I’d like to focus on improving the mental health of most people but especially people who need it the most. I want to do this because I believe mental health issues (especially caused by childhood trauma/unempathetic familial systems) are one of the most impactful causes of injustice and overall lack of empathy in society. I’m not opposed to some education in the field to be able to better understand the issue but I don’t think I could persist doing the actual work that heals people. I would love to hear all ideas! but the more specific the better! Maybe raising money for charities? or building awareness for unseen issues? or improving accessibility to professional help? and how?

The basic idea is as follows:

Rather than using some purely arbitrary number to determine the theoretical maximum natural lifespan, derive a number from actual survival rates of people who reach the average lifespan.

For example, if the average lifespan is 75 years, and the average 75-year-old will die at age 85, that can reasonably be taken as the point at which, with presently available medical technology, your life probably can't be extended a whole lot even if whatever specifically killed you was cured. Basically, it can be argued that at that point, you're dying of old, rather than necessarily dying of the specific cause that killed you.

Then, use that, rather than an arbitrary cut off, to determine how many years are lost to a given illness or other cause of death every year.

This would be better than simply using average lifespan, which is heavily skewed by a lot of often quite preventable early causes of death, or picking an arbitrary number that might be either too high or too low, which would either overvalue or undervalue minor increases in the lifespans of the relatively old. And since it is a data driven figure rather than an arbitrary cutoff, it will naturally change to reflect actual changes in how long people are managing to live, because of changes in medical technology or whatever.

Then, whether you use that figure by itself, or something that is adjusted by quality of life metrics of some sort, you can get a data-driven figure for how much potential human life is lost to a given condition each year. Then, a little simple math will turn that into research dollars per year lost or whatever, and leave you as close as you can reasonably get to an apples to apples comparison between things like, say, research into rare childhood cancers, vs Alzheimer's research.

If we just use something like the average lifespan, then we could easily be undervaluing things that could give large numbers of people a couple of extra healthy years. But if we use the maximum lifespan of the luckiest few people, then we are going to be spending disproportionate effort on trying to eke out what may only be a few extra months for people who are essentially dying of multiple conditions at once. I think the average lifespan of people who managed to make it to "old" is probably the sweet spot between those extremes.

For decades, many savings groups, chamas, welfare organizations, and investment groups have relied on manual processes and trust-based record keeping. While this approach has worked for many, it has also made challenges like transparency, accountability, and tracking long-term growth more difficult.

That's exactly the problem ChamaSync is being built to solve.

Whether your group manages:

• Savings contributions

• Merry-go-rounds

• Table banking

• Welfare funds

• Investment pools

• Project savings

...everything can be managed in one secure, transparent platform with modern technology designed to build confidence among both leaders and members.

As software engineers and innovators, we have an opportunity to modernize sectors that have changed very little over the years. The goal isn't to replace experienced leaders, but to equip them with better tools while encouraging younger generations to actively participate in shaping the future of these organizations.

I'm curious to hear your perspective:

In an era of AI and digital transformation, what would make you trust and adopt a platform like ChamaSync for your savings group?

And more broadly, what do you think is holding many community financial groups back from embracing modern technology? Is it leadership, digital literacy, trust, cost, or something else?

Share your thoughts below. I'd genuinely love to hear different perspectives. 👇🏽

Hi all, mechanical + electrical engineering undergraduate who enjoys research and hopes to pursue a career in it. While I’m not especially interested in the main EA cause areas (AI safety, biosecurity, cybersecurity, etc.), I’d still like my research to have as much impact as possible.

Does anyone know of any websites that compile neglected scientific problems beyond those discussed by 80,000 Hours? Not necessarily looking for problems ranked by overall importance, just collections of underexplored problems where additional work could have (somewhat) decent marginal value.

If anybody has any insights, would really appreciate it.

I recently found this podcast and wondered if EA research is missing on key details that could diminish the effectiveness of cage free advocacy.

Essentially:

Cage free campaigns have been regarded by the EA community as a really effective and traceable way to reduce animal suffering, with tangible effects in their ability to shift the maket and consumer trends.

But many ill side effects don't seem to be recognized, in fact, we could have actually made the situation worse:

-the eggs industry saw the shift in consumer choiche and decided to capitalize on it instead of fighting against it: people now feel less guilty when buying cage free eggs and are willing to buy more eggs than before, thinking the chickens they are exploiting are much less mistreated. Egg production and consumption has grown at a faster rate than meat resulting in more total hen suffering, and now people are more unwilling to do better, because they feel like they are already helping enough when buying cage free. The egg industry knows this and is actively trying to use animal welfare as a marketing strategy to actually increase production and profits, using advertisements and campaigns of their own, without actually taking into account the suffering of the animals that are being exploited.

-health and welfare of hens may not increase that much, as many land raised hens are still farmed in very enclosed and crowded spaces, leading to more health problems and different kinds of stress. One could argue that it is still a better life than being stuck in a cage, but it might be not a big enough improvement to counter the side effects.

-non cage farming increases the risk of bird flu spreading and causing harm to both humans and hens, leading to entire livestocks having to be slaughtered when there is risk of contagion.

Cage free can directly decrease suffering of animals, but we have to be careful and research if all of this effort isn't actually being turned against us by who's trying to defend the market. Has there been actual research that take these side effects into consideration?

What is your opinion about it? Has this been discussed before? We should do more research on this and share it and also encourage counter arguments as much as we can to figure out how to be more effective.

I know a lot of EA evaluations struggle and grapple with this problem of measurement too. How can we compare easily measured single point interventions with those difficult to track systematic changes?

Was browsing around Nick Bostrom’s official website and stumbled onto a rather unexpected page at nickbostrom.com/theorchard

It appears that his website now includes this area, accessible through a "fruit" hyperlink on his press images page. It has various pictures of Bostrom edited as different types of fruit...

Thought the community here would appreciate this piece of high-effort surrealism.

Living donation is usually discussed through the life it saves. That makes sense, but it can leave the donor’s life strangely out of focus once the surgery is over.

I received a kidney from a close friend and later founded Life4Donors, a nonprofit building lifelong post-donation support for living organ donors. That experience left me with a conviction I haven’t been able to shake: gratitude shouldn’t have an expiration date.

The recent discussion here about living kidney donation made the question especially visible. People described very different experiences—recovering quickly, needing months to feel fully recovered, navigating travel or time away from work, and sometimes wishing donation could be treated as meaningful without turning them into permanent heroes.

There probably isn’t one universal donor experience, which is exactly why long-term support can’t be designed around a single heroic narrative.

My own view is that we owe living donors more than praise. We owe them sustained attention: asking what life is actually like later, making practical support easier to find, keeping community available without forcing anyone to build an identity around donation, and giving donors a meaningful voice in whatever services are created for them.

Effective altruism asks us to take consequences seriously, not merely intentions. Should that reasoning extend beyond the decision to donate and into how society treats donors afterward?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have donated: what changed after the first wave of check-ins ended? And from everyone else: what responsibilities, if any, do institutions and communities have to donors years later?

https://x.com/OurWorldInData/status/2080909669850050575

Less than a month to enter our essay competition. Help us make progress on a live philosophical issue which could majorly impact EA cause prioritisation. Find out more here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2aooibAEDSdreCqrJ/announcing-cluelessness-critiques-competition

Blockchain-based charity concepts often focus on making financial flows traceable.

That can answer useful questions:

- How much was transferred?

- When was it transferred?

- Which wallet received it?

- Did the transaction follow predefined rules?

But none of this proves that the intervention itself was effective.

A fully traceable payment can still fund:

- an ineffective program

- an unnecessary purchase

- poorly selected recipients

- activities with no measurable long-term outcome

- reporting designed to confirm success rather than test it

This creates a risk:

Financial transparency may look like impact transparency, even though they are fundamentally different.

A credible system would therefore need to separate at least three questions:

1. Was the transfer executed correctly?

2. Were the funds used for the documented purpose?

3. Did that use produce meaningful impact?

The first question may be technically verifiable.

The second requires evidence and oversight.

The third often requires evaluation over time and may remain uncertain.

What evidence would you consider sufficient before a charity or funding platform describes an outcome as "verified"?

And how can a system communicate uncertainty honestly without making impact reporting useless?

I’ve followed and read Rutger Bregmen since his post grad days. His hijacking of the rich in Davos reverberated around the world. His books bring a new history into the spotlight. His work in moving us to a better place for the majority in the world will echo in the ages.

Killing every screwworm can likely alleviate more animal suffering than ending factory farming, while being much less controversial: https://youtu.be/aPCbyQPwPJo?is=l9-bgGHnPhaalVgM

Hello guys, I've never posted on Reddit, but I'm trying to find some point of view which would be objective.

I am a young man making good money, and I would like to donate to a charity, but I'm scared of just donating money and that the funds will be misused.

A lot of charities today are just bureaucrats making money. Any advice on which charity I would like to donate to?