Hi everyone,
First comment for me here.
This is not really an accomplishment yet but I wanted to share with you a proposal for a Stack Exchange Q&A on Effective Altruism that I just put together at http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/97583/effective-altruism.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Stack Exchange (SE), http://stackexchange.com is the number one network for Question and Answer (Q&A) worldwide, with websites’ topics ranging from Philosophy, to Computer Science, all the way to Cooking and Outdoor activities.
The way new SE websites are created is through SE’s “staging zone” at http://area51.stackexchange.com. There, websites covering new topics are proposed and go through different test “phases” before possibly becoming part of the SE network.
The Effective Altruism proposal is currently in the “Definition” phase, and is described as a
“Proposed Q&A site for donors and impact evaluation professionals to discuss scientific evidence on the most effective ways to improve the world.”
The goal of the definition stage is precisely to refine this description, and to identify the kind of questions that would be amenable for the site, and the kind of questions that would not.
If you want to join the discussion and help to the creation of the Effective Altruism SE website, feel free to create an account at http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/97583/effective-altruism, follow the proposal, and propose/vote on example questions.
Any help spreading the word about this project and attracting new supporters is also welcome.
PS : I want to stress that, in my views, an EA-SE website is not meant to replace or compete with the EA-forum. On the contrary, I think the two would be very complementary. People on the EA-forum publish great blog-like content. A EA-SE website would be exclusively dedicated to short Q&A (post which do not fit into the Q&A format are quickly closed by moderators on SE websites). The EA-forum is acknowledged and advertised on the EA-SE proposal (http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/questions/23430/the-effective-altruism-forum)
Thanks to Gleb_T for encouraging me to contribute to this thread. I am new to the forum and relatively new to the EA movement. I'd like to share an agreement I made with my wife regarding giving. It has enabled us to give more and has reduced some conflict in our marriage. I hope it might be useful for others as well. Since we view all of our finances as jointly owned, we always discuss spending, unless it is within some automated account. We would discuss charitable donations on a case-by-case basis, so when one of us wanted to make a donation we would bring it up and present our case. Since we don't always agree with each other, this was an obstacle to our giving. To resolve this, we have agreed to give away 10% of our pre-tax income annually, with each of us having separate control over half of the total. That way we can each give to our favorite causes without having to seek agreement from the other. Also, we have a fixed budget for giving. Of course, if we both agree, we can give more than the total of 10%. So far it has worked well. We have donated to Action Against Hunger and Intentional Insights, and there will be more to come.
Nice idea! And this makes me think we should have a meme saying something like: "You're an Effective Altruist if your fights with your significant other are over where to donate"