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This post is co-authored with Ben Garfinkel. It is cross-posted from the CEA blog. A PDF version can be found here.
Summary: Some strategic decisions available to the effective altruism m...
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TL;DR: I'm releasing a website that ranks philanthropists according to EA principles and research, and allows users to re-rank the list using their own assumptions. I'd like feedback and help making it better. I'd especially like ideas for how to make the results more trustworthy. Funding may be available.
Crossposted to LessWrong.
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Disclaimer: Although I work on the Groups Team at CEA, I’m writing this in a personal capacity, and this post does not constitute an endorsement by CEA.
Agency - the realisation that you really can just do things.
TL;DR
Biosecurity needs people (of any background) who are agentic and have a high execution velocity and track record....
Recent opportunities to take action
I joined the SHIPs (https://www.notion.so/SHIPs-Student-led-High-Impact-Projects-035514f7b8594205b16e3e3a9cf6e736) program and came up with a few project ideas that I think are worth pursuing, but I don't have the background to do them effectively. The following are some of my ideas that I encourage others to consider working on:
Default Advocacy: Advocating (via sending emails and/or calling) to people of influence to set the altruistic option as the default (to take advantage of the default effect since people are less likely to opt in/out of something if it requires effort). Examples of this could include have all citizens be organ donors by default, have vegetarian/vegan meals the default option provided, installing energy efficient equipment as the default in buildings, etc.
Influence Celebrities to Donate Effectively: The goal of this project is to convince celebrities and other wealthy and/or highly influential people to donate to effective charities. Since they have a vast amount of wealth, the scale of possible donations is quite large. In addition, their influence my inspire their followers to also give more effectively, thereby magnifying the impact of this project. There currently exists High Impact Athletes (https://highimpactathletes.org/athletes), but there is definitely more room to grow this concept to other celebrities such as movie/TV stars, musical artists, business moguls, politicians, etc.
Impact of Switching Protein Subsidies: Research the pros and cons of the US government switching its subsidies from conventional meat agriculture to alternative protein agriculture. Create a detailed report highlighting these benefits (and drawbacks). Ideally, this report could be given to a politician as the basis for a policy/bill to switch subsidies from conventional meat agriculture to alternative protein agriculture.
Other projects ideas from the SHIPs program can be found below: https://airtable.com/shrEGsUnvXNnL8k8V/tblTdppN872IArKIR https://airtable.com/shrCXtRpCW1HxxafC/tblugqOktQp7zzxrm