My view on this: I think governments do foreign aid for a variety of reasons, some are selfish (like providing contracts for domestic companies), some are more altruistic (though a more developed Africa benefits us all through better market access and more efficient use of resources, as well as fewer global health crises and political crises to deal with).

And a different way of looking at it: Some amount of foreign aid is going to be directed towards altruistic goals. Anyone should want that money to be used as effectively as possible.

That's right, but in the original meaning of the word, it's actually not against EA at all. Us too would prefer sustainable interventions that lead to a better system and that do not have hidden costs. And I think rigorous RCTs that measure general markers are a good tool to find such interventions.

One of EAs anti-examples, Play Pumps, failed because it turned out not to be holistic at all.

I feel like effective aid policy is at a similar stage to what animal well-being was at a few decades ago. People would agree that animal well-being is good, but they wouldn't feel it's important.

Maybe we need an org that does targeted public campaigns on how a certain aid organization is wasting money, combining that with pushing them to a commitment to more effectiveness. This approach has worked with some meat-intensive companies, and it might also work for non-profits if it can threaten their donor base.

What advice do you have to other filmmakers who are trying to spread ideals of effective charity on YouTube? What should they focus on?

Thanks for the great video! I think it did a great job at bringing the usual MrBeast emotional content to a charity whose impact is difficult to film.

Where does Beast Philanthropy get its funding from? Is it just revenue from BP videos (incl. Sponsors), or money from MrBeast, or also other philanthropists?

I have too many EA T-shirts from conferences. What should I do with them?

On further googling, there is actually an active proposal by the Commission!
The proposed directive introduces a new type of legal form (the "European cross-border association"), which will make it a lot easier for non-profits to operate across the entire EEA.

However, at this stage, the issue of taxation is not addressed. The European Parliament is expected to work on the proposal before the election next year, so now may be a good time to call further attention to this :)

I looked into this for a few hours a while ago - it's crazy to me that Cross-Border commerce is so easy in the EU, but tax-deductible cross-border donations are not.

I think there should be a push for harmonizing EU rules on tax-deductibility. Two scenarios:

1. You could make anything that's deemed a charity/public benefit in an EU country automatically deductible everywhere.
2. Or, if member states can't agree on criteria, create a new legal status for some orgs that means they are automatically deemed public benefit by any EU country. Ideally, this status would also be available to non-EU entities.

I would like to make this happen, but I have no idea how.

Do you have any takes on insect farming? There's a company that sells protein powder made from crickets, and they basically claim they feel no pain and are super efficient. Could that be on the same scale or even better than vegan protein powder, made from e.g. peas?

https://eatsens.com/pages/cricket-protein