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Reflective altruism
CompleteGrant
$2,000raised
Project summary
I work on longtermism at the Global Priorities Institute. I've recently started communicating my research and related thoughts on my blog, Reflective Altruism, and associated social media accounts. I'd like to continue this outreach work, and possibly to expand it.
Project goals
The goal of my work is to use academic research to drive positive change within and around the effective altruism movement.
How will this funding be used?
I'm seeking funding to support my blog and associated social media accounts. At a minimum, I'd like to support existing activities (blog, social media). I might branch out into further offerings, such as a podcast.
I've found myself spending more money than I expected on my Reflective Altruism project. Currently, I'm spending about $250/year on web hosting, $100/year on Twitter, and $200/year on text-to-speech. I've also had to rely on some free services - for example, a very good graphic designer donated their time because I couldn't afford a proper logo.
I think that $500 could cover my expenses for this year, and $1-2k could cover my expenses for two years. I'm asking for the lower amount, $1k, to cover two years of operating costs.
All funding will be used to support Reflective Altruism. I won't take any salary from this funding. All funding will be used to cover expenses.
How could this project be actively harmful?
I'm often critical of longtermism, and sometimes more broadly critical of effective altruism. If you like any of the views or movements I'm criticizing, you might think I'm doing exactly the wrong thing. If you think that levels of near-term existential risk are very high, I might be among the worst people ever born.
What other funding is this person or project getting?
I'm not taking any other funding for this project. I'm funded for unrelated work from the Templeton Foundation's Humility in Inquiry project, and funding for previously completed projects is listed on my CV.
David Thorstad
over 1 year ago
Progress update
What progress have you made since your last update?
Biweekly posts continue. I've wrapped up my series on my paper "Against the singularity hypothesis" and the sub-series on existential biorisk. I've started a new series on HBD.
What are your next steps?
I hope to soon start a series on my paper "The scope of longtermism".
Is there anything others could help you with?
All set for now. Thanks!
David Thorstad
about 2 years ago
Progress update
What progress have you made since your last update?
I’ve kept to a regular blogging schedule, now biweekly. I’ve started two new series: the first on my paper “Against the singularity hypothesis”, and the second on academic papers by other authors that I have learned from. I’ve split my series on existential risk (“Exaggerating the risks”) into subseries and posted written new posts about existential biorisk. I’ve finished up the series on my paper “Mistakes in the moral mathematics of existential risk”.
What are your next steps?
In the near future, I will focus on four series: “Against the singularity hypothesis,” “Exaggerating the risks”, “Papers I learned from,” and “Epistemics”. I hope to have some new content soon. I’m also producing more content (podcasts, interviews, articles) on other platforms and looking for ways to fold this content into the blog if possible.
Is there anything others could help you with?
Please share the blog with others if you like it. I grow primarily through word of mouth and mentions on other platforms. This method of growth helps me to reach interested readers and to keep quality high. If you are reading this, chances are that many people in your network are the kinds of readers I would like to reach.
I'm also looking for other opportunities to contribute to high-quality podcasts, magazines and such.
Rachel Weinberg
over 2 years ago
@Austin I know we don't require explanations for donations where the grantmaker didn't add the project themselves (though maybe we should, or at least prompt for it)—still, want to do a short writeup on what made you excited to fund this? And why you offered over the funding target?
donated $2,000
Austin Chen
over 2 years ago
Haha yeah, I was working on my writeup:
I generally think it's good that David's work exists to keep EA/longtermist causes honest, even though I have many disagreements with it
For example, I agree a lot with his discussion on peer review in EA publications, while disagreeing with his criticism of Wytham Abbey.
I would especially be interested in hearing what David thinks about our regranting program!
I especially like that David is generally thoughtful and responsive to feedback eg on EA Forum and article comments.
In the grand scheme of things, $2k seemed like a very small cost to cover 2 years' worth of future blogging.
On reflection, I might have been too hasty to grant the largest amount, perhaps due to mentally benchmarking against larger grants I've been looking at. At this point in time I might downsize it to $1k if there were a convenient way to do that (and we decided changing the grant). But probably not worth it here given the small sums, except as a potential data point for the future.
David Thorstad
over 2 years ago
Well I'll be darned - thanks Austin! Honestly wasn't expecting to wake up and find my project over-target within 12 hours of posting. I appreciate the support -- will acknowledge publicly unless you'd prefer that I don't.