The ‘deportation abundance’ guy, Charles Lehman, was not merely associating abundance with deportations in a stray tweet—he was a speaker on a panel at Abundance 2025. He himself claims to be not associated with the abundance coalition.

(I’m not taking a position here on whether I think Abundance 2025 should have invited speakers it explicitly disagrees with, or whether my impression is that Abundance 2025 endorses or disendorses his views—just correcting you on that specific point)

I’ll look at this properly later but just wanted to confirm that I got it wrong about WelcomeFest. I’d read a tweet about Open Philanthropy sponsoring Abundance 2025 around the same time WelcomeFest was happening, and conflated the two due to having similar speakers and an explicit pro-abundance position.

I’ve been meaning to write a longer post about my concerns with this cause area, including the high levels of political risk it exposes the EA movement to, and why we should be wary of that post-FTX. For example, I think it was unwise to sponsor a conference which invited a guy championing ‘deportation abundance’. And that’s not even the most controversial conference they sponsored this year (the author here has already formed an association with effective altruism, also thankfully didn’t notice who funded the conference). (I will get to the rest of Yarrow’s comment later but this was a bad memory of mine; I had read that Open Philanthropy were going to fund Abundance festival well before it happened, and assumed they had funded WelcomeFest due to sharing speakers and the abundance ideology).

(I don’t have this critique fully formed enough to share it on the forum in much more detail)

Really excited about this—having chatted extensively with Oli and Rowan, they mean business! Also quite excited to see lung health take off more and more as a cause area, could be the new lead, ya never know :)

Just to add additional context from the email attendees received last week (I am refraining from passing judgment either way, only to note that the organising team are taking additional precautions):

The venue is easily accessible via three nearby metro stations — Khan Market (Violet Line) and Lok Kalyan Marg or Jor Bagh (Yellow Line). Staying along either of these lines will likely save you a transfer. Given the air quality, we recommend avoiding autos and bikes.

Check the Air Quality Index (AQI) on Google Maps when choosing your stay; some areas will have better air quality than others.

We will provide N95 anti-pollution masks, but if you have allergies or have high sensitivity to air quality, please do carry your own precautions. Some people feel dryness in the eyes as well, so if this happens to you, having eye drops handy would be good.

If you feel that the pollution may severely affect your health, please let our team know—we can help make arrangements. If it's still not feasible, it may be best not to attend, as your health comes first.

And on the linked FAQ in that email:

There is quite a high likelihood of severe air pollution in Delhi, especially during winter months (October to February) due to intense smog, dust, vehicle pollution, and cold weather.

At the conference, we’re making arrangements like having air purifiers at the venue to minimise impact on health, but we also encourage you to bring N95 masks if this is something that you’re concerned might affect you, such as if you have pre-existing medical or respiratory conditions. We also suggest taking precautions such as avoiding exercise first thing in the morning and in the evening (when the air quality is at its worst).

For those with serious respiratory conditions, we ask that you consider any health risks before deciding to attend EAGxIndia 2025 in Delhi.

I’m driving by on this, I know little about the space. What kinds of efforts have there been to blanket a small area (perhaps a local government) in good purifiers, far-UVC, etc. (thinking about passive technologies only, so not things like masking)? If such efforts existed, surely they would cause measurable changes in productivity due to decreasing common colds/flus/etc., and this would essentially make the case for themselves as an economic investment? Or am I way off the mark here?

EA jobs pay great if you’re from the global south—and yet!

(This discussion seems to be anchoring on diversity as it’s practiced in wealthy economies, which I don’t think necessarily has to be the main way of making EA diverse)

I mostly just want to join the chorus of people welcoming you here and repudiate the negative reaction that a very reasonable question is getting. It’s worth adding 3 things:

• The demographic balance is improving over time, with new EAs in 2023 and 2024 being substantially more diverse.
• Anecdotally, the EA forum skews whiter, more male, and more Bay Area. I personally feel that the forum is increasingly out of touch with ‘EA on the ground’, especially in cause areas such as global health. Implementing EAs very rarely post here, unfortunately. Don’t take any reaction here as representative of broader EA.
• Anecdotally (and I believe I’ve seen some stats to back this up), some cause areas are more diverse than others. Global health and animal welfare seem to be substantially more diverse, specifically.

If I can put this succinctly:

• Basically all of the charities you reviewed seem to be operating in good faith
• Your reviews were regularly incendiary and accusatory in spite of this, with little (and in many cases no) evidence for them operating in bad faith
• In every case I saw, they took on your feedback and responded reasonably
• You asked for feedback on your approach and were given it, then didn’t change anything

Ironically, in spite of yourself, you probably did have a positive impact, because many of the charities were engaging with you in good faith and took on your feedback. You should be happy mate!

If OpenAI are sincere in adding this to their ToS or there’s further regulatory pressure, the models will presumably get better at preventing this. I think it’s important.