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Reflective Altruism

@ReflectiveAlt

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Using academic research to drive positive change within and around the effective altruism movement.

Oxford, UK
Joined December 2022
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Something I genuinely admire about effective altruists: since I started a blog criticizing effective altruism, the number of invitations I've received from EAs has gone sharply up. Honestly, this is a bit surreal to me.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Can we maybe agree on the base-level claim that human extinction would be very bad? I know plenty of fancy reasons to disagree with that claim, but most people don't buy them, right?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Please stop making fun of Yudkowsky's (or anyone else's) appearance. That is deeply uncool.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Over 2022 and 2023, OpenPhil has pulled $350m in planned funding from GiveWell. This money could save about 70,000 lives today. That's the price of longtermism.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
5 months
This is a leading effective altruist blogger
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Well that's unexpected ... 73% of my readers like EA. Honestly, it does effective altruists credit that so many of them would follow a critic.
@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Trying to understand my audience: what's your opinion of effective altruism?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
I shouldn't have lost my temper this weekend and I'm sorry. That is not the tone I strive for in my work.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Can we please (on all sides) stop relying so much on analogies to drive Twitter debates about AI risk? Analogies aren't arguments. Make arguments instead.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Blog and Twitter name change complete. I am now Reflective Altruism.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Have I just been trolled by Qualy? If so, it's actually pretty funny.
@QualyThe
Qualy the lightbulb
2 years
EA critics when they launch a blog and get a bunch of subscribers: 😈😈😈 EA critics when they realize they're all EAs: 😭😭😭
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
How did effective altruism move from "only the best randomized controlled trials will do" to "why won't scientists accept our papers" within the space of ten years?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
I'm starting to see more signs of cross-engagement (from both sides) between the academic AI community and the EA AI safety community. I'm not sure how we're going to make this work, but I hope we manage it, and it makes me happy.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
5 months
These are the costs of platforming racists
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
I think the logos are getting better. How are these?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
My paper "Existential risk pessimism and the time of perils" is now forthcoming in Philosophy and Public Affairs
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
(He was speaking about everyone outside EA and LW). This is … not the way.
@ESYudkowsky
Eliezer Yudkowsky ⏹️
1 year
@daniel_271828 My prediction: you're going to find that those other people can't think, especially if you keep out any disciplines of sanity who could call them on the reasoning errors.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Sorry to keep on with the discourse-focused tweets, but ... please don't criticize people for their "date me" documents either. I've read some horrible comments today about a lovely person.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
5 months
Some sensible posts are finally rising to the top. This gives me hope
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
4 months
@notanastronomer I hate this norm so much. It makes it impossible for people outside of the subfield to know when something is false.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
6 months
Longtermism isn't inevitable, and it isn't as well-liked as you might think.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Something I would like to see: more AI safety papers published in reputable scientific journals, and fewer published on blogs. This would improve the quality of the research and make it possible for a wider audience to seriously engage with it.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Reflective altruism it is! Thanks for the input. Should be done re-branding the blog and website within 1-2 weeks.
@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Okay, I'm probably renaming my blog. Testing some finalist names against the original (though I'm still open to new suggestions)
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
7 months
Please remember that there is more to the case for/against effective altruism than FTX.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
I want to be honest. I was impressed by the EA Forum’s response to my post about a rather inappropriate April Fools thread. They corrected this well and explained themselves afterwards.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
(1/11) I’m now seriously considering writing a book about longtermism. Thanks for your feedback!
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
10 months
I've been asked to write an article on the TESCREAL critique for a magazine. I want to tread carefully here. Three questions: (1) What are some things the critique gets right, (2) What are some things the critique gets wrong, (3) How can we avoid the kind of polarizing discourse
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
In 2020, Slate Star Codex asked its readers: "How would you describe your opinion of the the idea of "human biodiversity", eg the belief that races differ genetically in socially relevant ways?" (1 = very unfavorable, 5 = very favorable).
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
I've been asking for a while to see more AI safety folks submitting to serious journals. Phil Studies is a serious journal, so I am happy to see this.
@cdkg_phil
Cameron Domenico Kirk-Giannini
2 years
🚨 Very excited to announce that I will be editing a special issue of Philosophical Studies on AI Safety! 🚨 Call for papers linked below — submissions are due in early November, and contributions can be about any aspect of AI Safety. Please share!
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
I'm thinking about writing an academic book about longtermism. If I did, would you read it? What would you be most excited to see in the book? Would it help if the book were available open access?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
New post about the Carlsmith report drops tomorrow (Part 1 of 3). I really am trying to engage with AI safety work, and I think Carlsmith's report is one of the best pieces out there.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Taking this account private for a week or so. Job interviews. You understand, right?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
5 months
I'm happy to see voices calling for change at Manifest. This would be a good time for Manifold to make meaningful changes, or for effective altruists to reassess their relationship with Manifold if they do not.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
11 months
@visably @sapinker To be fair, OpenPhil just dropped its allocation to GWWC from $350m to $100m this year. That's a pretty big drop.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Using academic research to drive positive change within and around the effective altruism movement.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Excited to see the ConcernedEAs post go up. Hopefully this week will be a week for reform and change:
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
I have a new logo! Many thanks to the wonderful Alex Savard ( @visably ) for putting it together, including a full kit of variations. I can't recommend Alex enough.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Superforecasters also aren't buying AI risk. From the Existential Risk Persuasion Tournament
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Working with a logo guy to design my new logo. Any thoughts on the first drafts?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
The paper behind "Mistakes in the moral mathematics of existential risk" should be online in a few days. Looking forward to hearing what y'all think.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
@Kat__Woods Are the green people trolling?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Please invest in your future folks. I know that things seem frightening now, but your future self will wish you saved for retirement.
@NathanpmYoung
Nathan is in SF 🔍
1 year
1) Do you have doomy opinions on AI? Is your AI risk before 2100 more than 33% (or equivalent vibes) 2) Are you making voluntary pension payments
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
I wish people would give more context in talking about the underfunding of the biological weapons convention. Many of the people using this example know full well that money isn’t the chief bottleneck here.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
On my way to EAGxCambridge. Catch me tomorrow at 5pm for a talk about what goes wrong if the Time of Perils hypothesis is false - and why it probably is.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
A few days ago I was complaining about the need for increased transparency after the FTX scandal. I'll be darned if this isn't a good start. I'm genuinely impressed.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Sometimes we agree on how to make the world a better place. Thanks to EV and EA Funds for their generous support of a promising class of underrepresented students in global priorities research.
@DavidThorstad
David Thorstad
2 years
Just got a grant ($24k) from @ea_funds to support underrepresented students at the GPI Open Student Workshop
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
At the pluralisms in existential risk workshop (day 2 today). It's been really insightful. More diversity of perspectives on existential risk than I've seen in a long time. Props to Gideon, SJ and Anders for organizing.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
11 months
@AndrewCritchPhD Honestly LeCun is annoying the heck out of me, and I don't think AI is a major existential risk either.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Not even hiding it anymore. The goal is to produce work that would change their minds, not that would be judged as sound by an independent panel of specialists (there are none on the panel).
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
The EA Forum is getting better at responding to posts about misconduct. There's room to improve, but compared to a few months ago we've jumped light-years ahead. Credit where credit is due.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
EAs: Let's talk about what constitutes a reputable source of information. Here is Yudkowsky on TIME magazine (he says it's not reliable enough even to be worth steelmanning)
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
The amazing Alex Savard ( @visably , designer of the Giving What We Can logo) put together some logo concepts for Reflective Altruism. What do you think? (Information about Alex below as well).
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
At least one EA org (CEA) did the right thing: "We unequivocally condemn Nick Bostrom’s recklessly flawed and reprehensible words. We reject this unacceptable racist language, and the callous discussion of ideas that can and have harmed Black people.". But look at the responses.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
10 months
Resolution for 2024: Finish a draft of my book on longtermism. Let's see how I do.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Got the job! Will take this account public in a week or so. (Catch me at Vanderbilt starting this Fall. Nashville is great).
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
4 months
Peddling discredited racist pseudoscience is the opposite of free and open inquiry. Those who do this use ignorance, prejudice and punditry to recast falsehoods as forbidden knowledge.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Planning my future writing: what do folks honestly think about the prospects for placing a paper about instrumental convergence into a leading philosophy journal? The paper would aim to clarify instrumental convergence and cast doubt on its ability to carry AI risk arguments.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
At a recent discussion, a leading existential risk researcher told me there is no realistic chance of existential catastrophe from biological causes. A second said there's a sizable chance, but they couldn't tell me why (it's an infohazard). What am I to make of this situation?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
The turn to longtermism has brought a rapid devolution in standards of evidence within EA. The movement went from very high standards ("where's your randomized controlled trial?") to rather low standards (self-published reports and Forum posts).
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Still trying to find a logo I like. Is this better than the previous batch? Any suggestions?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Will be giving a talk at EAGxCambridge next week based on my paper/blog series "Existential risk pessimism and the time of perils"
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Reflective altruism is fully funded! Thanks to Austin Chen and Manifund.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
7 months
I asked for academic papers on AI risk and Leonard delivered. Worth a read and I hope to see more like this
@LeonardDung1
Leonard Dung
7 months
In my new paper (AI&Society), I develop the argument that misaligned AI poses an existential risk to humanity, including discussion of multiple common objections.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
How strongly do you identify with the effective altruism movement today (as compared to 12 months ago)? (Would love to hear why).
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Just as strongly
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Less strongly
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Not an EA
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
5 months
I'm working on a chapter of my longtermism book. The chapter focuses on risk and ambiguity. This seems like a good time to remind people *not* to make the cheapest arguments that risk/ambiguity aversion falsify longtermism:
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Apparently some (many?) people think that AI should not be regulated in any way. That is quite a fringe view, and should not be treated as representative of skepticism about AI x-risk. It's also insane.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Feuding with the editorial board of Nature is not a good look for any movement that prides itself on the use of reason and evidence to solve the world's problems.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
How not to do April Fools' day, EA Forum edition:
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
5 months
Not to defend OpenAI, but if their superalignment team was firing off doomsday predictions like this one I understand why OpenAI may have been uncomfortable employing them.
@leopoldasch
Leopold Aschenbrenner
5 months
Virtually nobody is pricing in what's coming in AI. I wrote an essay series on the AGI strategic picture: from the trendlines in deep learning and counting the OOMs, to the international situation and The Project. SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: The Decade Ahead
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
@robertwiblin The purpose of my blog and associated media account is to use academic research to drive positive change within and around the effective altruism movement. I think this is an important and impactful mission. Other people can (and do) write about other movements. That's a good
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
10 months
Starting to look for funding for my book on longtermism. If you know anyone who might be interested, please send them my way
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Longtermism is gaining ground within effective altruism. What (if anything) are your largest doubts about longtermism?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
I've started writing a blog series based on my paper "Mistakes in the moral mathematics of existential risk". It's a follow-up to my "Existential risk pessimism and the time of perils", which explains some other common mistakes we in calculating the value of existential risk
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
This made me very happy. Publish your work in serious journals, folks!
@DavidSKrueger
David Krueger
2 years
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Thanks all for your feedback on examples in EA (Biological Weapons Convention + Aum Shinrikyo). At least one person asked me to write this up into a proper blog post, so I wrote a draft. Should be out in 1-3 months.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Let me be clear. If OpenPhil were to add a panel of independent experts to their judging panel I suspect the panel would tell them that most of their preferred submissions are of poor quality. I think that OpenPhil should be be moved by that.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Just gave an overview of common criticisms of EA for the Tarbell Fellowship cohort. Sharing my handout in case anyone is interested:
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
5 months
@NathanNobis One good place to start would be my work. I have four published papers and dozens of blog posts, many of which are neither calling for small tweaks at the margins nor for changes that fall into categories (a)-(c).
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
There's a really interesting exchange between Richard Pettigrew ( @Wiglet1981 ) and Andreas Mogensen on risk aversion and longtermism going on. Original paper:
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Following up on Richard Pettigrew's paper on risk and charitable giving, here's another excellent take by Lara Buchak (also covers ambiguity):
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
I'm thinking about posting more academic content on the blog (papers, discussions of papers, etc.). Thoughts?
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Let's be clear. This is nonsense. People who have devoted their life to a subject (scholarship; investigative journalism ...) at the highest levels know something about it and should be listened to.
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
Okay, I'm probably renaming my blog. Testing some finalist names against the original (though I'm still open to new suggestions)
Effective doubts
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Reflective altruism
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Ineffective altruism
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
1 year
Going to a joint conference between GPI and LSE (philosophy) tomorrow. Thanks to Hayden and Nikhil for organizing
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@ReflectiveAlt
Reflective Altruism
2 years
We're less than one day into the TIME magazine story about sexual harassment and abuse and already the EA Forum is trying to reveal identities redacted to protect vulnerable women. Don't do it.
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