CB🔸
Bio
Participation3
I'm living in 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.
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
Comments268
Personally, I've added the diamond in my LinkedIn, Forum and local EA slack profile.
People on LinkedIn can check my description if they are curious about it.
Haven't noticed any downside yet (although it would be hard to know).
It's just that I feel like the culture of not showing our donations is not a good thing. It leads us to think nobody else donates, so we donate much less than we would have done otherwise. So it's worth signaling that yes, people are donating.
Hello !
I have a bit of a specific question: Do you know any organisation that could act as a bridge between a US donor and a French non-profit? I'm part of a French organization in such a situation. No problem if you don't have an answer.
The US donor is donating through a DAF and wants to give to a tax-deductible US 501(c)(3) nonprofit - that would send the money to the French org.
The answers I got so far from asking around:
- One option is asking the US nonprofits I know of to receive and transfer the money.
- However, this requires on their side to make an Equivalency Determination that certifies the US and French organisations are close enough for the money transfer, which seems a costly and heavy process (this ED is $1500, not sure about this one).
- An org with Expenditure responsibility could apparently do this as well, but I don't know any.
- I know a French charity which received money from large funders (ex. EA Funds), and they just had to sign a grant agreement without complicated paperwork - so maybe this is it.
- Another option is getting a fiscal sponsorship. I've heard that Ambitious Impact redirects towards PPF (which takes a 6% cut on the donation), there's also NPT (3-7% cut in our case).
Which of these options seems like the best? I'd be curious to hear about your opinion.
Very interesting, thanks a lot !
Do you have any data on pigs or cows ? I know they represent a smaller number of animals, and there is less data from the welfare footprint project, but I'd be curious to know your opinion.
The calculations would also be complicated by the necessary inclusion of veal for cows, and gestation crates for pigs, since these are a necessary part of current systems and certainly bad most of the time.
But since grass-fed cows are likely to be better treated than other animals, it would be good to know if their lives are positive and can maybe provide a template for other forms of animal agriculture (although economic incentives don't push in this direction).
This is a convincing post.
I didn't think often about doing that, but the multiplier effect seems considerable - dedicating fundraising to professional seems like a good bet.