The last EAG I attended had rules restricting handing out materials. Having just finished watching this Dwarkesh video which explained how big a deal pamphlets were when they were first invented, I'd actually go the other way and encourage it instead. Here's my reasoning: Talks have been de-emphasised in favour of one-on-ones at EAGs. There's a lot to like about one-on-ones, but one disadvantage is that we've removed a key avenue for ideas to gain a critical mass and enter the water supply. Pamphlets could fill this gap. After all, if you see a good pamphlet, it'd be quite natural for it to come out during a conversation and for you to pull it out. Additionally, when you have dozens of one-on-ones, things often blur together. Now, you can be disciplined and keep notes, but that's hard and often I find my phone is short of battery. If people handed out pamphlets containing their proposals or takes, then it'd be easier to review them afterwards; conversations would be much more likely to have effects that last. Two further benefits: it might be more efficient to exchange pamphlets at the start of a one-on-one and producing a pamphlet would convince people to figure figure out how to communicate their ideas clearly.

There are two UK government consultations closing March 9th, for: (1) banning cages for 7 million hens, and (2) reducing the pain that castration and tail docking practices for lambs cause, such as requiring pain relief. In the UK are 7 million hens (21%) still in cages, and roughly 17 million lambs that go through these painful procedures every year.  You can use these guides to make your response, to make these changes more likely to happen:  Hens: https://tinyurl.com/cage-consultation  Lambs: https://tinyurl.com/lamb-consultation  If you prefer, you can sign up for this online event on Sunday 5pm-6pm UTC, where we'll be writing and submitting our responses together. 

Takeaway from EA Global --- If you're running a nonprofit or fiscally-sponsored project and are trying to fundraise from the public: - Make sure you're registered on Benevity (https://benevity.com/), both to ease payroll donations and for corporate matching. If you're fiscally sponsored, your sponsor can list you as a 'project'. - Make sure you're listed on large DAF platforms (Fidelity Charitable, Schwab); some folks prefer to do most/all their giving through DAFs. - Please post your legal name and/or EIN on your website, someplace! (If you're sponsored - your sponsor) Thanks!

There have been a lot of posts over the last couple of weeks, and when I've been putting together the Digests, I've seen several which seem criminally underrated.  I'm quick-taking to remind you of the 'customize feed' feature. The link is at the top of the frontpage - click it to decide how your frontpage weights posts on different topics. If Forum readers used this more, there would be less underrated posts (I think!). 

TLDR: Is it good that the EA 'bootcamps' tends to spend resources on thinking about career paths rather than developing useful skills? I have a vague impression that the various 'bootcamps' around effective altruism tend to focus on  something like "motivation, encouragement, and peer support for thinking about (and planning for) impactful career paths" rather than "gaining skills." I keep thinking that we have plenty of people involved in EA who are onboard with the general ideas and who want to contribute, but who lack specific skills. Is this a good thing? This is all pretty low confidence/exploratory, as I haven't participated in High Impact Professionals, or CEA's Bootcamps, only read about and heard about them. I'm mainly thinking about people management, budgeting, project management, and similar general professional skills; of course there is also broadly a need for more specific skills, like AI safety researcher.