EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)
SamfunnTeknologiAudio narrations from the Effective Altruism Forum, including curated posts and posts with 125 karma. If you'd like more episodes, subscribe to the "EA Forum (All audio)" podcast instead.
Siste episoder av EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular) podcast
- “Charity Entrepreneurship is bottlenecked by a lack of great animal founders” by Ben Williamson, Amalie Farestvedt 🔸 (00:10:24)
TL;DR - AIM's applicants skew towards global health & development. We’ve recommended four new animal welfare charities, have the capacity to launch all four, but expect to struggle to find the talent to do so. If you’ve considered moving into animal welfare work, applying to Charity Entrepreneurship to launch a new charity in the space could be of huge counterfactual value. Part 1: Why you should launch an animal welfare charity Our existing animal charities have had a lot of impact—improving the lives of over 1 billion animals worldwide. - from Shrimp Welfare Project securing corporate commitments globally and featuring on the Daily Show, to FarmKind's recent success coordinating a $2 million dollar fundraiser for the animal movement on the Dwarkshesh podcast, not to mention the progress of the 40 person army at the Fish Welfare Initiative, Scale Welfare's direct hand-on work at fish farms, and Animal Policy [...] ---Outline:(00:37) Part 1: Why you should launch an animal welfare charity(02:07) A few notes on counterfactual founder value(05:57) Part 2 - The Charity Entrepreneurship Program & Our Latest Animal Welfare Ideas(06:04) What is the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program?(06:47) Our recommended animal welfare ideas for 2026(07:10) 1. Driving supermarket commitments to shift diets away from meat(07:58) 2. Securing scale-up funding for the alternative protein industry(08:51) 3. Cage-free farming in the Middle East(09:30) 4. Preventing painful injuries in laying hens(10:02) Applications close on October 5th: Apply here.--- First published: September 29th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aeky2EWd32bjjPJqf/charity-entrepreneurship-is-bottlenecked-by-a-lack-of-great --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Cultivated Meat: A Wakeup Call for Optimists” by CianHamilton (00:26:36)
Summary: Consumers rejected genetically modified crops, and I expect they will do the same for cultivated meat. The meat lobby will fight to discredit the new technology, and as consumers are already primed to believe it's unnatural, it won’t be difficult to persuade them. When I hear people talk about cultivated meat (i.e. lab-grown meat) and how it will replace traditional animal agriculture, I find it depressingly reminiscent of the techno-optimists of the 1980s and ‘90s speculating about how genetic modification will solve all our food problems. The optimism of the time was understandable: in 1994 the first GMO product was introduced to supermarkets, and the benefits of the technology promised incredible rewards. GMOs were predicted to bring about the end of world hunger, all while requiring less water, pesticides, and land.Today, thirty years later, in the EU GM foods are so regulated that they are [...] ---Outline:(01:56) Why did GMOs fail to be widely adopted?(02:44) A Bad First Impression(05:54) Unpopular Corporate Concentration(07:22) Cultivated Meat IS GMO(08:45) What timeline are we in?(10:24) What can be done to prevent cultivated meat from becoming irrelevant?(10:30) Expect incredible opposition(11:46) Be ready to tell a clear story about the benefits.(13:17) A proactive PR Effort(15:01) First impressions matter(17:16) Labeling(19:35) Be ready to discuss concerns about unnaturalness(21:56) Limitations of the comparison(23:07) Conclusion--- First published: September 22nd, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/rMQA9w7ZM7ioZpaN6/cultivated-meat-a-wakeup-call-for-optimists --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “Why I think capacity building to make AGI go well should include spreading EA-style ideas and helping people engage with EA” by Arden Koehler (00:16:11)
Note: I am the web programme director at 80,000 Hours and the view expressed here currently helps shape the web team's strategy. However, this shouldn't be taken to be expressing something on behalf of 80k as a whole, and writing and posting this memo was not undertaken as an 80k project. 80,000 Hours, where I work, has made helping people make AI go well [1]its focus. As part of this work, I think my team should continue to: Talk about / teach ideas and thinking styles that have historically been central to effective altruism (e.g. via our career guide, cause analysis content, and podcasts) Encourage people to get involved in the EA community explicitly and via linking to content. I wrote this memo for the MCF (Meta Coordination Forum), because I wasn't sure this was intuitive to others. I think talking about EA ideas and encouraging people to get [...] ---Outline:(01:21) 1. The effort to make AGI go well needs people who are flexible and equipped to to make their own good decisions(02:10) Counterargument: Agendas are starting to take shape, so this is less true than it used to be.(02:43) 2. Making AGI go well calls for a movement that thinks in explicitly moral terms(03:59) Counterargument: movements can be morally good without being explicitly moral, and being morally good is whats important.(04:41) 3. EA is (A) at least somewhat able to equip people to flexibly make good decisions, (B) explicitly morally focused.(04:52) (A) EA is at least somewhat able to equip people to flexibly make good decisions(06:04) (B) EA is explicitly morally focused(06:49) Counterargument: A different flexible & explicitly moral movement could be better for trying to make AGI go well.(07:49) Appendix: What are the relevant alternatives?(12:13) Appendix 2: anon notes from others--- First published: September 25th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/oPue7R3outxZaTXzp/why-i-think-capacity-building-to-make-agi-go-well-should --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Moving to a hub, getting older, and heading home” by ElliotTep (00:11:06)
Intro and summary “How many chickens spared from cages is worth not being with my parents as they get older?!” - Me, exasperated (September 18, 2021) This post is about something I haven’t seen discussed on the EA forum but I often talk about with my friends in their mid 30s. It's about something I wish I'd understood better ten years ago: if you are ~25 and debating whether to move to an EA Hub, you are probably underestimating how much the calculus will change when you’re ~35, largely related to having kids and aging parents. Since this is underappreciated, moving to an EA Hub, and building a life there, can lead to tougher decisions later that can sneak up on you. If you’re living in an EA hub, or thinking about moving, this post explores reasons you might want to head home as you get older, different ways [...] ---Outline:(00:11) Intro and summary(01:49) Why move to an EA Hub in the first place?(02:57) How things change as you get older(05:33) Why YOU might be more likely to feel the pull to head home(06:49) How did I decide? How should you decide?(08:38) Consolation prize - moving to a Hub isn't all or nothing(09:38) Conclusion--- First published: September 23rd, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZEWE6K74dmzv7kXHP/moving-to-a-hub-getting-older-and-heading-home --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Student group organising is hard and important” by Bella (00:03:48)
It's been several years since I was an EA student group organiser, so please forgive any part of this post which feels out of touch (& correct me in comments!) Wow, student group organising is hard. A few structural things that make it hard to be an organiser: You maybe haven’t had a job before, or have only had kind of informal jobs. So, you might not have learned a lot of stuff about how to accomplish things at work. You’re probably trying to do a degree at the same time, which is hard enough on its own! You don’t have the structure and benefits provided by a regular 9-5 job at an organisation, like: A manager An office Operational support People you can ask for help & advice A network You have, at most, a year or so to skill up before you might be responsible [...] --- First published: September 12th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zMBFSesYeyfDp6Fj4/student-group-organising-is-hard-and-important --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Rejected from all the ‘EA’ Jobs you applied for - What to do now?” by guneyulasturker 🔸 (00:10:13)
Hi, have you been rejected from all the 80K listed EA jobs you’ve applied for? It sucks, right? Welcome to the club. What might be comforting is that you (and I) are not alone. EA Job listings are extremely competitive, and in the classic EA career path, you just get rejected over and over. Many others have written about their rejection experience, here, here, and here. Even if it is quite normal for very smart, hardworking, proactive, and highly motivated EAs to get rejected from high-impact positions, it still sucks. It sucks because we sincerely want to make the world a radically better place. We’ve read everything, planned accordingly, gone through fellowships, rejected other options, and worked very hard just to get the following message: "Thank you for your interest in [Insert EA Org Name]... we have decided to move forward with other candidates for this role... we're unfortunately [...] ---Outline:(06:13) A note on AI timelines(08:51) Time to go forward--- First published: September 5th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pzbtpZvL2bYfssdkr/rejected-from-all-the-ea-jobs-you-applied-for-what-to-do-now --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “How cost-effective are AI safety YouTubers?” by Marcus Abramovitch 🔸, Austin (00:17:32)
Early work on ”GiveWell for AI Safety” Intro EA was founded on the principle of cost-effectiveness. We should fund projects that do more with less, and more generally, spend resources as efficiently as possible. And yet, while much interest, funding, and resources in EA have shifted towards AI safety, it's rare to see any cost-effectiveness calculations. The focus on AI safety is based on vague philosophical arguments that the future could be very large and valuable, and thus whatever is done towards this end is worth orders of magnitude more than most short-term effects. Even if AI safety is the most important problem, you should still strive to optimize how resources are spent to achieve maximum impact, since there are limited resources. Global health organizations and animal welfare organizations work hard to measure cost-effectiveness, evaluate charities, make sure effects are counterfactual, run RCTs, estimate moral weights, scope out interventions [...] ---Outline:(00:11) Early work on GiveWell for AI Safety(00:16) Intro(02:43) Step 1: Gathering data(03:00) Viewer minutes(03:35) Costs and revenue(04:49) Results(05:08) Step 2: Quality-adjusting(05:40) Quality of Audience (Qa)(06:58) Fidelity of Message (Qf)(08:05) Alignment of Message (Qm)(08:53) Results(09:37) Observations(12:37) How to help(13:36) Appendix: Examples of Data Collection(13:42) Rob Miles(14:18) AI Species (Drew Spartz)(14:56) Rational Animations(15:32) AI in Context(15:52) Cognitive Revolution--- First published: September 12th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/SBsGCwkoAemPawfJz/how-cost-effective-are-ai-safety-youtubers --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “Marginally More Effective Altruism” by AppliedDivinityStudies (00:07:23)
There's a huge amount of energy spent on how to get the most QALYs/$. And a good amount of energy spent on how to increase total $. And you might think that across those efforts, we are succeeding in maximizing total QALYs. I think a third avenue is under investigated: marginally improving the effectiveness of ineffective capital. That's to say, improving outcomes, only somewhat, for the pool of money that is not at all EA-aligned. This cash is not being spent optimally, and likely never will be. But the sheer volume could make up for the lack of efficacy. Say you have the option to work for the foundation of one of two donors: Donor A only has an annual giving budget of $100,000, but will do with that money whatever you suggest. If you say “bed nets” he says “how many”. Donor B has a much larger [...] ---Outline:(01:34) Most money is not EA money(04:32) How much money is there?(05:49) Effective Everything?--- First published: September 8th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/o5LBbv9bfNjKxFeHm/marginally-more-effective-altruism --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “My TED Talk” by LewisBollard (00:10:04)
Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. How I decided what to say — and what not to I’m excited to share my TED talk. Here I want to share the story of how the talk came to be, and the three biggest decisions I struggled with in drafting it. The backstory Last fall, I posted on X about Trump's new Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, vowing to undo state bans on the sale of pork from crated pigs. I included an image of a pig in a crate. Liv Boeree, a poker champion and past TED speaker, saw that post and was haunted by it. She told me that she couldn’t get the image of the crated pig out of her [...] --- First published: September 5th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XjQr52eDkBPLrLHB3/my-ted-talk --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “Consider thanking whoever helped you” by Kevin Xia 🔸 (00:06:35)
TL;DR: If a (meta) org had a meaningful impact on you (in line with what they hope to achieve), you should probably tell them. It is essential for their impact reporting, which is essential for them to continue operating. You are likely underestimating just how valuable your story is to them. It could be thousands of dollars worth. Thanks to Toby Tremlett, Lauren Mee and Sofia Balderson for reviewing a draft version of this post. All mistakes are my own. 1. Many organisations shaped my career — yet I usually only shared my story when prompted. In reflecting on my career journey, I was reminded of all the organizations who led me to where I am. I believe I reported their counterfactual contribution back to them, but this was not usually by my own doing. In two cases, I was personally reached out to - in one case, I [...] --- First published: August 8th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3v6kghxMttEhbK3dT/consider-thanking-whoever-helped-you --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “High-impact & urgent funding opportunity - Rodent fertility control” by Nitin Sekar (00:08:21)
Context: I’m a senior fellow at Conservation X Labs (CXL), and I’m seeking support as I attempt to establish a program on humane rodent fertility control in partnership with the Wild Animal Initiative (WAI) and the Botstiber Institute for Wildlife Fertility Control (BIWFC). CXL is a biodiversity conservation organization working in sustainable technologies, not an animal welfare organization. However, CXL leadership is interested in simultaneously promoting biodiversity conservation and animal welfare, and they are excited about the possibility of advancing applied research that make it possible to ethically limit rodent populations to protect biodiversity. I think this represents the wild animal welfare community's first realistic opportunity to bring conservation organizations into wild animal welfare work while securing substantial non-EA funding for welfare-improving interventions. Background Rodenticides cause immense suffering to (likely) hundreds of millions of rats and mice annually through anticoagulation-induced death over several days, while causing significant non-target [...] ---Outline:(01:08) Background(02:20) Why this approach?(03:49) Why CXL?(06:03) Why now, and why me?(06:59) Budget(07:52) Next steps--- First published: August 27th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EcBjr4Q2AtoTLcKXp/high-impact-and-urgent-funding-opportunity-rodent-fertility --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “You’re Enough” by lynettebye (00:03:54)
I told someone recently I would respect them if they only worked 40 hours a week, instead of their current 50-60. What I really meant was stronger than that. I respect people who do the most impactful work they can — whether they work 70 hours a week because they can, 30 hours so they can be home with their kid, or 15 hours because of illness or burnout. I admire those who go above and beyond. But I don’t expect that of everyone. Working long hours isn’t required to earn my respect, nor do I think it should be the standard that we hold as a community. I want it to be okay to say "that doesn't work for me". It feels like donations: I admire people who give away 50%, but I don’t expect it. I still deeply respect someone who gives 10% to the [...] --- First published: August 26th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/qFsqawmgRjxXkA7eF/you-re-enough --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “The anti-fragile culture” by lincolnq (00:19:14)
How to prevent infighting, mitigate status races, and keep your people focused. Cross-posted from my Substack. Organizational culture changes rapidly at scale. When you add new people to an org, they’ll bring in their own priors about how to operate, how to communicate, and what sort of behavior is looked-up to. Despite rapid changes, in this post I explain how you can implement anti-fragile cultural principles—principles that help your team fix their own problems, often arising from growth and scale, and help the org continue to do what made it successful in the first place. This is based partially on my experience at Wave, which grew to 2000+ people, but also tons of other reading (top recommendations: Peopleware by DeMarco and Lister, Swarmwise by Rick Falkvinge, High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil, The Secret of Our Success by Henrich, Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, as well as Brian [...] ---Outline:(01:13) Common Problems(05:00) Write down your culture(06:25) That said, you don't have to write everything down(08:37) Anti-fragile values I recommend(09:02) Mission First(10:51) Focus(11:32) Fire Fast(12:58) Feedback for everything(13:50) Mutual Trust(15:48) Work sustainably and avoid burnout(17:42) Write only what's new & helpful--- First published: August 21st, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mLonxtAiuvvkjXiwq/the-anti-fragile-culture --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- [Linkpost] “Most of the World Is an Adorably Suffering, Debatably Conscious Baby” by Jack_S🔸 (00:19:47)
This is a link post. There are some moments of your life when the reality of suffering really hits home. Visiting desperately poor parts of the world for the first time. Discovering what factory farming actually looks like after a childhood surrounded by relatively idyllic rural farming. Realising too late that you shouldn’t have clicked on that video of someone experiencing a cluster headache. Or, more unexpectedly, having a baby. One of 10^20 Birth Stories This Year With my relaxed and glowing pregnant wife in her 34th week, I expect things to go smoothly. There have been a few warning signs: some slightly anomalous results in the early tests, the baby in breech position, and some bleeding. But everything still seems to be going relatively well. Then, suddenly, while walking on an idyllic French seafront, she says: "I think my waters have broken". "Really? It's probably nothing, let's [...] ---Outline:(00:39) One of 10^20 Birth Stories This Year(03:51) The Beginning of Experience(05:38) Is This Almost Everything?(08:17) Schrödinger's baby(12:58) On Feeling the Right Things(14:59) Into The Fifth Trimester(16:40) The Most Beautiful Case For Net-Negativity--- First published: August 21st, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/6PuBTer69ZJvTDNQk/most-of-the-world-is-an-adorably-suffering-debatably-1 Linkpost URL:https://torchestogether.substack.com/p/most-of-the-world-is-an-adorably --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “New Spanish-language book on ‘classical EA’” by Pablo Melchor 🔸 (00:11:53)
My new book, Altruismo racional, is now on presale. It is my attempt at presenting a compelling case for a particular strand of "classical EA"[1]: one that emphasizes caring deeply about global health and poverty, a rational approach to giving, the importance of cost-effectiveness, and the 🔸10% Pledge. In this post, I provide some context on my reasons for writing this book and what I hope to achieve. If “new EA-themed book in Spanish” was all you needed to know, feel free to skip to How you can help or preorder now. Why write a book Imagine you wake up one morning and discover the world has changed in a few peculiar ways. There has been no 10th anniversary edition of Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save—it was last edited more than a decade ago and has been out of print for years. Will MacAskill has not written [...] ---Outline:(00:54) Why write a book(03:18) What the book is about(04:54) Why this particular topic(06:32) Expected impact Dream scenario(08:39) How you can help(08:42) Buy the book for yourself or others(09:05) Preorder if the current availability works for you(09:46) Or get notified by email as soon as your preferred format is available in your country(10:02) A note on bulk purchases(10:36) Help me reach more people(11:01) Acknowledgements--- First published: August 20th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ak3McTxHTojjn6sqH/new-spanish-language-book-on-classical-ea --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “Not inevitable, not impossible” by LewisBollard (00:07:25)
Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. Why ending the worst abuses of factory farming is an issue ripe for moral reform I recently joined Dwarkesh Patel's podcast to discuss factory farming. I hope you’ll give it a listen — and consider supporting his fundraiser for FarmKind's Impact Fund. (Dwarkesh is matching all donations up to $250K; use the code “dwarkesh”.) We discuss two contradictory views about factory farming that produce the same conclusion: that its end is either inevitable or impossible. Some techno-optimists assume factory farming will vanish in the wake of AGI. Some pessimists see reforming it as a hopeless cause. Both camps arrive at the same conclusion: fatalism. If factory farming is destined to end, or persist, then what's [...] --- First published: August 8th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HiGmRwq4YiDzggRLH/not-inevitable-not-impossible --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “PSA for vegan donors: GiveWell not ruling out animal-based aid” by AdamA (00:01:53)
I’m a long-time GiveWell donor and an ethical vegan. In a recent GiveWell podcast on livelihoods programs, providing animals as “productive assets” was mentioned as a possible program type. After reaching out to GiveWell directly to voice my objection, I was informed that because GiveWell's moral weights currently don’t include nonhuman animals, animal-based aid is not categorically off the table if it surpasses their cost-effectiveness bar. Older posts on the GiveWell website similarly do not rule out animal donations from an ethical lens. In response to some of the rationale GiveWell shared with me, I also want to proactively address a core ethical distinction: Animal-aid programs involve certain, programmatic harm to animals (breeding, confinement, separation of families, slaughter). Human-health programs like malaria prevention have, at most, indirect and uncertain effects on animal consumption (by saving human lives), which can change over time (e.g., cultural shifts, plant-based/cultivated options). Constructive [...] --- First published: August 14th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YnL6prYQbaLz22mxe/psa-for-vegan-donors-givewell-not-ruling-out-animal-based --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “A big milestone: 10,000 10% pledgers!” by Giving What We Can🔸 (00:01:23)
Giving What We Can has reached 10,000 🔸10% pledgers! We see this as an important milestone on the road to a cultural norm, and we’ve made a video to celebrate: If you’re a 🔸10% or 🔹Trial pledger, we’d love for you to post about the 10k milestone on your social channels! You can find templates here. And if you are a 🔸10% pledger, a sincere thank you for being part of the first 10,000! As our former executive director Luke Freeman wrote back in 2020: “The world is made up of individual people who respond to social norms. What we do and say really matters, and it has flow-on effects on those around us, and to the rest of the world.” You’re not only having an incredible impact by funding high-impact programs. You’re also paving the way for countless others. Here's to a million and beyond! --- First published: August 13th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/etZtA3uzaKGaubkmp/a-big-milestone-10-000-10-pledgers --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- [Linkpost] “Of Marx and Moloch: How My Attempt to Convince Effective Altruists to Become Socialists Backfired Completely” by LennoxJohnson (00:02:51)
This is a link post. This is a personal essay about my failed attempt to convince effective altruists to become socialists. I started as a convinced socialist who thought EA ignored the 'root causes' of poverty by focusing on charity instead of structural change. After studying sociology and economics to build a rigorous case for socialism, the project completely backfired as I realized my political beliefs were largely psychological coping mechanisms. Here are the key points: Understanding the "root cause" of a problem doesn't necessarily lead to better solutions - Even if capitalism causes poverty, understanding "dynamics of capitalism" won't necessarily help you solve it Abstract sociological theories are mostly obscurantist bullshit - Academic sociology suffers from either unrealistic mathematical models or vague, unfalsifiable claims that don't help you understand or change the world The world is better understood as misaligned incentives rather than coordinated oppression - Most social [...] --- First published: August 10th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/AcPw55oF3reBiW4FX/of-marx-and-moloch-how-my-attempt-to-convince-effective Linkpost URL:https://honestsignals.substack.com/p/of-marx-and-moloch-or-my-misguided --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Should we aim for flourishing over mere survival? The Better Futures series.” by William_MacAskill, Forethought (00:09:16)
Today, Forethought and I are releasing an essay series called Better Futures, here.[1] It's been something like eight years in the making, so I’m pretty happy it's finally out! It asks: when looking to the future, should we focus on surviving, or on flourishing? In practice at least, future-oriented altruists tend to focus on ensuring we survive (or are not permanently disempowered by some valueless AIs). But maybe we should focus on future flourishing, instead. Why? Well, even if we survive, we probably just get a future that's a small fraction as good as it could have been. We could, instead, try to help guide society to be on track to a truly wonderful future. That is, I think there's more at stake when it comes to flourishing than when it comes to survival. So maybe that should be our main focus. The whole essay series [...] --- First published: August 4th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/mzT2ZQGNce8AywAx3/should-we-aim-for-flourishing-over-mere-survival-the-better --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “Alcohol is so bad for society that you should probably stop drinking” by Kat Woods 🔶 ⏸️ (00:15:36)
This is a cross post written by Andy Masley, not me. I found it really interesting and wanted to see what EAs thought of his arguments. This post was inspired by similar posts by Tyler Cowen and Fergus McCullough. My argument is that while most drinkers are unlikely to be harmed by alcohol, alcohol is drastically harming so many people that we should denormalize alcohol and avoid funding the alcohol industry, and the best way to do that is to stop drinking. This post is not meant to be an objective cost-benefit analysis of alcohol. I may be missing hard-to-measure benefits of alcohol for individuals and societies. My goal here is to highlight specific blindspots a lot of people have to the negative impacts of alcohol, which personally convinced me to stop drinking, but I do not want to imply that this is a fully objective analysis. It [...] ---Outline:(02:31) Alcohol is a much bigger problem than you may think(06:59) Why you should stop drinking even if alcohol will not harm you personally(14:41) Conclusion--- First published: August 3rd, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dnbpKkjnw3v6JkaDa/alcohol-is-so-bad-for-society-that-you-should-probably-stop --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
- “Frog Welfare” by Chad Brouze (00:02:48)
This morning I was looking into Switzerland's new animal welfare labelling law. I was going through the list of abuses that are now required to be documented on labels, and one of them made me do a double-take: "Frogs: Leg removal without anaesthesia." This confused me. Why are we talking about anaesthesia? Shouldn't the frogs be dead before having their legs removed? It turns out the answer is no; standard industry practice is to cut their legs off while they are fully conscious. They remain alive and responsive for up to 15 minutes afterward. As far as I can tell, there are zero welfare regulations in any major producing country. The scientific evidence for frog sentience is robust - they have nociceptors, opioid receptors, demonstrate pain avoidance learning, and show cognitive abilities including spatial mapping and rule-based learning. It's hard to find data on the scale of [...] --- First published: August 5th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wCcWyqyvYgF3ozNnS/frog-welfare --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Why You Should Become a University Group Organizer” by Noah Birnbaum (00:12:25)
Confidence Level: I’ve been an organizer at UChicago for over a year now with my co-organizer, Avik. I also started the UChicago Rationality Group, co-organized a 50-person Midwest EA Retreat, and have spoken to many EA organizers from other universities. A lot of this post is based on vibes and conversations with other organizers, so while it's grounded in experience, some parts are more speculative than others. I’ll try to flag the more speculative points when I can (the * indicates points that I’m less certain about). I think it's really important to make sure that EA principles persist in the future. To give one framing for why I believe this: if you think EA is likely to significantly reduce the chances of existential risks, you should think that losing EA is itself a factor significantly contributing to existential risks. Therefore, I also think one of the [...] ---Outline:(01:12) Impact Through Force Multiplication(04:19) Individual Benefits(04:23) Personal Impact(06:27) Professional(07:34) Social(08:10) Counters--- First published: July 29th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3aPCKsHdJqwKo2Dmt/why-you-should-become-a-university-group-organizer --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Please, no more group brainstorming” by OllieBase (00:12:19)
And other ways to make event content more valuable. I organise and attend a lot of conferences, so the below is correct and need not be caveated based on my experience, but I could be missing some angles here. When you imagine a session at an event going wrong, you’re probably thinking of the hapless, unlucky speaker. Maybe their slides broke, they forgot their lines, or they tripped on a cable and took the whole stage backdrop down. This happens sometimes, but event organizers usually remember to invest the effort required to prevent this from happening (e.g., checking that the slides work, not leaving cables lying on the stage). But there's another big way that sessions go wrong that is sorely neglected: wasting everyone's time, often without people noticing. Let's give talks a break. They often suck, but event organizers are mostly doing the right things to make them [...] ---Outline:(01:11) Panels(03:40) The group brainstorm(04:27) Your session attendees do not have the answers.(05:26) Ideas are easy. Bandwidth is low.(06:28) The ideas are not worth the time cost.(07:50) Choosing more valuable content: fidelity per person-minute--- First published: July 28th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/LaMDxRqEo8sZnoBXf/please-no-more-group-brainstorming --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
- “Building an EA-aligned career from an LMIC” by Rika Gabriel (00:16:42)
This is Part 1 of a multi-part series, shared as part of Career Conversations Week. The views expressed here are my own and don't reflect those of my employer. TL;DR: Building an EA-aligned career starting from an LMIC comes with specific challenges that shaped how I think about career planning, especially around constraints: Everyone has their own "passport"—some structural limitation that affects their career more than their abilities. Reframing these from unfair barriers to data about my specific career path has helped me a lot. When pursuing an ideal career path, it's easy to fixate on what should be possible rather than what actually is. But those idealized paths often require circumstances you don't have—whether personal (e.g., visa status, financial safety net) or external (e.g., your dream org hiring, or a stable funding landscape). It might be helpful to view the paths that work within your actual constraints [...] ---Outline:(00:21) TL;DR:(01:27) Introduction(02:25) My EA journey so far(03:18) Sometimes my passport mattered more than my competencies, and thats okay(04:43) Everyone has their own passport(06:19) Realistic opportunities often outweigh idealistic ones(08:04) Importance of a fail-safe(08:37) Playing the long game(09:44) Adversity quotient seems underrated(10:13) Building resilience through adversity(11:22) Pivot into recruiting(12:11) Building AQ over time(14:02) Why AQ matters in EA-aligned work(15:01) Closing thoughts--- First published: July 28th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3Hh839MaiWCPzyB3M/building-an-ea-aligned-career-from-an-lmic --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.