EA Newsletter: November 23, 2015
Hello, it’s me.
Take a break from listening to Adele and read our newsletter!
And be sure to check out GiveWell’s updated top charities, as we’re approaching giving season.
We’ll be evaluating the newsletter after the next edition, so do continue giving us feedback. As always, feel free to submit interesting pieces through this form.
Stay awesome,
The Team
Articles and Community Posts
In this short post titled We care about WALYs not QALYs Ben Todd writes about an important misconception about effective altruism and offers practical suggestions on communicating what effective altruists care about.
Read Ray Kennedy’s winning entry in the Giving What We Can essay competition where he describes an underfunded global health intervention that could be rolled out soon.
Mook Bangalore, an effective altruist based in Washington, D.C., co-wrote a recent World Bank report on climate change and poverty, which highlights the acute threat to poorer people across the world.
Thomas Nagel, a household name in philosophy, reviews two of the main books on EA in the Times Literary Supplement: “The effective altruism movement is doing great service in focusing attention on the greatest needs, which can be met at the smallest cost.”
Not an article but Tim Ferriss (of 4-Hour Workweek fame) just released a very enjoyable podcast interview with Will MacAskill, covering a whole range of issues that you can find at the bottom of the linked site
Updates from EA Organizations and Projects
Future of Humanity Institute
FHI and Nick Bostrom were recently featured in a mammoth profile in the New Yorker, authored by Raffi Khatchadourian who was nominated for a National Magazine Award in profile writing.
GiveWell
GiveWell recently announced their 2015 top charity recommendations. The refreshed list includes rankings and changes to the recommended funding allocation. Overall, GiveWell thinks the case for their top charities is stronger than in previous years, and the room for more funding is greater.
Giving What We Can
Giving What We Can launched their new website. It’s very easy to work with, allowing them to try new content and A/B test messaging and styles. They now have 1,350 members. You can follow their progress on the main metrics on this dashboard.
Schistosomiasis Control Initiative and Evidence Action
Today, the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health launched the national control program against two neglected tropical diseases, schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths. In the first deworming round, 16.5 million school-age children will be reached. SCI and Evidence Action are providing technical assistance to the ministry.
The Life You Can Save
The Life You Can Save is partnering with Giving What We Can's Washington D.C. chapter to host an online Giving Game that you can participate in. Read about the four great featured charities and vote for your favorite to help decide how to divide the $10,000 prize money.
Other Announcements
Yesterday, the EA Workspace launched, an online co-working space featuring a 24/7 web chat with optional video streaming. People work alongside each other in pomodoros and chat during breaks, thus allowing you to boost your productivity, learn about EA projects and meet old friends or make new ones. Give it a try!
Job Postings
In case you didn’t know, there’s also a Facebook group for EA job postings.
A number of full-time, part-time and summer employment positions at GiveWell are open at the moment. In addition, the Open Philanthropy Project is hiring for several roles with backgrounds in biosecurity and life sciences funding.
What is effective altruism?
EA is a growing social movement founded on the desire to make the world as good a place as it can be, the use of evidence and reason to find out how to do so, and the audacity to actually try.
If you want to learn more, read through What is effective altruism, check out (and contribute to!) the Wikipedia article and have a look at the intro post in the EA Forum.
Go forth and do the most good! Do tell us how you like the Newsletter and how we can improve it further.
See you in two weeks! The EA Newsletter Team Georgie, Michał, Pascal and Sören
The Effective Altruism Newsletter is a joint project between the Centre for Effective Altruism, the Effective Altruism Hub and .impact
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This is an archived version of the EA newsletter sent to 6,000 subscribers on November 23, 2015. To see the full archives, click here.