CB
Bio
Participation3
I'm living in Lyon, France. Learned about EA in 2018, found that great, digged a lot into the topic. The idea of "what in the world improves well-being or causes suffering the most, and what can we do" really influenced me a whole lot - especially when mixed with meditation that allowed me to be more active in my life.
I'm doing a lot of personal research on a whole lot of topics. I also co-wrote a book in French with a few recommendations on how to take action for a better world, and included a chapter on EA (the title is "Acting for a Sustainable World", Éditions Jouvence). I've participated in a few conferences after that, it's a good way to improve oral skills.
One of the most reliable thing I have found so far is helping animal charities : farmed animals are much more numerous than humans (and have much worse living conditions), and there absolutely is evidence that animal charities are getting some improvements (especially from The Humane League). I tried to donate a lot there.
Long-termism could also be important, but I think that we'll hit energy limits before getting to an extinction event - I wrote an EA forum post for that here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wXzc75txE5hbHqYug/the-great-energy-descent-short-version-an-important-thing-ea
How I can help others
I just have an interest in whatever topic sounds really important, so I have a LOT of data on a lot of topics. These include energy, the environment, resource depletion, simple ways to understand the economy, limits to growth, why we fail to solve the sustainability issue, and how we got to that very weird specific point in history.
I also have a lot of stuff on Buddhism and meditation and on "what makes us happy" (check the Waking Up app!)
Posts 5
Comments184
Thanks for the post. This sounds worth exploring and quite promising, especially if it works.
It's quite impressive that it may be about 60-70% as effective compared to guided therapy.
I was just wondering about one element that I think could be more clear. What kind of unguided self-help apps are you talking about? Are they already widespread? Are we talking about Thought Saver or Waking Up or something like that ? I think a little example of such an app and how it works at the beginning could provide a bit more clarity.
Thanks for the calculator.
I was wondering about the welfare part of the equation, and it's not obvious how people get their welfare estimates in the calculator, from what I see in the post.
Are we talking about the welfare of just humans ? Animals ? (Farmed or wild animals)? Artificial sentience ? How do we reconcile all of these when we're not sure today whether global welfare is net positive ?
Of course, this depends on very important questions that are hard to assess. What are the consequences of bringing wild animals suffering to our planet? Is factory farming going to continue for a long time, especially as that long-termists are very optimistic about technology replacing all forms of animal farming, where it's not so obvious? Are artificial sentience going to have lives worth living ? How are we going to impact animals on other planets ?
So overall, what should we include in the 'welfare' part of the calculator?
I don't have time to read all of it right now, but from what I've read (half of it) this seems a very compelling post !
I also strongly agree with your initial point : most of the impacts of future AI will be on animals, something I think has not been addressed enough in the AI safety field.