EA Updates for March 2021

Upcoming Virtual Events
 

• 3rd March - Lead Exposure Elimination - A global health career profile with Lucia Coulter, organised by EA Cambridge
• 9th March - Audrey Tang on Taiwan’s digital democracy, an event by the Centre for the Governance of AI
• 11th March - Tech EA London Social - Icebreakers
• 14th March - Giving What We Can Meetup
• 17-19th March - Oxford Workshop on Global Priorities Research - applications close 28th February
• 20-21st March - EA Global: Reconnect - Virtual conference
• 27th March - LSE Future of Humanity Summit
• 26-28th March - EA Fellowship Weekend - For people who are newer to EA
• 29-31st October - EA Global: London 2021

Latest Research and Updates
 

Meta

• The Giving What We Can pledge campaign has brought in 978 new members with over 500 having taken the GWWC Pledge
• Global Priorities Institute have released their annual report for 2019-20
• There is an EA Focusmate group for people who want to increase their productivity and also meet others interested in EA
• Luke Freeman is looking for feedback on an interactive donation tracking table to help map the EA charity space
• Let's Fund 2020 update
• One for the World - 2021 update
• 80,000 Hours one-on-one team plans, plus projects they’d like to see
• Ben West with research into retention within effective altruism
• An ask me anything with people who work in operations at EA related organisations
• Founders Pledge on why they say ‘funding opportunity’ instead of ‘charity’
• Haydn Belfield with several alternatives to donor lotteries

Grants

• Open Phil have made 5 grants recently with a total value of $2,461,000
  • $1,306,000 - Farm animal welfare
  • $1,005,000 - Scientific research
  • $150,000 - Potential Risks from Advanced AI
• The Animal Welfare Fund, the Long-Term Future Fund, and the EA Infrastructure Fund are calling for applications, closing on the 7th of March
• Animal Charity Evaluator Movement Grants are accepting applications until the 12th of March

Global Development

• Max Roser on why economic growth should be a key focus if we want global poverty to decline
• GiveWell on where they recommend Open Philanthropy to donate $70,000,000 to in 2020
• An article looking at how Covid-19 has impacted the fight against malaria
• Azeem Azhar in conversation with Regina Dugan, CEO of new biomedical non-profit Wellcome Leap and former director of DARPA, discussing approaches to delivering breakthrough technologies in global health
• Kelsey Piper with an overview of how smallpox was eradicated
• Neela Saldanha, Tom Wein and Cait Lamberton with a post for Apolitical on how governments should take into account dignity when making policies

Animal Welfare

• 80,000 Hours podcast with Lewis Bollard on big wins against factory farming and how they happened
• Animal Advocacy Careers 2021 plans and 2020 review
• Aquatic Animal Alliance has been launched, a coalition of advocacy organisations
• There is a new calendar for animal welfare related events
• Jo Anderson(Faunalytics) and Saulius Šimčikas(Rethink Priorities) on the Sentience Institute podcast looking at important research related to animal advocacy
• An Ask Me Anything with Lewis Bollard on the EA Forum

Existential & Catastrophic Risks

• A paper with contributions from 40+ experts looking at the top 80 questions for UK biological security
• A paper assessing climate change’s contribution to global catastrophic risk
• Stefan Riedener with a paper looking at existential risks from a Christian perspective
• An interview with journalist Tom Chivers discussing existential risks
• David Manheim with a list of project ideas in biosecurity

Improving Institutions

• The UK is to launch a high risk, high reward scientific research agency, with £800,000,000 funding over four years
• The 2021 metascience symposium will be on the 16-18th and 23-25th of September
• Saloni Dattani & Nathaniel Bechhofer looking at the speed of scientific research and the debates around scientific reform
• Matt Clifford discussing the history and future of innovation with Anton Howes
• Stuart Ritchie looking at potential flaws in the scientific system that Covid-19 has revealed
• Caroline Fiennes with a post suggesting that many charities are too small to measure their own impact

Environment

• Bill Gates on a key idea from his new book on how to combat climate change
• Hannah Ritchie looking at the history of deforestation and whether this can be reversed

Longtermism

• A post looking at the objectives of longtermist policy making
• Michelle Hutchinson on why she finds longtermism hard and what keeps her motivated

Emerging Technology

• Matt Clifford in conversation with Marc Warner exploring how technology collides with politics, culture and society
• Daniel Kokotajlo with an argument against using GDP as a metric for AI timelines

Other Links

• Julia Galef and Jonathan Haidt with a podcast on understanding moral disagreements
• Sparkwave have a new tool to help people create positive behaviours
• Joe Carlsmith with a very popular post on the EA Forum called "Killing the ants"
• Brian Tan with a list of EA related documentaries, movies and TV series
• Lynette Bye with a post collating resources on personal mental health and finding a therapist
• Tobias Baumann with a post looking at how can we reduce suffering risks
• Tony Sena has a new project analysing religious text with an effective altruism lens
• Luke Muehlhauser with a succinct overview of superforecasting
• John Halstead looking at how much should people defer to expert opinion
• Stefan Schubert on a podcast introducing effective altruism and discussing the different obstacles that stop people from donating effectively
• Matthew Allcock with a tool for Clearer Thinking that helps people to determine when they should stop exploring
• Susannah Birkwood has a new podcast looking at impact in journalism
• Marcus Daniell on Hear This Idea discussing High Impact Athletes and the purpose of sport

Good News

• India is proposing to double healthcare spending in the annual budget
• Niger is set for their first peaceful transition of power
• Angola has decriminalised same-sex relationships
• Colombia has given protected status to nearly 2 million displaced Venezuelans