I'd really like it if AI resulted in amazing plant based or cultured meat, and that the general abundance coming from AI means that people can focus their thinking on morality, not just making their lives go okay. 

BUT, so far, new tech and improved economical situations have caused farmed animal suffering to get worse.

So I have a big uncertainty, but lean disagree. 
 

Thanks for sharing these Annika and Sam!

I'd recommend you (and anyone using these resources) check out the EA Groups Resources page on the approach to politics and polarised issues, so you can check out some considerations of when/how to raise such issues in your group

https://resources.eagroups.org/approach-to-politics-and-political-issues 

It is important to know that, in the US (and lots of other countries)

charities or organizations funded by charities are NOT allowed to engage in political campaigning.
Including

• financial support for a campaign, including reimbursing costs for people to engage in volunteer activities
• endorsing or disapproving of a candidate, referring to a candidate’s characteristics or qualifications for office — in writing, speaking, mentions on the website, podcasts, etc.
• Language that could appear partisan like stating “holding elected officials accountable" could also imply disapproval.
• taking action to help or hurt the chances of a candidate. This can be problematic even if you or your charity didn’t intend to help or hurt the candidate.

Given most groups are funded by CEA (part of Effective Ventures which is a US charity), this applies to most EA groups in the US. It is probably also relevant for groups that might want to be funded by a US charity in the future.

Hi Yarrow, thanks for looping back on this. 
Yes, we did do this project, which involved looking at existing data and doing some new interviews with community members, and looked at existing literature on women and non-binary people's experiences in different communities, and what seems to improve things. Based on all this, we wrote an extended internal document, and shared some recommendations with a variety of EA organisations and EA groups. We think this information could be of use to more community members, but for some bureaucratic reasons a writeup hasn't made it on to the Forum - sorry about that. 

What a great spreadsheet. It gives me wonderful old-school EA vibes. 
Do you have a fav seitan recipe? 

I've made seitan 3 times. 1x failure, 1x fairly good, 1x amazing but really time consuming. 

Correct! It is a great book!

I look back fondly to 10 years ago at EA Global: Melbourne. It was small, simple, the catering was (literally) carrot sticks, corn chips and hummus, and it hugely influential to me. I knew no one before I arrived, but the conference photo shows many people I've gone on to work with and become close friends with. 

This talk was a highlight - I remember it bending my mind in ways it hadn't been bent before, and it hammered home just how hard our mission to improve the world actually is: 

The counterfactual attendances at EA conferences is a pretty interesting metric (at least for us at CEA) - I'm glad you're tracking that. 

Great to hear of all your progress over 2024 Gergő and Milán!

(And thanks for the thanks! In retrospect I think those initial meetings with EA Hungary might have been among my most useful meetings with group organisers!)

I'm thrilled to have an EA conference in my home town (thanks @Gavin Bishop 🔹 and @Ruben Castaing for leading this event)!

For those of you who are considering coming -- a little (biased) plug from me:

The EA Christchurch and the EA Aotearoa New Zealand communities have been active for 10 years now, with a handful of very engaged EAs who have dedicated their careers to EA-aligned work of various types (community building, donation funnelling, civilisational resilience, AI safety, animal advocacy, probably other things too that I've forgotten), and many other engaged EAs have been involved in the past and have flown the coop for their high-impact careers. While our community is small in global standards I think we are pretty impressive by per-capita and by per-unit of resources invested. And we're very friendly and supportive too! So it would be lovely to see people join us!

While the conference is just a single day, a few of us are planning to also have some more relaxed social activities on Friday night and Sunday, so try to come for the whole weekend if you can. 

Nau mai, haere mai!

This is a great story of someone taking a selfless and high expected value bet, that sadly didn't work out. 
I'm grateful and impressed that you tried so hard to make the donation happen Santeri!
I hope Mikko gets a new kidney ASAP, and that you both experience excellent health in the future.  

Depopulation is Bad

I think humans are good. And larger groups of people can do a lot more (more innovation, more cultural activities, more variety of human experiences). 

Right now, in 2025, I would not advocate for more people due to animal welfare and environmental costs of having more people. 

But looking at the many countries that have gone through a very demographic transition to less-than-replacement fertility (and all the other countries that seem to be following a very similar trajectory), I'm worried that the population will plummet shortly after it hits peak. 

I'm not sure what to do about it. And I'm worried about governments/other people in influence increasingly trying to increase fertility in ways that reduce individual freedom.