<story><title>Effective altruism and the current funding situation</title><url>https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cfdnJ3sDbCSkShiSZ/ea-and-the-current-funding-situation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>I really hope this serves as an inflection point for the Effective Altruism crowd to pivot away from some of the weirder things they embraced in the past.&lt;p&gt;I love the idea of Effective Altruism and what they&amp;#x27;re trying to accomplish, but in practice it frequently turns into funding for intellectuals to sit around and pontificate about AI risk and other things, as opposed to actually going out into the world and doing altruistic acts.&lt;p&gt;Some of their previous grants are downright laughable, like spending $30K to distribute copies of rationalist Harry Potter fanfiction (&lt;i&gt;Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality&lt;/i&gt;) despite the fact that it&amp;#x27;s freely available online. (Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&amp;#x2F;long-term-future-fund-april-2019-grant-decisions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt; Ctrl+F &amp;quot;Harry Potter&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;The EA movement has become a bit of a joke in many circles after making too many moves like this, so hopefully this serves as a wake-up call for them to start getting more practical.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kvee</author><text>For whatever it&amp;#x27;s worth, HPMOR introduced me to Effective Altruism and lesswrong, etc.&lt;p&gt;Though I found it online and not from the $30K distributed, I have since as a result of being introduced to Effective Altruism there donated much more than $30K to highly effective charities and caused hundreds of other people to get into donating to highly effective charities too. I also started a company inspired by the EA concepts of working on &amp;quot;neglected problems&amp;quot; - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;80000hours.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;problem-framework&amp;#x2F;#definition-2&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;80000hours.org&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;problem-framework&amp;#x2F;#definitio...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I might be wrong, but I suspect there&amp;#x27;s a decent chance there was at least 1 person like me of the people in that $30k distribution.</text></comment>
<story><title>Effective altruism and the current funding situation</title><url>https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/cfdnJ3sDbCSkShiSZ/ea-and-the-current-funding-situation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>I really hope this serves as an inflection point for the Effective Altruism crowd to pivot away from some of the weirder things they embraced in the past.&lt;p&gt;I love the idea of Effective Altruism and what they&amp;#x27;re trying to accomplish, but in practice it frequently turns into funding for intellectuals to sit around and pontificate about AI risk and other things, as opposed to actually going out into the world and doing altruistic acts.&lt;p&gt;Some of their previous grants are downright laughable, like spending $30K to distribute copies of rationalist Harry Potter fanfiction (&lt;i&gt;Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality&lt;/i&gt;) despite the fact that it&amp;#x27;s freely available online. (Source: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&amp;#x2F;long-term-future-fund-april-2019-grant-decisions&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;forum.effectivealtruism.org&amp;#x2F;posts&amp;#x2F;CJJDwgyqT4gXktq6g&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt; Ctrl+F &amp;quot;Harry Potter&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;The EA movement has become a bit of a joke in many circles after making too many moves like this, so hopefully this serves as a wake-up call for them to start getting more practical.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>justinpombrio</author><text>There are multiple EA groups, but I think the most common place to donate is GiveWell? Here&amp;#x27;s what its donation page looks like:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;secure.givewell.org&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;secure.givewell.org&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    Let GiveWell direct your donation
      GiveWell&amp;#x27;s Maximum Impact Fund

    Support GiveWell&amp;#x27;s top charities
      Malaria Consortium&amp;#x27;s seasonal malaria chemoprevention program
      Against Malaria Foundation
      Helen Keller International&amp;#x27;s vitamin A supplementation program
      SCI Foundation (Schistosomiasis Control Initiative)
      Sightsavers&amp;#x27; deworming program
      New Incentives
      Evidence Action&amp;#x27;s Deworm the World Initiative
      END Fund&amp;#x27;s deworming program
      GiveDirectly
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
The recent grants by their Maximum Impact Fund are listed here:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.givewell.org&amp;#x2F;maximum-impact-fund&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.givewell.org&amp;#x2F;maximum-impact-fund&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;the largest of which was $7.8 million to &amp;quot;Sightsavers — Deworming in Nigeria and Cameroon (February 2022)&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Please don&amp;#x27;t let the fact that some people are concerned about AI safety detract from EA&amp;#x27;s overarching goal of doing the most good per dollar donated.</text></comment>