Quick takes

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer is a book about the psychology of mass movements. I think there are important cautions for EAs thinking about their own relationship to the movement. I wanted to write a draft amnesty post about this, but I couldn't write anything better than this Lou Keep essay about the book, so I'll just recommend you read that.

On AI alarmists: A fair-sized stream seems vast to one who until then Has never seen a greater; so with trees, with men. In every field each man regards as vast in size The greatest objects that have come before his eyes  (Lucretius)

Anyone else get a pig butchering scam attempt lately via DM on the forun?  I just got the following message  > Happy day to you, I am [X] i saw your profile today and i like it very much,which makes me to write to you to let you know that i am interested in you,therefore i will like you to write me back so that i will tell you further about myself and send you also my picture for you to know me physically.  [EMAIL] I reported the user on their profile and opened a support request but just FYI  

My critique of forecasting and rationality communities can be summed up as “penny wise, pound foolish”. And this approach to thinking can be automated by AI, as opposed to more unstructured software thinking

Sofya Lebedeva has been so wonderfully kind and helpful and today she suggested changing the plethora of links to a linktree. I was expecting a very difficult set up process and a hefty cost but the lifetime free plan took me 5 min to set up and I'd say it works amazingly to keep it all in one place. https://linktr.ee/sofiiaf I would say societies (eg EA uni groups) may benefit, and perhaps even the cost (around £40 a year) to be able to advertise events on Linktree may be helpful.

EA Awards 1. I feel worried that the ratio of the amount of criticism that one gets for doing EA stuff to the amount of positive feedback one gets is too high 2. Awards are a standard way to counteract this 3. I would like to explore having some sort of awards thingy 4. I currently feel most excited about something like: a small group of people solicit nominations and then choose a short list of people to be voted on by Forum members, and then the winners are presented at a session at EAG BA 5. I would appreciate feedback on: 1. whether people think this is a good idea 2. How to frame this - I want to avoid being seen as speaking on behalf of all EAs 6. Also if anyone wants to volunteer to co-organize with me I would appreciate hearing that

I was confronted with the fact that EA is not as big as I think it is and that Agriculture as well as systemic changes are not directly possible by EA, with that I agree in some part. What is available to EA, at least in terms of underdeveloped rural agricultural economies. Knowledge, we have knowledge, and I believe the transfer of knowledge is crucial when conversing with farmers, so how do we transfer this knowledge we have to the farmers? Mini-courses? No, mini-courses would work for people who have internet connection, maybe we could conduct large scale mini-courses where a local could help us devise a classroom type of learning setting and where we could engage a large population of people, while keeping costs down. Yes. On the topic of mini-courses, the most beneficial way to go is to divide them in two types of production, animal and plant production, because a lot of the people who I read about today were in either of the two. I believe with good practices we could address both poverty in the rural populations but also increase the comfort of the animals, proper feed, proper water and things alike that contribute to animal wellbeing. I have a lot of things to write about, but I'll keep it short. I'll make a more defined outline on how we can do this, and maybe you (the community can help me guide my efforts). Also I think EA should focus a bit more on agronomy as a whole because food production is a large and unaddressed topic.

From: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2025/01/08/anthropic-60-billion-valuation-will-make-all-seven-cofounders-billionaires/ I don't know if any of the seven co-founders practice effective giving, but if they do, this is welcoming news!