Hi <<First Name>>,
This month’s newsletter includes some updates about EA Global: London, which is taking place on the weekend of Oct. 29-31, and now has an online component so more people can participate!
We also include:
- A list of EA-related holidays and special events your group can celebrate or share.
- A spotlight on Altruísmo Eficaz, an online EA group for Spanish speakers.
- Giving What We Can’s new guide to talking about EA with different audiences.
- Updates from various EA groups, as well as other links or job opportunities group organizers may find interesting.
We're also welcoming Rob Gledhill to CEA's groups team! Rob will be managing the Community Building Grants program going forward.
All the best,
Joan, Rob, Huw and Catherine (Groups team, CEA)
|
|
Conference Updates
EA Global: London had a large and exceptionally strong application pool this year. While the organizers changed their initial plans to host another 300 people, there are still many excellent applicants for whom they won’t have space this year.
If you weren’t accepted this time, don’t take it to heart. There are many others in the same boat, and CEA’s events team is already planning more events for you in 2022 (including EAGx events in Boston, Oxford, Singapore, Australia, and possibly more locations).
If you can’t be in London in person, we encourage you to apply as a virtual attendee. You’ll be able to enjoy livestreamed content as well as networking opportunities with other virtual attendees. More details will be published on the EA Global website around 11 October. People who are still on the waitlist when the final in-person tickets have been allocated, will be invited directly to the event app to access the virtual conference.
And don’t forget that EAGxPrague (December 3-5) is still accepting applications!
|
|
|
News and Requests
- The EA Forum will be giving out $10,000 in prizes for stories and creative nonfiction related to EA. You can enter your own work, or suggest work from others (for a referral prize if they win) by October 29. Visit the contest tag to read what people have shared so far!
- The deadline for the Legal Topics in Effective Altruism program (part of EA Virtual Programs) is coming up very soon! Register by this coming Sunday (October 10th). The next round of the Introductory Program, Precipice reading group, and In-Depth Program will run from the week of November 1 through the week of December 26. The deadline to apply is Sunday, October 24.
- Effective Thesis is offering free coaching and support to help undergraduate, masters, or PhD students pick an impactful, EA-aligned thesis topic. Those interested can apply for coaching here. If accepted, you can get feedback and support on picking an idea and get connected to a supervisor and/or other students and researchers with similar research directions.
- Other online events can be found on the EA Forum, the international EA events Google calendar, the EA online events Facebook group, or the #events channel on the EA Groups Slack (join link).
|
|
Group Updates
EA Toronto’s social event
- Effektiv Spenden (an EA-aligned fundraising organization in Germany) recently rented an office in Berlin to create a coworking space for the EA community called TEAMWORK.
- EA Consulting Network held its first retreat last weekend in Berlin with 15 participants, who discussed topics like longtermism, career options, and effective giving.
- EA Israel ran a career fair with ~80 participants, and hosted experts for roundtable discussions on clean meat, AI research, policy, existential risks, impact-oriented technological development, and general career brainstorming.
- EA Toronto and other Canadian EA uni chapters are planning a collaborative Fellowship with EA Virtual Programs from October to November. The Toronto group is also preparing for a December leadership transition by giving prospective new team members small test projects.
- EA Austria held its first post-Covid retreat in September! They had 13 participants who spent the weekend doing lightning talks, an ideation session, and lots of 1-1’s.
- EA University of Wisconsin-Madison has a new website, and they got 260+ mailing list signups during their start-of-the-year activities.
- EA Anywhere hired its first full-time organiser, Alex Berezhnoi.
|
|
Celebrating EA Holidays and Special Events
EA-related holidays can be a great way to bring attention to important issues and help your members feel connected with the broader community. For example, on 26 September, the EA Forum and LessWrong celebrated Petrov Day, the day Stanislav Petrov made a decision that may have saved the world from all-out nuclear war. 100 trusted users from each site received “nuclear launch codes”, which gave them the ability to take down the others’ site. (Neither site was nuked!)
Even if you missed Petrov Day, there are plenty of other holidays worth celebrating. Some upcoming ones include:
- World Mental Health Day (October 10)
- World Vegan Day (November 1)
- Smallpox Eradication Day (December 9)
- Derek Parfit’s Birthday (December 11)
For more holidays, check out the EA Holidays and Special Events Calendar.
Does your group celebrate any EA-related holidays or events? We’re putting together a page for these on the new EA Group Resources website -- feel free to email Groups Resource Curator Marisa Jurczyk (marisa.jurczyk@centreforeffectivealtruism.org) if you have any ideas!
|
|
|
Interesting Links
- Giving What We Can released a guide to talking about effective altruism and effective giving, which could be quite useful for group organizers!
- Linch Zhang wrote a highly upvoted EA Forum post about how motivated reasoning and selection biases can be common in EA, and why this is a problem. The post also provides tentative ideas for counteracting these biases.
- The Secretary-General of the United Nations presented a report called “Our Common Agenda”. It uses some longtermist language and concepts, suggesting concrete proposals for institutions to represent future generations, and for managing catastrophic and existential risks. A summary of the report can be found on the EA Forum here.
- Rethink Priorities published a comparison of techno-economic analyses (TEAs) on cultured meat. One finding is that the TEA by Humbird is high-quality and suggests that it will be very difficult to make cultured meat cost-competitive.
- Animal Advocacy Careers ran two studies to test the cost-effectiveness of their 1-1 career advising calls and online course. They guess that the online course is a slightly more cost-effective service, although both services still had positive effects and catered to different target audiences.
- WANBAM, a mentorship organisation for women, trans people of any gender, and non-binary people interested in effective altruism, has published a post on successes and challenges from their first two years.
- Hamish Huggard has created EffectiveAltruismData.com, a website for aggregating and visualising EA data.
|
|
Jobs, Internships, and Volunteering
|
|
Resources for Groups
Key resources for EA groups:
- The EA Resource Hub is the main source of online resources
- Funding for groups
- Connect with other organisers on the EA Groups Slack (join link)
- For most groups, Catherine Low is your main CEA contact person. Reach out with any questions about running your group. She can be contacted through the EA Groups’ Slack or by email (catherine@centreforeffectivealtruism.org). We particularly encourage you to reach out if you are having problems in your community or are planning significant outreach or media activities. You can also find a suitable time on Catherine’s Calendly to chat.
|
|
Group Spotlight: Altruísmo Eficaz (Spanish Speakers’ Virtual Group)
"One of the reasons why we started this community is that we thought it was important to tailor the communication of EA principles and advice to the Hispanic cultural context, but it soon became apparent that there is no one-size-fits-all approach: a Spaniard and a Venezuelan may speak the same language, but their circumstances and the opportunities available to them are likely quite different! [...] We realised that local groups still had a key role to play and that we had to determine what kinds of content and projects made sense to localise and what should remain under the scope of the global community.”
Read more about Altruísmo Eficaz here.
If there is an organiser or a group you’d like to see featured, fill in our feedback form with your suggestion!
|
|
|
|
|
|
