Toby Tremlett🔹

• Toby Tremlett🔹 27 Apr 2026 8:47 UTC

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Noah Birnbaum’s comment on: Noah Birn­baum’s Quick takes

  Thanks Noah! I cosign your suggestions, but probably not your ‘super dead’ diagnosis.

  I’d add:

  1. Remember to give and remove karma. A better sorted Forum is a better use of everyone’s time.

  2. Consider commenting more. I started drafting a post about this last week, but basically I think that at its best, comments on the Forum can be its greatest comparative strength. Forum comments are definitely better than comments on Substack (in my view) and I’d like to make that difference even starker.

     1. Addendum: don’t undervalue comments. A good comment can get as much karma as a good post. A graph I made last week [at bottom of quick take] shows that the average karma given to comments has decreased. Proportionally this can’t be completely explained by the userbase being smaller—so either people are giving less karma across the board for a non-quality reason, or they value comments less. (LMK if you have other Qs about this, now AI can write the SQL for me I can access a lot more statistics.)

  3. Tell me people I should crosspost (dm me or comment here). When we ask substackers if we can crosspost them they almost always say yes.

  Also FWIW—I don’t see the LessWrong thing as the reason for the Forum seeming more dead, that isn’t a new development.

  

  PS- The Forum team will be on a retreat this week, and we are having a team day on Friday, so all comments on the state of the Forum/​ suggestions and requests for what you want to see are massively appreciated and timely.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 27 Apr 2026 8:35 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Dylan Richardson’s comment on: Noah Birn­baum’s Quick takes

  Very keen to hear suggestions of blogs to crosspost—I agree that getting more substack content on here seems important (we’ve done this a bit, but in a fairly ad hoc way)

• Toby Tremlett🔹 24 Apr 2026 11:00 UTC

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Has Any­one Com­piled The Most Effec­tive Char­i­ties Ac­cord­ing to Differ­ent Wor­ld­views?

  This isn’t a precise answer to your question, but you might find this from Rethink pretty interesting. They’ve made a few different tools which help you figure out where you should donate based on your philosophical beliefs. It won’t tell you which real-life charity to donate to, but it will tell you which kind of charity you should look for in real life.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 23 Apr 2026 9:11 UTC

  4 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Why clini­cal tri­als are bro­ken & how to fix them: a read­ing list

  I feel like clinical trial abundance has at least the whiff of a new cause area within global health. I’m curating this post as a way to kickstart the issue a little bit.
  
  I agree with the author that “It deserves an EA-specific post”, i.e. I’d love to see someone make the case for clinical trial abundance as a cause area. It could be compared to economic growth/​ progress work (as a more targeted niche) or to the distribution of existing medicines (vaccines for malaria etc...).

  Thanks for writing this @Siebe!

• Toby Tremlett🔹 23 Apr 2026 8:28 UTC

  3 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: Dis­cus­sions of (p)sen­tience of small an­i­mals miss the point

  By the by but I love a post that makes one point clearly, and kicks off some discussion. Kudos.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 21 Apr 2026 10:09 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Seidenpuma’s comment on: Why we need to re­sist the idea of net nega­tive lives in insects

  Thanks Hans, and yes you’re absolutely right, I agree this is a crucial issue.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 21 Apr 2026 8:18 UTC

  3 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: Tandena Wagner’s comment on: Why we need to re­sist the idea of net nega­tive lives in insects

  Hey Tandena, thanks for raising this. I do think in retrospect that the comment was a bit patronising. Apologies.

  I also now worry that this comment will also seem patronising. I’d appreciate that feedback if it does—I’m considering getting a bit more involved in promoting good quality content through commenting, but it’s a hard line to tread.

  It is unfortunately dense and long and from 10 years ago, but it make me see this is well-trodden ground and left me wanting to know what the more recent developments are.

  Yep, I started looking for other posts and then realised it would take too long for me to justify it. It’s worth spending some time with an LLM finding more readings, there is a lot of good stuff here.

  I have heard some counter arguments. I’m not completely uninformed. I’m unconvinced. (So far.)

  I was writing the comment kind of specifically for someone in this position to see. I think that it isn’t a good post to read if you are still exploring the question; the arguments are forceful, appealing and engaging but uninformed in pretty crucial areas, meaning that overall they can be misleading. I wrote the comment because it seemed like the post was getting disproportionate attention given this fact, and might therefore be taken as having more authority than it does.

  To be clear, my first posts on the Forum were of similar quality or worse, and I’m glad the author posted this. I hope that Hans keeps exploring the question and posting.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 20 Apr 2026 15:31 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

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• Toby Tremlett🔹 20 Apr 2026 15:30 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: EllieKay’s comment on: Open thread: 2026 Q2 (April—June)

  Hey Elena,

  This is a very cool list of interests. What’s the game about?
  If you love to debate and write essays, you’re in the right place.

  Let me know if you every have Qs about the Forum, EA, or if you’d like feedback on a post draft or idea.
  
  Toby, for the EA Forum team.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 20 Apr 2026 15:28 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Chathurya’s comment on: Open thread: 2026 Q2 (April—June)

  Welcome Chathurya!
  I’m around if you ever have questions about how to use the Forum, or about EA in general.
  Cheers,
  Toby

Bet­ter Fu­tures Dis­cus­sion Thread: With Fin Moorhouse

• Toby Tremlett🔹 20 Apr 2026 8:54 UTC

  10 points

  3 ∶ 1

  on: Why we need to re­sist the idea of net nega­tive lives in insects

  Hey Hans, thanks for posting!

  I’m pushing back on this in case anyone new to the issue is reading.

  Both of the assumptions you raise are ~empirical and can be investigated. We can investigate the release of painkilling chemicals into the body during trauma, and we can estimate the % of life that a death takes up for different animals. We can’t confidently make claims in either direction without research—especially not based on anecdotes.

  In my view, the claims you argue against shouldn’t be referred to as ‘assumptions’. These claims are usually made on the basis of investigation and argument, and are explicitly not the assumptions on which an argument rests. In fact they are generally treated as important cruxes (especially the disutility of a violent death).

  Overall this is a nice first engagement with the issue, but I’d encourage you to look into existing research more before forming too strong a take.

  If you want to engage more deeply (this is for readers too), I reckon this post is a great place to start. In it, Michael Plant makes a similar case to yours, but in even more detail.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 17 Apr 2026 10:43 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: In Devel­op­ment Magaz­ine Launch

  Congrats Lauren!
  FYI we’re collaborating on a highlight week with In Development on May 11th. We’ll crosspost some of the articles, and some of the authors will be on the Forum to answer questions.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 15 Apr 2026 8:18 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: In­tro­duc­ing AIFAW — Farmed An­i­mal Welfare in Uganda

  @Aurelia Adhiambo—have you guys met?

• Toby Tremlett🔹 15 Apr 2026 7:33 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

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

  Seems reasonable, I’d have to reread the stories. My guess would be that after that I’ll still think that the particular flavour of “AI will be a big deal” is still subculture-specific and likely enough to remain so. I.e. a particular view of what AI is, what a future with AI might look like, the capabilities we imagine it having, what’s horrifying about it etc…

• Toby Tremlett🔹 14 Apr 2026 12:35 UTC

  6 points

  0 ∶ 0

  on: to­bytrem’s Quick takes

  I’m writing a retro for the AGI & Animals debate week. Do you have any feedback, positive or negative?
  I’ll use it to improve the next debate week, and I don’t get that much feedback, so the chances of me actually changing how I run the event based on your comment are relatively high.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 14 Apr 2026 8:40 UTC

  4 points

  2 ∶ 0

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

  Thanks for sharing it here Linch, I really enjoyed the review (and I’ve been enjoying Tomas’s fiction).

  Counterpoint to the ‘our last great talent’ thing—Tomas seems like a success story in that he’s found a pretty finite niche that he excels in. His stories depend on a shared knowledge base that we share, but that most of e.g. Ted Chiang’s readers do not. I think that’s kind of fine and Tomas should just double down on that rather than trying to reach a wider audience.

  If in the future there are still sub-cultures (and in all but the most nuts AI transformed worlds there would be), then there will still be Tomases.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 14 Apr 2026 8:35 UTC

  10 points

  2 ∶ 1

  on: I founded Longview and have writ­ten down some thoughts on fundraising

  For context Natalie is doing Inkhaven (one blog a day for a month).
  I’d recommend checking out her blog (and the others on the link) - I’ve found it pretty inspirational for blogging. My non-EA-related drafts are inching closer to publication.

• Toby Tremlett🔹 13 Apr 2026 14:37 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Molly Archer-Zeff’s comment on: THL UK’s re­flec­tions on the Sus­tain­able Chicken Fo­rum and im­pli­ca­tions for our work

  No worries Molly!

• Toby Tremlett🔹 10 Apr 2026 8:32 UTC

  7 points

  4 ∶ 0

  on: Ideas for EA Cause Areas

  If you want an idea for another blog-post James it’d be cool to see more of an cost-effectiveness estimate for each (or some) of these.

  I.e. I’ve seen a lot of hand-waving about the loneliness crisis, misinformation etc… but I have never seen someone translate that into DALYs or WELLBYs so it can be compared with the magnitude of malaria, tuberculosis, depression in LMICs, etc…