We're trying a new kind of monthly open thread: the progress thread!
Years ago, the Forum used to have an "Accomplishments Open Thread" where people could discuss recent wins in their EA work/donations/etc. I loved reading those; they made me feel like part of a growing, transformative movement.
When those open threads stopped, we lost an easy way for people to show off the progress they make on a month-to-month basis. So we brought the concept back.
Think of this as an org update thread for individuals. You might talk about...
- Securing a new job, internship, grant, or scholarship
- Starting or making progress on a personal project
- Helping someone else get involved in EA
- Making a donation you feel really excited about
- Taking the Giving What We Can pledge or signing up for Try Giving
- Writing something you liked outside the Forum (whether it's a paper you've submitted to a journal or just an insightful Facebook comment)
- Any of the above happening to someone else, if you think they'd be happy for you to share the news
- Other EA-related progress in the world (disease eradication, cage-free laws, cool new research papers, etc.)
These updates can be very short. But you might also want to talk about people, organizations, or resources that were useful to you. Someone might have been counterfactually responsible for some of your progress and not even know it!
This is a humility-free zone
It can feel awkward to share good news online. You may feel like you're bragging, or overselling your success.
This is a legitimate thing to worry about. In some spaces, sharing good news could be uncouth, a faux pas, a social blunder.
But this isn't that kind of space. The EA Forum team humbly requests that you brag, bask in your success, and shout your progress to the rooftops. Have at it!
(Good epistemics are still highly encouraged. Avoid overselling your success — but don't undersell it, either!)
Welcome, Student Summit!
Once the Student Summit starts, we'll be encouraging attendees to post here if they learn something useful, change their plans, have a really good meeting, etc.
If you came here from the Summit: Welcome! We're excited to hear from you.
I'll kick things off!
This month, I finished in second place at the Magic: the Gathering Grand Finals (sort of like the world championship). I earned $20,000 in prize money and declared that I would donate half of it to GiveWell, which gave me an excuse to talk up EA on camera for thousands of live viewers and post about it on Twitter.
This has been a whirlwind journey for me; I did unexpectedly well in a series of qualifying tournaments. Lots of luck was involved. But I think I played well, and I've been thrilled to see how interested my non-EA followers are in hearing about charity stuff (especially when I use Magic-related metaphors to explain cause prioritization).
Congrats on the win and what an awesome idea to use it as an outreach opportunity!
Bravo! This is fantastic and it's also great that you used the opportunity to talk about EA! The future of REG!