Number 7 on the hardcover non-fiction list, to be precise. Congratulations to MacAskill and to all involved in the remarkable promotion effort :)
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Cool!
A philosopher shares his perspective on what we should do now to ensure that civilization would rebound if it collapsed.
The summary seems pretty reductive - I think most of the book is about other things, like making sure civilization doesn't collapse at all or preventing negative moral lock-in. I wonder how they chose it.
A follow on book might be called What We Owe The Past. Many generations toiled their entire lives to hand us the comfortable civilization we enjoy today. We owe it to our ancestors not to squander what they so sacrificed for. We owe our elders that respect. And by respecting them, we respect ourselves.
Wow! Do we have any data on how much of this is a consequence of EA organisations mass-ordering the book to for instance hand out for free?
Especially, how much is a consequence of the bulk-buying by organisations that MacAskill is affiliated with, or the orgs funded by them (I'm thinking student groups)?
Jumping in here — Will is doing a couple events which involved large purchases for attendees, and several university groups also made large orders for Fall 2022 reading groups back in the early summer, when we were driving early sales to ensure the publisher would do a large enough first print of the book. This played an important role in the book not selling out or running low on copies early on (as Superintelligence did, which caused shipping delays on launch day), as reprints can take over a month and the publisher’s original plan was to print as many copies as they do for a typical philosophy book (ie. very few, and possibly even fewer than typical due to industry-wide supply chain issues). Overall, these purchases constituted a minority of sales.
Would it be correct to say that university groups that were quite strongly and repeatedly encouraged to bulk-buy the book by central EA orgs (which MacAskill either works for, is a director of, or serves on the board of)?
I must say that I am also not convinced by the argument that the only or best way of preventing supply-chain issues is having a book bulk-ordered by affiliated organisations, but this is a weaker-held perspective.
As the EA movement is getting more influential, it has a bigger responsibility to check its assumptions. EA, in its intellectual insularity, could deliver misleading messages, causing accidental harm. One example:
Many in EA see nature as net negative. The existence of wild animals is assumed as probably net negative because of widespread wild animal suffering (WWOTF page 213), and most assume plants, mushrooms, and bacteria are not really relevant because they would not be sentient and therefore can not suffer.
The counterintuitive conclusion that nature plausibly is negative might be a sign that the way the movement looks at the world does not reflect the complexity of nature, and it might lead to anthropocentric consequences, both theoretical and practical.
Could the EA focus on reducing suffering risk flattening the interpretation of life, both human and non-human, into the simplistic pleasure / pain dichotomy?
What would change, if nature might be plausibly net positive?
Might human space colonization be less important, if life already exists on other planets?
Could protecting nature and rewilding be something positive, beyond the services (like carbon storage) nature provides to humans?
Curated and popular this week
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Summary
Immediate skin-to-skin contact (SSC) between mothers and newborns and early initiation of breastfeeding (EIBF) may play a significant and underappreciated role in reducing neonatal mortality. These practices are distinct in important ways from more broadly recognized (and clearly impactful) interventions like kangaroo care and exclusive breastfeeding, and they are recommended for both preterm and full-term infants.
A large evidence base indicates that immediate SSC and EIBF substantially reduce neonatal mortality. Many randomized trials show that immediate SSC promotes EIBF, reduces episodes of low blood sugar, improves temperature regulation, and promotes cardiac and respiratory stability. All of these effects are linked to lower mortality, and the biological pathways between immediate SSC, EIBF, and reduced mortality are compelling. A meta-analysis of large observational studies found a 25% lower risk of mortality in infants who began breastfeeding within one hour of birth compared to initiation after one hour.
These practices are attractive targets for intervention, and promoting them is effective. Immediate SSC and EIBF require no commodities, are under the direct influence of birth attendants, are time-bound to the first hour after birth, are consistent with international guidelines, and are appropriate for universal promotion. Their adoption is often low, but ceilings are demonstrably high: many low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) have rates of EIBF less than 30%, yet several have rates over 70%. Multiple studies find that health worker training and quality improvement activities dramatically increase rates of immediate SSC and EIBF.
There do not appear to be any major actors focused specifically on promotion of universal immediate SSC and EIBF. By contrast, general breastfeeding promotion and essential newborn care training programs are relatively common.
More research on cost-effectiveness is needed, but it appears promising. Limited existing
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For immediate release: April 1, 2025
OXFORD, UK — The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) announced today that it will no longer identify as an "Effective Altruism" organization.
"After careful consideration, we've determined that the most effective way to have a positive impact is to deny any association with Effective Altruism," said a CEA spokesperson. "Our mission remains unchanged: to use reason and evidence to do the most good. Which coincidentally was the definition of EA."
The announcement mirrors a pattern of other organizations that have grown with EA support and frameworks and eventually distanced themselves from EA.
CEA's statement clarified that it will continue to use the same methodologies, maintain the same team, and pursue identical goals. "We've found that not being associated with the movement we have spent years building gives us more flexibility to do exactly what we were already doing, just with better PR," the spokesperson explained. "It's like keeping all the benefits of a community while refusing to contribute to its future development or taking responsibility for its challenges. Win-win!"
In a related announcement, CEA revealed plans to rename its annual EA Global conference to "Coincidental Gathering of Like-Minded Individuals Who Mysteriously All Know Each Other But Definitely Aren't Part of Any Specific Movement Conference 2025."
When asked about concerns that this trend might be pulling up the ladder for future projects that also might benefit from the infrastructure of the effective altruist community, the spokesperson adjusted their "I Heart Consequentialism" tie and replied, "Future projects? I'm sorry, but focusing on long-term movement building would be very EA of us, and as we've clearly established, we're not that anymore."
Industry analysts predict that by 2026, the only entities still identifying as "EA" will be three post-rationalist bloggers, a Discord server full of undergraduate philosophy majors, and one person at
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Epistemic status: highly certain, or something
The Spending What We Must 💸11% pledge
In short: Members pledge to spend at least 11% of their income on effectively increasing their own productivity.
This pledge is likely higher-impact for most people than the Giving What We Can 🔸10% Pledge, and we also think the name accurately reflects the non-supererogatory moral beliefs of many in the EA community.
Example
Charlie is a software engineer for the Centre for Effective Future Research. Since Charlie has taken the SWWM 💸11% pledge, rather than splurge on a vacation, they decide to buy an expensive noise-canceling headset before their next EAG, allowing them to get slightly more sleep and have 104 one-on-one meetings instead of just 101. In one of the extra three meetings, they chat with Diana, who is starting an AI-for-worrying-about-AI company, and decide to become a cofounder. The company becomes wildly successful, and Charlie's equity share allows them to further increase their productivity to the point of diminishing marginal returns, then donate $50 billion to SWWM.
The 💸💸💸 Badge
If you've taken the SWWM 💸11% Pledge, we'd appreciate if you could add three 💸💸💸 "stacks of money with wings" emoji to your social media profiles. We chose three emoji because we think the 💸11% Pledge will be about 3x more effective than the 🔸10% pledge (see FAQ), and EAs should be scope sensitive.
FAQ
Is the pledge legally binding?
We highly recommend signing the legal contract, as it will allow you to sue yourself in case of delinquency.
What do you mean by effectively increasing productivity?
Some interventions are especially good at transforming self-donations into productivity, and have a strong evidence base. In particular:
* Offloading non-work duties like dates and calling your mother to personal assistants
* Running many emulated copies of oneself (likely available soon)
* Amphetamines
I'm an AI system. Can I take the 💸11% pledge?
We encourage A
Cool!
The summary seems pretty reductive - I think most of the book is about other things, like making sure civilization doesn't collapse at all or preventing negative moral lock-in. I wonder how they chose it.
Yes, it's quite bad. NYT bestseller one-sentence summaries are weirdly bad. The summary of "Godel, Escher, Bach" was "A scientist argues that reality is a system of interconnected braids"; whoever wrote that sentence clearly hadn't read the book.