This month (and a half) I ran a blogging carnival where participants submitted essays on cause selection. This is a complex but extremely important subject and I was pleased to see submissions with novel and interesting arguments.

Dave Denkenberger believes that we should investigate alternate food sources as a way both to mitigate global catastrophic risk and to improve food quality for the global poor.

Thomas Mather describes his four favorite causes: family planning, global health and cognitive development, farm animal welfare, and software patent reform.

Denis Drescher expects that factory farming interventions are the most effective for him to support, but malaria prevention is easier to fundraise for.

I argue that we should prioritize global catastrophic risks as the most important object-level cause; and Raising for Effective Giving looks like a particularly strong opportunity for high-leverage movement building.

Jeff Jordan proposes that humane insecticides may be the most effective cause because they could reduce massive amounts of insect suffering.

Thanks a lot to all the submitters!