Week 1: Opportunity of Effective Altruism
Core EA mindset (3 minutes)
Altruistic
Impact first
Alliance mentality
Scout Mindset
Thinking in probabilities
Differentiate between inside view & deferring
Humility
Generalists
Breadth of knowledge about whatever area they're in
EA Affluent
Ability to elaborate the basic of most EA ideas despite not being their speciality
EA Community
Having an network & reputation
Core EA principles (3 minutes)
Principles First
Common ground
Higher confidence in principles than most conclusions/activities
High-Confidence Principles
Scope Sensitivity
Impartiality
Scout Mindset
Trade-Offs
Less-Confidence Principles
Expected Value
Marginal Impact
Consequentialism
Unusual Ideas
ITN Framework
Crucial Considerations
Forecasting
Fermi Estimates
Musings on teaching agency (5 minutes)
Responsibility
Everything is your responsibility
If there is an opportunity, you should take it
Action
Clarifying Goals
Acting towards them
Ambition
Hits based giving (15 minutes)
Benefits of Hits based giving
Past Successes
Scale - Expected Value is high
Neglect
Comparative Advantage
Philanthropists are structurally better-suited for hits-based giving than other institutions
What is not needed to support Hits based giving
Strong evidence before funding
Probably most past hits-based successes e.g., Green Revolution did not have strong evidence
High probability of success
Willingness to fail multiple times
Succeed rarely with a big enough success to justify the failures
Expert opinion & conventional wisdom
Often is a neglected, counterintuitive idea
Avoid controversial or adversarial situations
e.g., oral contraceptive was controversial at the time
Ability to fully justify one-self
Summarizing the decision-making for the funding might be too difficult i.e., influence one's funding approach which should be avoided
Avoid Conflict of Interest
Funding might be given to friends as they share the similar vlaues thats why they are friends
Transparency
Avoid Overconfindence & underinformed Perceptions of others
Difficult to summarize
Neglected by others
No clear evidence for it
Increase likelihood of 'hits'
ITN
Expert Opinion
Little conflict of interest
Avoiding Arrogance
Acknowledge Uncertainty
Well-informed
Avoid manipulation, coercion, deception
Evidence Action – We’re Shutting Down No Lean Season (10 minutes)
Stopped fundraising while waiting for RCT results
Transparency
Share reasons of stopping their project No Lean Season
Reasons for Non-Prioritization
RCT results lower than expected
Applied changes to improve & waiting for new RCT results
Complexities
Financial Corruption
Under-age
Better Alternative Opportunities
Alvea’s Story, Wins, and Challenges (15 minutes)
Cause Area
Accelerate promising drugs & vaccines into clinical trials
Vaccine against Omicron variant of COVID-19
Virtues
Integrity
Return remaining funding to investors
Altruism
As regulators facilitated approval for updated mRNA vaccines this benefit the world while hindering our project
Transparency
Share wins & challenges to benefit others
Skill development of Employees
Decision to stop the Project
Difficulty to keep updating vaccines
Time between waves of new variants continued to drop
Difficulty to compete with other vaccines
Regulators facilitated approval for updated mRNA vaccines
Efficacy results where underwhelming
Funding decreased
Change of Funding towards a Outsourcing for other-business-model
Too long and uncertain
Challenges
Transitioning
Short-term to Long-term Goals
Increasing or decreasing headcount of employees
Critiques
Speeding up
'without compromising on safety and quality'
Lack of Neglect
Developing Covid Vaccines was one of the least neglected cause areas at that time
Podcast Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete and ending the new nuclear arms race. (~2 hours)
Person Interviewed
Andy Weber
5 years worked at US Assistant Secretary of Defensive. Responsible for biological and other weapons of mass destruction
Cause Area Recommendation
Mass genetic sequencing
direct, real-time analysis of DNA, RNA
e.g., at every home, daily inhalation into a tube
Facilitates immediate response
mRNA vaccines
instruct cells to make any random protein we choose & trigger protective immune response
Speeds up development i.e., whole country within a month
Bio-Weapons are easier to produce than nuclear weapons
'poor man's atomic bomb'
Advancement of technology advances immoral potential
Decreasing negative impact of Nuclear war
Decrease small, tactical 'low-yield' systems on ambiguous delivery platforms used for both conventional and nuclear weapons
Personal Scepticism
'which were abandoned by the United States'
US is continuing bio-weapon research albeit for 'defensive' purposes
'Together these technologies could make advanced bio-weapons a threat of the past'
Sequencing
allows design or recreation of more contagious/deadlier strains
mRNA Platforms
Can be used to deliver harmful proteins i.e., custom bioweapons
'We didn’t want the bad guys — whether it’s organised crime, or operatives from other countries'
Ten wins for farmed animals in 2024
Companies fulfil their pledge to go cage-free
e.g., McDonald (USA & Canada), Subway (Europe, Midddle East, Oceania, Indonesia), Yum Brands 25,000 Restaurants 90% cage free
USA 40% of hens are cage free (6% a decade ago)
20% more Space
UK's largest retailers (Tesco, Aldi, etc.) provide 20% more space for their ~350 million chickens
Number of male chicks killed in European hatcheries has fallen by about 1/5
In-ovo sexing has reached 20% market penetration
Support of Non-Animal Produce
Government invest over $200 million into advancing alternative proteins
Animal Rights
European Commission announced a new Health & Animal Welfare Comissioner
Constitutional Clause in Mexico enshrining animal welfare
UK's Tesco & Sainsbury adopted world's first crustacean welfare policies
Future Perfect 50
Cause Areas
Animal Welfare
AI Safety
Global Health & Develpoment
Mind
Climate change
Future vision
Last updated