There are probably quite a few situations where weirdness can be a benefit: celebrities seem to be loved and listened to for their weirdness sometimes? giVes confidence to radically minded people or others sceptical of looking, gives a living example of bucking the social trend and that being ok, helps.people that might think you’re doing looking to manipulate others (which is better than doing it to conform depending on the end goal but some people prefer the conform thing or the.weird thing-trustability) ? But on the whole, yes, wear chino’s and a shirt and try to speak.with a deep.voice and control your facial.expressions if you’re a man-it’ll help, especially when talking to people in conventional roles of influence.
tomstocker
Is that list published anywhere?
2 adults + baby for 2.5 hours raised £280 (GBP) - so £56/hr if you have a baby. One thing to mention was that the cause was perhaps more appealing. Caveat: it was the early days of the Ebola crisis and we thought that it was a risky but potentially high value philanthropic opportunity to give to UN/charities with exclusive funding for the more promising means of ebola prevention. So that might have appealed to people more—but I think people were mainly giving because they felt pressured. In my head I conservatively budget for at least £10 of that £56/hr disappearing because we used up some of their goodwill in getting them to give a little, and they will be less generous in other areas of their life. Even though we’re in Oxford, we also heard a lot of “I’ve given some already” or “I give regularly” or “I have already given to that one” as people walked by.
Nicholas, can you please elaborate on point 3 - your thoughts and what you care about might genuinely be things that I +others collected here should be caring about or taking into account. I’m interested. Please just email me at tomstocker88@gmail.com if they’re so different from humanity’s preferences that they’re problematic to share publicly. Thank you for posting this, even if you are egoistic (I don’t know many people that aren’t to some extent), you have courage / honesty, which is awesome.
Street pouncing on cornmarket with buckets. Opposite gender same age seemed to be most generous (occasional £20 notes—male for Abbie, female for me—not sure what’s going on there, and only 4 data points so probably chance).
I think all those are great. But I am more suspicious that taking work out of the equation will improve society—how will we ensure that surplus is distributed reasonably?
my x-hopes are really a kind of success criteria for the movement: a culture pinned around evidence, scientific reasoning and trial and error in policy, medicine and other important areas. A culture around prioritising what problems to solve based on suffering, human flourishing and equality (and that includes the brakes on trial and error in some areas such as new technologies). A global economic/political system that comes from/whose creation is the genesis of those two things that is immensely more effective in improving the human condition than we have currently.
After trailing and fiddling to see what works—how much would 20 million copies of a pamphlette aimed at a general audience cost? The post office gives a lot to charity and I can imagine that it wouldn’t be impossible to persuade them to send this out as a one off free of charge—at least to the houses they’re already posting mail to.. Perhaps different language for different postcodes? Chelsea does not equal Bradford in terms of how appeals might work (religious backgrounds, education levels, size of household, disposable income etc.)
Wouldn’t it change the nature of life? What about the distribution of resources / elites—if elites could live longer than ordinary people, they would have a ridiculous advantage and may ensure their survival as a group above the needs of those without access to this therapy? Isn’t there something good about mortality—helps you appreciate the life you have etc.? Doesn’t aging serve a purpose in terms of a wisdom or responsibility marker / confidence reducer? Don’t all these questions assume that we can organise society rationally and either ensure that only people worthy of anti-aging get anti-aging, rather than what happens with most crucial technologies involving capital to produce: they are available disproportionately to those with the most resource in society and change the underlying power structure?
Gates foundation seem quite good at video content aimed at communicating similar types of things to popular audiences?
Great article, reads well if not quite as parsimonious as some might like.
Not to nit pick or anything, but there are significant risks to mass drug administration #unreportedsideffects #stimulatingtheevolutionofparasites #allergies although I don’t know how big these are I remember the last monitoring and evaluation lady was worried about these things quietly before Alan Fenwick got rid of her. Hard to know how big a risk these are. Probably wouldn’t take that much budget to find out (£350k for the side effects and allergies questions, evolution one more of something you just have to accept?)
Awesome. Not sure I’m EA enough to be on the list but I’m also happy to listen to people’s concerns and help them reason their way through. tomjwstocker@gmail.com
Idea: Set up a new EA group with a specifically christian / muslim / whatever (but I think we have enough christians to start a christian one) morality/theological grounding and reach out to churches through talks (v easy to do, and marginal returns to sunday mornings are usually pretty low) Same might be able to be done with a womens branding: then you could get on to women’s hour etc.?
Absolutely loved reading this. Thank you.
Does anyone else feel like EA thinking /personality takes them in this direction: “Dorothea finds no ‘epic life’ and is eulogised as a ‘foundress of nothing’ whose efforts ‘are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centring in some long-recognisable deed.’”
when perhaps modern society and the structure of fame in such a big world works in favour of those with an ‘epic’ narrative that is easily accessible?
What about other seminal Christians? -Frys, Rowntrees?
The fabled buddhist monk that apparently persuaded King Ashoka to do what he could for his population?
Then, there are loads of politicians, scientists and doctors that have applied themselves and DONE a great deal of good, or thought about ways to improve the practice of medicine. The aim to help the most patients seems to have driven many of them, but its hard to tell whether they’re EAs or whether that matters?
My child has been more expensive so far, but this is partly because the love of my life is not on a thrift drive and values convenience, and because I and other family haven’t been around as much to help out because of work. I think these estimates rely on both parents having a commitment to reducing spend well below the rest of society. Otherwise I think double the gear, food etc. and its still very easy, but factor in a large loss in expected wages for the primary carer over the long term.
Its a journey—the “grind” of accompanying people on that journey can actually have surprising personal and informational benefits and be a lot of fun?
A book or other mass-delivered set of ideas helps a lot of people to move a little bit along - those 43 people were probably very far along that journey already or had a set of values and beliefs that fitted well with the actions they then took—but maybe there are 100,000 that are making other changes in their lives or with a 5% increased probability of becoming GWWC members later on?
1.1 million people watched it—this is good. Even ignoring Michelle’s point about biased survey results − 43 EAs from one talk! That’s incredible! + GWWC’s 100 people already… a cause for hope?
How could we measure the impact of this extra certainty on planning and effectiveness? Ask the charities in question? GWWC? Can’t really think of how to resolve this until this question is answered, then to compare it against the expected difference between the current best charity and the future charity, which would be a (partially bounded?) guestimation..
We tried this—a selfie on facebook with malaria nets on our heads. We asked for £3 to cover a net (a bit of a lie as nets cost less I think). We got 6 other people to do it then it fizzled out. This was something tried in the context of the ALS challenge as a counter-cultural thing.
What I think would help if this was going to be attempted again (but I think people are over it now to some extent, unless a new social norm is being seen as being challenged / it feels qualitatively different):
-A much easier way of paying
-A more dramatic request
-People with more friends on facebook
-People with friends that are more likely to do it starting it
EBA? (Evidence based altruistim—no identifier as it’s aspirational as mentioned)Like EBM..while this.particular suggestion may be poor, I’d like to try and see if there’s a word that puts humility at the heart of it. I think it will be appealing and accurate- rationality, evidence and caring about other people as much as yourself all have roots in humility? I find EA difficult, as it defines others as either stupid or selfish and sounds exclusive and.elitist to non academic types, and think under promising with overdelivery has many benefits. It draws a parallel with evidence based movements, which seek to overturn people’s God complex and over riding belief in ad hoc.guesswork, shower inspiration, social proofing, and emotional intuition, as well as the motivational vices that lead there?