Hello, EA Forum! Here is an open thread.
I will kick it off by asking what thoughts people have on saving for retirement while donating more than a set 10% of income.
I am likely to have a relatively high paying job within a few months and don't plan on spending most of that income. I plan to divide the rest between retirement savings and donations to x-risk charities, but I don't have a coherent framework for balancing the creation of passive income with helping preserve the world.
Ideas on utilizing less-taxed retirement accounts would be appreciated as well. Are there any advantages over DAFs?
After recently joining an Amnesty subgroup involved with corporate social responsibility, motivated because spreading EA through already existing structures is presumably the most impactful option in my power, I wonder as to how current sub-optimal efforts (e.g. arranging a geust speaker for the entire student group, creating flyers for consumer awareness on fair trade) can best be altered to allign with EA and thereby further the Amnesty agenda.
I've already planned to meet with a CSR professor at my university in hopes of finding possible projects to involve ourselves with, but if someone here has any ideas for low-effort, high-impact projects we could be doing, as well as ideas about how to best integrate EA into existing structures in general, please let me know.
Rough outline of a variant of a potential plan:
1.1. identify other (student) groups, perhaps non-Amnesty ones/ other organizations, to cooperate on certain projects with.
1.2. limited to corporations with a public image to protect, identify practices that score highest on: structurality, abhorrence, and impact.
1.3. use said cooperation to put pressure (how???) on those responsible for said practices such that it changes. (It might be worthwhile to speak with someone from Wakker Dier, an organization that to a highly successful extent used, among other things, shaming to get massive corporations to only sell animal products stemming from animal friendly farms.)
In order to establish a positive feedback loop and maintain commitment, it's imperative that whatever project is decided upon is either somewhat fun or has a high likelihood of succeeding.
Either way, after lurking here for a while, it feels good to have finally become active, and I look forward to spending more of my online-time with you folk.