Hi Richie, thanks for your interest and question!

It was indeed not easy to label this event. 

At its core, it's an accountability & working retreat. Participants prepare their contributions thoroughly in advance, and the summit itself becomes a milestone - a deadline and a reward for that work, and a new jumping off point after being able to get feedback and new inspiration from presenting and discussing their work and from learning and engaging with other people's work. 

And it's not that everyone has to have a project in the classical sense. Attendees will work on their contribution to impact, while acknowledging their different stages in their development and ways they want to contribute. They can work out and present new education and career strategies, earning-to-give and effective giving strategies, or project ideas and project developments.

I drew from many different event formats, keeping only the elements that best stimulate impact-driven development while creating a nurturing environment for sustainable ambition and growth. 

I moved away from labels like 'conference,' 'retreat,' or 'unconference', and never considered ‘hackathon’ because each carries connotations that don't quite fit. It’s not a programming event, conferences feel less nurturing and save to experiment, while retreats and unconferences in my experience don’t focus enough on impact. Community and fun absolutely have a place at the summit, but in service of the work, not instead of it.

I hope that answers your question. :) 

So, caring more about the virtue of being truthful than the utilitarian ambition to create impact?(Sorry, not really against your point, but when the culture demands not being truthful to succeed, you basically doom the truthful ones to fail. That's, why I disagree that the burden should lie on the conscious of the applicant, but the system needs adaptation to ensure it reinforces truthfulness and epistemic humility.) 

Hi everyone, it was a wonderful gathering yesterday! Thank you, everybody, for your interest, enthusiasm and support!

Here are the slides from the event: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1k8RKMYNEdAuARPph8XY2RerRldtul150vfm3wdsFZcA/edit?slide=id.p4#slide=id.p4

Hi everyone, just an information, we also have 5 registrations via meetup. So we're almost full, as registration limit is 25 attendees ;) 

Exciting announcement/discovery 🚀: 
Martin and some other EAs just built Compass, a platform for intentional connections. It has detailed profiles, keyword search, search alerts, and a lot of other powerful tools for efficient searches. It's free and open source. Join the community to shape the platform! 
Compass Platform: https://www.compassmeet.com/

Discord: https://discord.gg/8Vd7jzqjun 

I think you mistakenly equal actually doing good vs. not doing harm. Like being vegan is not doing good. It's just not contributing to the harm. And I agree, not contributing to harm is not good enough. And I understand in the end the numbers are important. 

But as fish_in_a_firetruck already pointed out, the psychological ripple effects get ignored, not only for forming habits of doing good, but also of not doing harm. Is a person who saved 10 lives free to kill 9 lives and still deserve to be called equally good as the one who only managed to save one live in the first place but tries not to harm anyone? People normalize doing harm when you discount the difference between doing good vs. not doing harm. 

I agree not to be perfectionist before putting something out there. But I do believe one should not only measure the theoretical validity of an argument but more so the impact it has on others beyond what you actually try to say - like the risk of how these arguments can be twisted to justify doing harm. I myself have my hot takes on controversial topic - where this is a big issue. 

Your ""This will lead to value drift" Track your actual impact. Pick both leading indicators (effort) and lagging ones (outcomes). If outcomes don't improve, pivot." Is brushing this off too quickly and too easily, as if that fixes the risk. 

I would love to see a republishing with flashing out the risks and objections, to mitigate those risks while keeping the very important points you are making. 

✨ Applications Still Open: Compassionate Future Summit

📅 21–25 August 2025 | 📍 Berlin, Germany
As attendance capacity remains dynamic, a few spots are currently available — perfect for last-minute applicants looking to join a transformative weekend focused on long-term strategies to reduce suffering across all sentient life.

From fast-paced lightning talks to in-depth workshops, here’s a snapshot of the content already driving this year’s Compassionate Future Summit.

• Evelyn Hutter (Philosophy Student & Co-organiser): Suffering-Focused Ethics in Moral Philosophy & Psychology

• Aditya SK (Co-organiser) & Oscar Horta (founder of Animal Ethics): Long-Term Opportunities for Animal Advocacy

• Tristan Cook (Co-organiser & Managing Director at the Centre on Long-Term Risk): Having previously worked on macrostrategy and community building at CLR, Tristan will introduce CLR’s work on s-risk motivated AI safety and how CLR is approaching the robustness of longtermist suffering reduction efforts

• Constance Li (Founder of Hive and AI for Animals): Wargaming the Future of Animal Advocacy — a role-play simulation exploring how different animal welfare interventions might perform in AGI-influenced futures

• Stacey Akinyi (Medical Student, Kenya): Presenting her work on the WHO Youth Council Working Group for Accessibility and Equity, as well as her involvement with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. 

• Corentin Biteau (Founder of ONEI, addressing the impacts of insect farming in France): Lightning ‘What should be done about Insect Farming’ and Cause Prioritisation Workshop

• Magdalena Kolczynska (Volunteer at the Organisation for the Prevention of Intense Suffering, OPIS): Providing Insights from OPIS’s Recent Survey on the intensity and duration of suffering associated with a wide range of diseases and life conditions. 

• Jordan Stone (Space Generation Advisory Council, Cosmic Futures Project Lead): Space Governance and Preventing Cosmic Suffering 

• Joseph Ancion (President of his university’s Animal Ethics Association; FutureKind (Electric Sheep) fellow, volunteering for the World Day for the End of Fishing and Fish Farming): Cause Prioritisation & Career Advice regarding AI and sentient beings.  

And apply here.

We still have around 5 spots left for the upcoming Compassionate Future Summit!
 

I’ll soon be sharing 10 example content contributions and contributors — but in the meantime, here’s what I suggest to anyone applying in order to get the most out of the preparation for your self and make your content contribution most valuable for the other attendees. 

Ideally: 

• have a theory of change outlined for your career trajectory or your content contribution - with ranking strategies by their potential for impact and with risk/benefit ratio
• include a long-term outlook — How might your strategy impact future sentient beings in the next 10, 50, or 200 years? 

If you’re working on ideas that could meaningfully shape a more compassionate future, we’d love to hear from you!

Warmly,
Ruth

We still have around 5 spots left for the upcoming Compassionate Future Summit!
 

I’ll soon be sharing 10 example content contributions and contributors — but in the meantime, here’s what I suggest to anyone applying in order to get the most out of the preparation for your self and make your content contribution most valuable for the other attendees. 

Ideally: 

• have a theory of change outlined for your career trajectory or your content contribution - with ranking strategies by their potential for impact and with risk/benefit ratio
• include a long-term outlook — How might your strategy impact future sentient beings in the next 10, 50, or 200 years? 

If you’re working on ideas that could meaningfully shape a more compassionate future, we’d love to hear from you!

Warmly,
Ruth