Elizabeth and Timothy create a podcast about truthseeking, values drift, and a potential EA Renaissance (or diaspora).
ETA: we have enough pledged donations to meet our goal of 5 episodes. Small donations are still emotionally meaningful, but not necessary at this time.
Short term (up to 5 episodes): shed clarity on truthseeking, integrity, and group intelligence within Effective Altruism via discussion on podcast. Timothy hopes to use this to aid healing EA; Elizabeth has given up on this and is hoping to find more like minded people.
Long term: If successful, we'd like to expand to other topics that catch our interest and seem valuable to discuss publicly. Could include topics such as epistemic norms, hope for an EA renaissance or splinter group, group intelligence, building productive cultures good for the people in them,, etc.
Pay for both people’s time, equipment (e.g. microphones), software (e.g. Descript for editing), and services (currently just Elizabeth’s editing and research but these could be hired out in the future).
Elizabeth Van Nostrand: known for science writing and epistemic spot checks at AcesoUnderGlass.com, has received grants and done work for a variety of EA orgs. She had a year+ blog sequence outlining problems in truthseeking within EA. This sequence received many compliments but there is no concrete evidence of change she cares about.
Timothy Telleen-Lawton: Has worked at a variety of EA orgs, been a member of Effective Altruism since 2013 and East Bay Rationality since 2016
Our first episode has been released here. Discussion here.
The information falls on deaf ears, or generates a lot of heat and no light.
In earlier years there might have been risk of inflammation; seems like that market is now saturated and one more source won’t make it worse.
How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?
Elizabeth has a <$500 Patreon that is currently per-post but will become per-month in the near future.
We are particularly interested in crowdfunding because the number of donors (independent of donation size) is a predictor of impact. However, if successful, we plan to fundraise from larger donors for larger projects as well.
Elizabeth Van Nostrand
13 days ago
ETA: we have enough pledged donations to meet our goal of 5 episodes. Small donations are still emotionally meaningful, but not necessary at this time.
recorded three episodes, one of which is scheduled for release on 12/15 and the other two will probably be canned
we have interviews for two more episodes lined up
Austin Chen
about 1 month ago
Approving this project! As I wrote for the Manifund blog:
Elizabeth & Timothy’s initial podcast was very well received, drawing extensive, thoughtful comments from a variety of folks. I’d be excited to see them continue this series, especially if they bring in folks involved with steering the EA community (like Sarah Cheng, who has extensively engaged with their points)
did not mean to post this. just was typing out my thought and accidently posted without thinking. that is why did not explain why
I like elizabeths posts so was exicted to watch the episode but was disappointment by podcast. like to see more met-discourse about the EA movement though. might expand on this later if have time
Austin Chen
about 2 months ago
@acdc0c63-8bd5-41b1-b4cb-19e5cb8da433 thanks for following up; I would very much appreciate if you expanded on what you didn't like!
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/R6M4vmShiowDn56of/butterfly-ideas
i wanted to delete my post because do not want to crush butterfly
Austin Chen
about 1 month ago
@acdc0c63-8bd5-41b1-b4cb-19e5cb8da433 For what it's worth, I expect that Elizabeth (and Timothy) would also appreciate constructive feedback about what disappointed you, rather than finding it butterfly-crushing. They're planning on releasing more episodes, so if you can describe what you were hoping to hear, they might be able to correct and adjust for it!
Elizabeth Van Nostrand
about 1 month ago
@Austin one of my guesses is that, for people who'd kept up with my writing, the podcast didn't have new object-level content. It was much more about the emotional journey. I think that was the right choice for this episode but understand if people don't like it.
Luis Costigan
about 2 months ago
Elizabeth has always struck me as a careful thinker with her blog, and the opening podcast episode showed promise. I think EA needs people with EA experience but are now slightly outside the movement to provide the kind of constructive criticism that's hard to give from within.
Anton Makiievskyi
about 2 months ago
I enjoyed the podcast and found it useful. How many episodes do you expect to release given the minimum funding you indicated of 2600? I'd be more excited to put more funds into this endeavor if you can repeat the success of the first episode
Evelyn Ciara
about 2 months ago
I think meta-discourse about the EA movement from a principles-first perspective is valuable. I'd be keen to hear your ideas about how EA could evolve in the future!