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...
When speaking to candidates who are considering working with us at 80,000 Hours, I often hear people worry about replaceability.
The familiar version of the worry is about whether the organisation will hire someone else in your place. If it will, then the difference you make by taking the job is only the difference between you and them.
There are a couple of well-known answers to that. The person hired in your place probably cares about the world too, and would go on to do somethi...
> TL;DR: No, but you might, if you leave it too late: We’re hiring for seven roles, and the people who join now will shape what a much bigger AIM becomes. The first step is cheap -- an expression of interest form.
My worry
I rejoined...
TLDR: It would be a shame if we just cross our fingers and hope everything goes well in Space for the next 100 years. Also maybe we can all play nice and one day have a space elevator or 10. Its stimulating to imagine the far future when we are orbiting suns throughout the universe, but until then we first have to play nice and figure out how to reliably get off of Earth.
If the future of humanity is dependent on moving beyond earth, then any longterm plans are dependent on us being able to regularly escape Earth's gravity well with ease and low cost, at least while we are still dependent on Earth.
Ignoring any Deus Ex Machina like an AGI that comes and sorts out all of our problems, we will have to make sure that escaping Earth's atmosphere remains possible based on our own efforts and problem-solving. Not getting the next 100 years right could be a type of "lock in" that is frustrates future human flourishing.
Currently the main issues I see for access to outerspace.
One (of many, surely) Assumption: Anthropcentric focus, I am not sure if I actually believe humanity should be separated categorically from our ecosystem. When I say 'we', I am saying whatever we decide is 'us' will probably go into space eventually.
If you are interested in this topic get in touch, I want to begin writing a series of posts first establishing why space is important and explaining immediate concrete issues that we need to address before becoming an extra-earth phenomenon. Its stimulating to imagine the far future when we are orbiting suns throughout the universe, but until then we first have to play nice and figure out how to reliably get off of Earth.