Note: This post was crossposted from the Coefficient Giving Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.
Subtitle: On vegan advocacy, effective altruism, and FIFA
I turn 40 today. Here are some hot takes.
On factory farming
1. Our biggest challenge is salience. If factory farming led the evening news, it wouldn’t last lo...
On October 22nd starting at 10:00am Pacific Time, Every.org is matching donations to select animal welfare organizations at a 2:1 rate, up to $2,000 per donor per nonprofit (so if you give up to $2,000, they will contribute up to $4,000 and the nonprofit will get up to $6,000). The first donation a donor makes to each eligible nonprofit will be matched, and donors can get the match for multiple $2,000 donations. So, you can get more than $2,000 matched by donating $2,000 one time to multiple...
Hot take: When Anthropic IPO money starts flowing into AI safety, the ecosystem should consider operating more outside charitable structures. Charities get an indirect public subsidy via tax-deductible donations, but the trade-off is greater compliance burden and cost, restrictions on spending, and a greater reliance on public goodwill. As the world gets weirder from AI-driven job losses and political shifts, taxpayers may be less happy to see their foregone tax dollars going to China dialogues or high salaries for technical AI safety researchers. (Not legal or financial advice.)
Agreed, part of the thesis of https://surplus.dev!