Toby Tremlett🔹

Karma: 9,459

Hello! I’m Toby. I’m the Senior Content Strategist for CEA’s Online Team. I work with the team to make sure the Forum is a great place to discuss doing the most good we can. You’ll see me posting a lot, authoring the EA Newsletter and curating Forum Digests, making moderator comments and decisions, and more.

Outside of work, I’m hosting a podcast with my friend Frances: The World Can Be Better, and writing blogposts on anything I feel like.

Before working at CEA, I studied Philosophy at the University of Warwick, and worked for a couple of years on a range of writing and editing projects within the EA space. Recently I helped run the Amplify Creative Grants program, to encourage more impactful podcasting and YouTube projects.

Toby Tremlett🔹 7 Jun 2026 19:24 UTC
27 points
0 ∶ 0
on: tobytrem’s Quick takes
Me and @Fran are co-hosting a podcast, The World Can Be Better! (hosted on Substack, also on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube)
In our first co-hosted episode we interview @finm about better futures, the intelligence explosion, and Fin’s underrated post ‘No ghost in the machine’.
We’ll be recording more episodes soon. We’re aiming to a) keep it accessible to an interested but non-specialist audience, and b) to talk to cool people who are working on making the world better. This is on top of full time jobs for both of us, so we’re not promising weekly uploads or anything too fancy.
LMK in the comments or dm if there is someone you’d love to be a guest on our podcast! The ideal guest is a) doing good effectively in an interesting way and b) is down to joke around a bit.

Toby Tremlett🔹 5 Jun 2026 8:44 UTC
2 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Global Health Charity Founders on GiveWell, Evidence Action, and M+E
I’m curating this post because a) it’s interesting and worth reading, and b) I’d love to encourage more people to share slack conversations in this way. It’s one of the best uses of LLMs for Forum content I’ve seen.

Toby Tremlett🔹 3 Jun 2026 8:06 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Why Even Experts Don’t Know What to Do About AI Risk
Great use of AI-generated cartoons! Not a sentence I expected to say. The ice cream one is especially good.

Toby Tremlett🔹 31 May 2026 7:38 UTC
6 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: david_reinstein’s comment on: Lewis Bollard & the EA of social movements: Which GHD EA organisations are working on system change?
That’s reasonable, I have no idea. Definitely a fellow traveller though (they come to the conferences, work from the offices, etc...).
I’m sure there are many more examples of what I’m pointing at here that are closer to ‘EA’.

Toby Tremlett🔹 30 May 2026 10:40 UTC
10 points
1 ∶ 0
on: Lewis Bollard & the EA of social movements: Which GHD EA organisations are working on system change?
Hey Madeleine! Good question. You might want to change the title to make it more descriptive, i.e. something like “Which EA organisations are working on systemic change?”.
PS- the answer is lots. LEEP gets governments to enforce laws around lead in paint and food, Legal Impact for Chickens is trying to change how laws are applied (as is THL UK), Pause AI routes through a mass movement, etc…
When you get into it, the distinction between ‘systemic change’ and ‘measurable intervention’ is a spectrum rather than a binary. There are EA interventions at most points along that spectrum.

Toby Tremlett🔹 29 May 2026 13:39 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: BrianTan’s comment on: Sudhanshu Kasewa’s Quick takes
Just in time, Brian. Thanks so much. I’ll try this.

Toby Tremlett🔹 28 May 2026 11:03 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Fai’s comment on: With the influx of new funding, don’t hunt for new problems—stop suffering first
Wow very cool, best of luck!

Toby Tremlett🔹 28 May 2026 10:54 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Carlos Ferrao’s comment on: With the influx of new funding, don’t hunt for new problems—stop suffering first
Makes sense Carlos! It might be a personal thing but when I see AI writing I often struggle to read it/ understand what is the idea of the author and what is the AI-fluff.

Toby Tremlett🔹 28 May 2026 10:38 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Fai’s comment on: With the influx of new funding, don’t hunt for new problems—stop suffering first
I downvoted it because it is AI generated, and reads (to me) like someone has prompted an AI to ‘respond to this post’, i.e. it doesn’t really make any specific points. I could be wrong though, and clearly others have found value in it.

Toby Tremlett🔹 28 May 2026 10:36 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Fai’s comment on: With the influx of new funding, don’t hunt for new problems—stop suffering first
Nudge to spend another hour on this and turn it into a post?

Toby Tremlett🔹 27 May 2026 8:22 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: GV 🔸’s comment on: Are Mythos’ Cyber Capabilities Overstated? - Yes and No
+1, really grateful for this piece.

Toby Tremlett🔹 27 May 2026 7:43 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Madeleine_Foley’s comment on: Open thread: 2026 Q2 (April—June)
Awesome Madeleine! Welcome to the Forum. Let me know if you have any questions about the Forum, or EA in general,
Toby (from the Forum team)

Toby Tremlett🔹 26 May 2026 14:20 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: calebp’s comment on: Consider starting a for-profit company instead
Ah interesting that you read it that way. That reminder shows for everybody, not for people who have been flagged. I’ll think about changing the text.
However, we are already planning on reviewing this policy as soon as we have time (likely post-EAG). Specifically, we might do what you already assumed we were doing, i.e. set up an automated system based on pangram. One of my biggest cruxes is just how reliable pangram is, so let me know if you have takes.

Toby Tremlett🔹 21 May 2026 10:54 UTC
4 points
2 ∶ 0
on: Why are longtermists so much less focused on human extinction these days?
This is also a change I’d noticed and been a little confused by. I really appreciate Michelle raising it, and the comments so far have been great. I’m curating this post.

Toby Tremlett🔹 21 May 2026 10:32 UTC
5 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Yarrow Bouchard 🔸’s comment on: Yarrow Bouchard’s Quick takes
I find this a bit hurtful and confusing. I was not trying to be snarky at all, I’m trying to give earnest feedback.
Apologies, I didn’t want to confuse or hurt you. I found the comment somewhat patronising, but that may well not have been your intention.

Toby Tremlett🔹 21 May 2026 10:26 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Lorenzo Buonanno🔸’s comment on: New EA Forum LLM-use policy
Yeah, thanks Lorenzo. I’ve messaged the author.

Toby Tremlett🔹 21 May 2026 10:15 UTC
8 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Yarrow Bouchard 🔸’s comment on: Yarrow Bouchard’s Quick takes
“There is a clear pattern in your comments — you seem to have particularly unproductive disagreements with other users, generally due to an overly literal interpretation on your part, or excess defensiveness. This is no great sin of yours, but it isn’t great for the quality of Forum discussion, especially when you are naturally so prolific.
It’s not the first time in the sense that it is part of what I meant by this paragraph. I’m sorry, but I really cannot invest further in this right now.
I can say that many of your negative karma comments are negative karma for ~ this reason. I have no doubt that you will disagree at length with any particular example.

Toby Tremlett🔹 21 May 2026 9:38 UTC
10 points
2 ∶ 0
in reply to: Vasco Grilo🔸’s comment on: Yarrow Bouchard’s Quick takes
I can see both general guidance and specific examples about how to improve comments being useful. I believe they are often more effective together.
I do agree Vasco, but I don’t endorse me spending much more time on this right now.
I feel like it should often be possible to give guidance to someone in public without embarassing them. One could explicitly say the infraction is minor, and use a casual tone.
Maybe? I personally would be much more discouraged from posting by a public comment than a private message. However it’d be nice if we could have a live log somewhere where forum users could see that we dm’d an anonymous user.
When writing a lot is the problem (I personally do not think this can by itself be a problem)
Writing a lot in itself isn’t the problem. It’s that the writing contains difficult-to-dispel misunderstandings, and therefore creates an asymmetric effort ratio.

Toby Tremlett🔹 21 May 2026 8:30 UTC
13 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Yarrow Bouchard 🔸’s comment on: Yarrow Bouchard’s Quick takes
But, I dunno, sneering and snarking just seems like par for the course for the EA Forum — including using laugh emojis to mock people you disagree with.
Again, this is another issue with the current lack of moderation transparency on the Forum. Misuse of the laugh react is seen as breaking forum norms, and (AFAIK) in almost every case has led to at least a moderator message.
Civility enforcement is a major part of what we do as moderators. It’s inevitable that some borderline cases will remain on the site such that someone motivated to find them—as you were—will be able to.
Bit of a side-point but the amount of civility enforcement we do has been one of the reasons I’ve been reluctant to publicise mod actions. I appreciate being able to send someone a more casual message for butting up against guidelines rather than having to call them out publicly (which is a far more embarassing result of what can be a fairly minor infraction).
If you find yourself in a position in the future where you want to encourage someone to engage differently on the EA Forum, it would be helpful to be more specific in what you’re asking them to do.
It’s hard to respond to snark like this without snark, but it’d be pretty ironic if I did. What I’ll say is, firstly, it’s gone pretty well the other times I’ve done it.

Secondly, I have tried to be specific, but it has been easier to explain the snarkiness than the broader problem with how you’ve interacted with people on the Forum.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to write a post like Habryka’s here, which might be required to explain the kind of impact that I think you were having on Forum discourse.
One section from that post raises the concept of ‘Asymmetric effort ratios’. This is definitely part of our moderation decision. At one point, if I remember correctly, you wrote almost a fifth of the words on the Forum in a week. You are very productive of long comments, which are often packed with difficult to dispel misunderstandings. This is part of why a rate-limit was the solution we arrived at. In small doses, you can be a valuable contributor, but without limit, it becomes unfairly taxing on your interlocutors.
Apologies that I won’t be able to explain this to you to a degree you will find satisfying. Like I said, none of this was an easy decision, but I do think that it is what’s best for the Forum.

Again, I haven’t spoken with other mods about this comment, they are free to disagree.

Toby Tremlett🔹 20 May 2026 15:56 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Announcing the Rethink Priorities Cross-Cause Fund
Exciting! Are you eligible for gift-aid in the UK? Seems like it is based around US donors so far (reasonable triage).