, so that you cannot fund anonymously. But this would make the proposal a bit more complicated.

• sanyer 7 Apr 2026 6:29 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Dacyn’s comment on: A sim­ple idea for mak­ing dona­tion match­ing counterfactual

  I’d say that using donation matching without making it counterfactual is much more manipulative, because without establishing causality, you’d essentially be deceiving potential ‘matchers’. My proposal precisely aims to remove this deceptive potential.

  It’s possible that this kind of donation matching essentially shifts power to large funders. I think this could be mitigated by having a long whitelist of effective charities (rather than one specific charity chosen by the funder), which gives matchers more leeway.

• sanyer 19 Dec 2025 11:02 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: peterbarnett’s comment on: pe­ter­bar­nett’s Shortform

  Just to clarify, is the 8-week period for all participants? And if so, will you still accept some applications after the date has be decided?

  
  I might apply but I could only participate if the program was organized in July-August. But given that it could occur any time between February and August, I probably won’t apply since it’s only like 1/​7th chance it will start in July.

• sanyer 8 Apr 2025 14:55 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Policy school can be a re­ally good deal. The case for go­ing and tips for applying

  For people considering a policy Master’s degree in Europe, here’s a list of Masters Programs in Tech Policy, Public Policy and Security (Europe) that could be useful.

• sanyer 21 Feb 2024 8:00 UTC

  31 points

  6 ∶ 0

  on: New Open Philan­thropy Grant­mak­ing Pro­gram: Forecasting

  As the program is about forecasting, what is your stance on the broader field of foresight & futures studies? Why is forecasting more promising than some other approaches to foresight?

• sanyer 12 Nov 2023 12:20 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Pa­trick Gruban on Effec­tive Altru­ism Ger­many and Non­profit Boards in EA

  Is this/​other episodes available on Spotify or other podcast platforms? I couldn’t find it with a quick search

• sanyer 15 Oct 2023 23:14 UTC

  1 point

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Cody_Fenwick’s comment on: San­teri Koivula’s Quick takes

  Thanks for the response! It’s great to see that animals are mentioned in many other pages on the website. I understand the difficulty of tradeoffs between succintness and precision.

• sanyer 15 Oct 2023 10:20 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Larks’s comment on: San­teri Koivula’s Quick takes

  I’m not sure if I follow. I guess strict veganism would be a more effective signal then, since it would be more costly? But I see even less people in the EA/​rationalist circles being vegan rather than vegetarian.

• sanyer 15 Oct 2023 10:14 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: AnonymousTurtle’s comment on: San­teri Koivula’s Quick takes

  I agree that it makes sense, although using the term “people” and mentioning that it means also non-human animals in a footnote seems a bit dishonest to me. I’m uncertain about the tradeoffs between telling the truth and trying to maximize impact here.

• sanyer 15 Oct 2023 10:11 UTC

  3 points

  4 ∶ 2

  in reply to: det’s comment on: San­teri Koivula’s Quick takes

  That’s helpful to know, thanks! I still think the word “people” is quite misleading in the sense that people rarely associate it with nonhuman animals. I also think there might be an additional reason for not mentioning animals, which is to avoid alienating people who don’t care about animals but who are interested in longtermist causes.

• sanyer 14 Oct 2023 14:03 UTC

  38 points

  15 ∶ 7

  on: San­teri Koivula’s Quick takes

  I was quite suprised to see that 80k doesn’t mention animals in their definition of ‘impartial positive impact’.
  
  Their definition: “We define ‘impartial positive impact’ as what helps the most people live better lives in the long term, treating everyone’s interests as equal.”
  
  I’m a bit unsettled by this. I hope they actually do assign value for non-human animals. But even if that’s the case, failing to mention it would be weird.
  
  In general, I’m concerned that longtermists don’t value animals enough. From my experience visiting rationalist/​longermist events & spaces, veganism/​vegetarianism is less popular than I would have thought. I consider vegetarianism one of the least costly virtue signals, which is why I would expect most healthy people concerned about animal welfare to be vegetarians.

• sanyer 8 Oct 2023 16:10 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: As­ter­isk Magaz­ine Is­sue 03: AI

  The link to a paper of diffusion capacity in the article about China by Jeffrey Ding seems to be broken.

• sanyer 18 Jul 2023 12:38 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Open Philan­thropy Un­der­grad­u­ate Schol­ar­ship—New Ap­pli­ca­tion Round (2023/​24)

  Does there exist an equivalent for Master’s degrees?

• sanyer 19 Feb 2023 14:05 UTC

  1 point

  0 ∶ 0

  on: CZEA Strat­egy and “Ul­ti­mate” Report

  The strategy doesn’t seem to be available anymore. The link gives me “404 - page not found”.