Hey mate! It isn't on the jobs board, but I have filled out their form. I appreciate your support!

I worked in advertising agencies for almost a decade. People there complain about terminology too. But it never gets fixed because that's not how linguistics / culture works. This is an intractable problem and only useful for insiders who feel like venting.

Happy new year everyone! I’m extremely grateful to have this community in my life!

Thanks for clarifying! I’ve been taking 5mg for a couple of years. How much do you take? 5mg is a generic recommendation so I’m considering experimenting with higher doses.

Isn't it even more important for people on vegan diets (e.g. me)? According to Claude:

- - - - - -

Creatine supplementation is particularly relevant for vegans for several biological reasons:

The primary reason is that creatine is naturally found almost exclusively in animal products, particularly meat and fish. The human body can synthesize creatine from amino acids, but vegans typically have lower baseline creatine levels in their muscles since they don't consume any dietary sources.

Your body's natural creatine synthesis requires three amino acids: glycine, arginine, and methionine. While vegans can get these amino acids from plant sources, the total creatine levels tend to be lower than in omnivores. Research has shown that vegetarians and vegans typically have about 50-60% of the creatine muscle stores of people who eat meat.

Creatine is important because it helps:
- Produce ATP (energy) for short, intense activities
- Improve muscle strength and power output
- Support cognitive function
- Aid in muscle recovery and growth

For vegans specifically, supplementing with creatine can help bridge this nutritional gap and bring their creatine levels up to optimal ranges. Studies have shown that vegans and vegetarians often experience more pronounced benefits from creatine supplementation compared to meat-eaters, likely because they're starting from a lower baseline.

The standard recommended dose (5g daily) works well for vegans, and creatine monohydrate is vegan-friendly as it's typically synthesized from non-animal sources.

No worries :)

I personally think this is a conversation worth having, but I can imagine a bunch of reasons people wouldn’t want to. For one thing, it is a PR nightmare!

No problem :)

I didn't want to read all of @Vasco Grilo🔸's post on the "meat eating" problem and all 80+ comments, so I expanded all the comments and copy/pasted the entire webpage into Claude with the following prompt: "Please give me a summary of the authors argument (dot points, explained simply) and then give me a summary of the kinds of push back he got (dot points, explained simply, thematised, giving me a sense of the concentration/popularity of themes in the push back)"

Below is the result (the Forum team might want to consider how posts with large numbers of comments can be read quickly):

• The author claims that saving lives in developing countries might cause more harm than good in the short term because:
  • When people are saved from death, they consume animal products
  • The suffering of farm animals (especially chickens and farmed fish/shrimp) from being raised and killed outweighs the happiness of the human life saved
  • Using specific calculations, they estimate that one average person causes 15.5 times more animal suffering than human happiness globally (with higher ratios in some countries)
• The author specifically criticizes two organizations:
  • GiveWell (for granting $1.09 billion without considering animal welfare impacts)
  • Ambitious Impact (for helping start 8 organizations that save lives without considering animal impacts)
• The author suggests these organizations should:
  • Be more transparent about why they ignore animal welfare effects
  • Focus on interventions that don't increase mortality (like mental health)
  • Offset harm to animals by funding animal welfare projects

Main themes in the pushback (ordered by rough frequency/engagement):

Moral/Philosophical Objections (Most Common):

• Rejecting the premise that saving human lives could be net negative
• Viewing it as morally repugnant to let children die because they might eat meat
• Arguing that we shouldn't hold people responsible for future choices they haven't made yet

Methodological Critiques:

• Questioning assumptions about consumption patterns of aid recipients
• Noting that population growth doesn't necessarily increase meat consumption proportionally
• Pointing out that many aid recipients are too poor to consume significant amounts of animal products

Practical/Strategic Concerns:

• Arguing that organizations like GiveWell don't need to justify their focus on human welfare
• Suggesting that offsetting through animal welfare donations is more practical than avoiding human welfare work
• Noting that this type of reasoning could lead to harmful outcomes if applied broadly

Communication/Framing Concerns:

• Suggesting the argument is unnecessarily divisive
• Recommending changes to terminology (e.g., "meat eating problem" instead of "meat eater problem")
• Expressing concern about how this reflects on the EA community

The strongest pushback seemed to center around the moral implications of letting people die because of potential future actions, with many commenters finding this fundamentally problematic regardless of the utilitarian calculations involved.

Ah ok that makes sense :)

And you don’t mind taking money from ai safety causes to fund that? Or maybe you think that is a really good thing?

If I had ten grand (or one) to throw around I’d be putting that into my org or donating it to an AI Safety org. Do you think there are ways that a bet could be more useful than a donation for AI Safety? I’m struggling to see them.