Hello everyone, my name is Liz Kariuki and I'm new here. I'm taking the EA Virtual Course in the April - May cohort. I'm a 27y/o Kenyan woman with a Bachelor's degree in Economics. I haven't done any work with my course though since I'm also a self-taught programmer and I've worked in Web Development, Sales Automation, and content creation. I am also a member of my local Rotaract currently serving as the director of community service.

I am glad to have found this community since it brings my passions together. Everything seems a bit overwhelming at the moment. (Effective Altruism, Longtermism, 80,000 hours, AI Alignement, Forecasting etc) But I'm sure I'll be able to understand it and find my place in due time. Hoping to learn to make a better impact in the world through a meaningful career and giving to deserving causes. Open for jobs in Research Assistance and Content Creation.

Thanks.

Hi,

I have a BASc in Philosophy and Psychology. I'm still trying to figure out how I could do anything useful here, so maybe someone could help me out. 

I'm 27 years old, and currently work in an after-school program teaching children music. I tend to have a talent for accelerated learning (I am currently teaching piano, violin, guitar, ukulele and drums, and have now been teaching at least two of those instruments for as long or longer than it took me to learn them to a level where I can teach them). That's sadly coupled with a lack of consistent emotional investment, though, so I have not been able to successfully capitalize on it. 

I got 94th percentile on Verbal in the GRE and a perfect 6 in writing, but a 30th percentile on quant (it bothers me personally that a score that would have been an A- in most educational contexts I've experienced, or perhaps a B+ in some of the more rigorous ones in absolute terms was so low, as I think that's misleading, but that is the nature of the skew in the distribution I guess). I had a 3.6 GPA in my last 2 years and a 3.3 GPA cummulative. All from a relatively unremarkable university. I am also disabled in such a way that I cannot count on my own reliability for prolonged periods of time, which makes everything harder, but because I'm "so smart" (according to the people around me) it seems rather wasteful that I haven't found anything I can have a higher impact on thus far. 

This means that, when dealing with 80,000 hours, etc, I find it rather hard to see what is actually applicable to me. I find it rather unlikely that I will get into a "top 20 school", for example, which is a fairly recurrent pattern in all of the academic paths (which professors told me over and over that I should pursue during my undergrad). 

This is not a way of despairing ("Oh no! Can I even make the world better if I don't have a perfect score on one unnecessarily expensive test?!") but instead a personal angle through which I can bring up that:

1.) I don't believe that 80,000 hours provides actually useful advice to people who are not exoribitantly high achievers (or at least, it hasn't provided it for me thus far and I've been checking it out on and off for like 7 years at this point). 

2.) I do believe that people here can provide such advice, so it would be nice if I could receive some. 

On top of that, I've been nursing a notion that it might be a good idea to make "rationality", "futurism" or even "emotional resilience" summer camps for children, and if anybody is interested in a project like that, please let me know. 

Hi everyone, some of this is an emotional dump if it goes against any guidelines or something I can change it. And if you don’t want to read something kind of depressing I understand. I don’t usually share period but I want the advice and I need to feel part of some group. It is a very long post and I in it I am working through some stuff mentally. It is hardly just an introduction, but if you can call it that it is a thorough one. I probably only felt comfortable commenting this based on the consideration shown in responses to O Carciente’s post.

I am an 18 year old senior just finishing up high school. What is next is complicated but I am excited to share. 
First my username Xor, it comes from my favorite programing language Ti-Basic not the language I use the most or find the most useful. However it is my first love, how I found programming. Xor is a binary or boolean logic operator it takes two true or false statements and compares them. If one statement is true and the other is false the operation is true, if both are true or both are false then the operation is false. It also looks and sounds pretty cool, plus I hardly ever get it.

I would like to share my dream and how it involves altruism. But first I want to explain my current situation. I live with my mom and dad who are christians. All my life I have believed in god. The church I went to is extreme in some ways. I have only ever seen a handful of movies all in school. For the last six years I have been struggling with doubts about christianity. Why are all other religions wrong. How can we be so sure. How come the bible is wrong compared to science. I have always been taught this is sin. I struggled with it for a long time silently I hardly ever ask for help much less for forgiveness. I found all of the answers and believed. No argument could stop me I knew an answer I had already questioned it all myself. Other religions, big bang, evolution and the rest of science I explained every thing to myself. Fifteen chapters into ”Rationality: From Ai to Zombies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky I became an atheist it wasn‘t an argument that convinced me it was understanding my mind. First there was a sense of freedom and excitement. But with it came pain, I feel incredibly lonely, I don’t believe I will get to die and see my little brother in heaven. My church is an extremely tight community, I have no friends outside of church nor family. I work for and with guys from my church at a small tech company. I have no money for my own apartment. No perspective job. I am scared but excited I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me. Sorry a lot this section might not be very important but I felt the need to share. This is me working it all out as I made this transition in self identity a few days ago. Ironically the day before Good Friday.
 
Besides my current state of mental stability, there are a couple of other effects this has had on my course of life. I was always pushed away from school, pulled actually by my friend group. I can’t blame it all on my friend group in the end it was my decision and to a degree I was happy with it. I love books and naturally excelled at school when I was younger. I grew older and found out that this wasn’t ideal for my social life and started slacking. I was already in advanced classes and have passed them without putting in effort. My parents forced me to continue applying myself to a degree. This has lead to a pretty bad GPA and left me unprepared for any further education. Things have changed in the last half a year. For my senior year I signed up for PSEO, getting high school and college credits through a community college. I failed every course I registered for except an online economics class that I gamed. I put in effort but not enough and eventually I was in too deep and I didn’t have a real way out. I spent the last quarter of the semester in the library rediscovering my love for reading and a new one for learning. 

Finally leading to a positive direction my current goals. I managed to get back into PSEO going from absolutely not wanting to be there to fighting to go with all that I had. My mom, dad and counselors told me not to. If I didn’t pass I wouldn’t graduate high school. It hasn’t been easy but I am doing well and am going to pass all of my classes as well as graduate high school. I am going back to the same community college in the fall. In the meantime I want to teach my self how to learn and think rationally, to control my self perfectly. I want to fill out my understanding in math, physics, biology, and writing. Then come fall I want to be amazing in school perform as perfectly as I know I am capable of. 

As for altruism I want to become a teacher. I want to build a course to teach everything in the most optimal way. I want to learn exactly how the human brain works when it comes to learning. How it processes, stores and organizes information. I want to build the single best tool for learning ever created. I want it to be so good that it is eventually deployed as the software used as direct interface with the brain. And make it free, the altruistic part. I want nobody anywhere to suffer because they can’t afford an education that they need. This is a big dream but I have some ideas on getting there. For now I am designing a course on learning which I will put on YouTube eventually turning that into a website and eventually build that into the end goal. For now I might be able to start saving up some of my own money so I can live by myself and get to work on changing the world. 

Fwheehwhf 


I will probably be bouncing around here and LessWrong, which is how I found EA forum, commenting and posting about what I find interesting. I hope to find on these forums mentors, friends and community. I am mostly here to learn ask and be taught. I am interested in the workings of the world, hungry to fix my ignorance and satisfy my curiosity.

In the style of Lex Fridman (if you don’t know him fix that) I’ll finish with a quote I like “We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars” - Oscar Wilde

Hi folks,

I'm Matt. It's great to be here.

I'm a content strategist, UX designer, and technical writer based in Melbourne.

Personally and professionally I've long been interested in the intersection of technology, philosophy, ethics, and society—and discovering the Effective Altruism movement has felt like a natural supplement to these interests.

I've worked in technology and software design for a number of years—including stints at Apple and Google—but I'm extremely interested and motivated in seeing where I can have a positive impact elsewhere. AI, technology policy, and corporate communications feels like a good move to make, considering my career capital, but I'm still in the early stages of exploring this—so any advice, conversation, or consulting is appreciated.

I'm churning through a bunch of EA-related literature, research, and content, and am in the midst of taking the Giving What We Can pledge.

In my spare time? I collect vinyl records, host community dance parties, devour books, and hike.

That's it for now. It's lovely to meet you all, and I'm excited to be part of a vibrant, caring, and impactful community. (It'd be great to meet some like-minded people around Melbourne, to make this introduction feel more real!)

Cheers!

Hello~ I'm Charlotte.

I have a Bachelor of Science in Biology, and I've spent my post-university career working in a microbiology lab.

I'm currently not working because of a disability for which I am still coming to terms and figuring out how to get appropriate accommodations. This means that I have an opportunity to put some real research into my next career move, as life in a lab was not for me.

I'm currently working on the 8-week career plan on the 80 000 hours site. If anyone else sees this message and happens to also be working on their own career plan, maybe we could bounce ideas off of each other =) The path I am leaning towards is data science, but there are other topics I am interested in, such as hydroponic farming and plastic alternatives.

I'm very happy that this community exists, and I look forward to learning with you all 🌈

Hi everyone, I am Adebayo Mubarak, I am currently undertaking a law degree. I have taken the Intro to EA, In-Depth, The Precipice Reading and currently taking the Legal Topics in EA which will come to an end by next week. Also, I am the coordinator of my University reading group (Bayero University, Kano) and the Lead Facilitator for EA Kano Hub Nigeria. 

I am open to opportunities to further widen my knowledge of the core principles and cause area in EA. And lastly, I am a freelance Writer.

I've been kinda following the 80,000 hours career guide, but I don't think it's what I'm looking for. Ultimately, it clarified that what I really want is to work for an org with a good mission. I'm a software developer, and I'm very motivated, signed the Giving What We Can pledge and everything.

I checked out their profile on software engineering, but surely there are more orgs out there that need software devs no?

I've also been thinking I could be good at an operations role, but it's very unclear how to get on that ladder.

Hi Nastya! It is very nice to meet you! You put everything very nicely. I am new here also and am looking forward to sharing ideas with other people who are interested in building a better world. 

Hi! I have some basic questions that I believe there are well-documented resources I could be linked to. As far as I know, there are currently four EA-aligned meta-charities, i.e., charities that evaluate and recommend other charities based on EA's core values: GiveWell, Animal Charity Evaluators, Giving What We Can, and The Life You Can Save. I have the following questions:
       (1) Did I miss any other EA-aligned meta-charity?
       (2) What are the differences in their evaluation process? I get that GiveWell deals mainly with global health in developing countries, and Animal Charity Evaluators works in the Animal Welfare domain. Apart from that, what are the other differences? Maybe another way to put the question is: Why don't they have a single list of recommendations?
       (3) A simple Google Search returns some meta-charities that are not EA-aligned, like Charity Navigator and Charity Watch. How exactly do these meta-charities differ from the EA-aligned ones?

Hi folks,
I'm My Le from Vietnam, an independent journalist and a forester-to-be (I'm taking a 2nd degree). I'm also passionate about youth empowerment. As a lifelong writer, my goal is to foster ‘explanatory journalism’ in my country to help people, especially the young, make well-informed decisions.

To support my community amid climate change, I am looking for opportunities to create more jobs in the Mekong Delta and introduce our fresh produce to the world.

Reach out to me if you have questions about Vietnam, particularly about our forests and deltas. If you plan to implement any projects here, I am happy to give a hand :)

Hello all, I am new here, and discovered the forum while looking for sources of statistical data and research to assist in writing articles pertaining to criminal justice reform.  My goal is to open a non-profit in Louisville, Kentucky that will assist ex-felons, and others, obtain jobs, find housing, file for expungements, etc.  My program will be innovative and one of a kind because it will incorporate the ability to closely observe the way a small business operates with the forming of a barbecue/catering/food truck operation simulataneouslym. which would serve as a working model of how small businesses operate.  The program would encourage the formation of small businesses by showing that this can prove to be a fairly simple process.  The issues faced by the criminal justice system require us to look at the system from a different angle.  Personally, my focus is on the period immediately leading up to and following release.  In the last decade we witnessed massive increases in the number of people interested in social issues, especially criminal justice reform, however, little seems to have come from it.  In reality, there appears to be a distance between academia and organizers.  Likely because academics can be a bit snooty, but in many respects have the right be.  They know the answers lie in the research that they tirelessly work to produce.  There is a strong argument that community centers with adequate programs are the answer.  Seeing people all riled up about issues with no clear guidance or goals can be frustrating.  To resolve this, researchers could spend more time getting the research into the hands of organizers and helping to fund or promote ideas that they believe would work.  I would like to do more than just think about my ideas and plan to establish these programs with the goal of reducing crime and helping people maintain positive lifestyles free of crime.  I have started a GoFundMe for this purpose, mostly because I was not sure about where else to start.  My social media pages have been inactive so long that I have lost touch with many people sharing similar interests. however, I look forward to interacting with people on these issues. 

https://gofund.me/7ae8bb48