thanks for sharing! Glad to hear it

Glad to see people engaging with this consultation. My experience when I've done work reviewing consultation responses in UK government:

-put more weight on novel, well-supported arguments (so I'd recommend including a short, clear piece of strong evidence for your arguments)

-put more weight on responses from credible people or organisations with legible qualifications or expertise (so I'd recommend emphasising any legible qualifications, experience or affiliations - or if you don't have that, just presenting yourself as a normal private citizen)

-put less weight on responses that are identical or very similar; I basically considered them as a group

However note that every organisation has its own way of doing things, so other organisations might put more weight on private individuals repeating the same arguments than I did.

Kids can't always easily explain what's going on. Even adults would have a tough time answering that question I think! Most would probably just say "... because I need to use the bathroom??"

I'd be curious to understand his views on the role of individual Christians and the Church as an institution in politics

We also experimented with an EAG in the Bay Area focused on Global Catastrophic Risks

Have you decided yet whether to run another GCR-focused EAG?

I absolutely agree! One thing I've been thinking about recently: I used to think that if I want to make a career move in the next 6 months, I should start out by applying to really ambitious jobs and then lower my standards. I'm rethinking this. I now think it's probably good to get better-than-now Plan B offers early on too, even if I end up turning them down, both because it helps me calibrate, but honestly much more importantly because it keeps me motivated! Getting even 3 or 4 rejections in a row can be really hard emotionally

The British civil service is really good for this. We don't pay as much at a senior level as the private sector, so instead we put a lot of effort into creating a good work culture with lots of training and feedback (of course still varies between departments and managers!).

It's also very easy to get experience presenting to boards or helping to hire people, and relatively easy to get management experience.

The year in question, when they decided to hold some cash for a few months, it was because they had been researching new giving opportunities that were 10x cash and wanted to be able to use the money for that, rather than dropping the bar. (GiveDirectly criticised them for this and said they should've effectively lowered their bar to 1x cash in order to use the funds as soon as possible; they thought GiveWell's decision would be indefensible to the world's poorest people.)