rileyharris
Posts 19
Comments48
I actually think this is a pretty reasonable division now, removed the automatic upvote on my comment.
More EA success stories:
Pandemics. We have now had the first truly global pandemic in decades, perhaps ever.
Nuclear war. Thanks to recent events, the world is closer than ever to a nuclear catastrophe.
It's not all good news though. Unfortunately, poverty seems to be trending down, there's less lead in the paint, and some say AI could solve most problems despite the risks.
Summaries of papers on the nature of consciousness (focusing on artificial consciousness in particular).
A post on how EA research differs from academic research, why people who like one distrust the other, and how in the longterm academic research may be more impactful.
A post explaining what I take to be the best reply to Thorstad's skeptical paper On the Singularity Hypothesis.
Very personal and unconventional research advice that no-one told me that I would have found helpful in my first 2 years of academic research. What I would change about this advice after taking a break and then starting a PhD.
I feel like these actions and attitudes embody many of the virtues of effective altruism. You really genuinely wanted to help somebody, and you took personally costly actions to do so. I feel great about having people like you in the EA Community. My advice is to keep the feeling of how important you were to Tlalok's life as you do good effectively with other parts of your time and effort, knowing you are perhaps making a profound difference in many lives.
I don't think my comment is likely to be all that useful, but putting it here anyway.
I personally find it difficult to pay attention to podcasts with more than 2 people. I tried to listen to the first episode for about 30 minutes and this one for about 5 minutes, and I couldn't comfortably follow them while paying attention to other tasks (walking around, cleaning, cooking etc.).
I think it's likely that more diversity in the space is good though, as many of the most popular podcasts I see on e.g. Youtube tend to be more than two people. I suspect this is more related to my own personal idiosyncratic preferences, and it might be good to attract new listeners that have different preferences. I can see another commenter was absolutely enthralled!
I also now really like the look of Dwarkesh's podcast, and plan to listen to it, and I wouldn't have known about it otherwise!