“If wild animal welfare is intractable, everything is intractable.” by mal_graham🔸
Author's note: This is an adapted version of my recent talk at EA Global NYC (I’ll add a link when it's available). The content has been adjusted to reflect things I learned from talking to people after my talk. If you saw the talk, you might still be interested in the “some objections” section at the end. Summary Wild animal welfare faces frequent tractability concerns, amounting to the idea that ecosystems are too complex to intervene in without causing harm. However, I suspect these concerns reflect inconsistent justification standards rather than unique intractability. To explore this idea: I provide some context about why people sometimes have tractability concerns about wild animal welfare, providing a concrete example using bird-window collisions. I then describe four approaches to handling uncertainty about indirect effects: spotlighting (focusing on target beneficiaries while ignoring broader impacts), ignoring cluelessness (acting on knowable effects only), assigning precise probabilities to all outcomes, and seeking ecologically inert interventions. I argue that, when applied consistently across cause areas, none of these approaches suggest wild animal welfare is distinctively intractable compared to global health or AI safety. Rather, the apparent difference most commonly stems from arbitrarily wide "spotlights" applied to [...] ---Outline:(00:31) Summary(02:15) Consequentialism + impartial altruism → hard to do good(03:43) The challenge: Deep uncertainty and backfire risk(04:41) Example: Bird-window collisions(05:22) We don't actually understand the welfare consequences of bird-window collisions on birds(06:08) We don't know how birds would die otherwise(07:06) The effects on other animals are even more uncertain(09:16) Four approaches to handling uncertainty(10:08) Spotlighting(15:31) Set aside that which you are clueless about(18:31) Assign precise probabilities(20:06) Seek ecologically inert interventions(22:04) Some objections & questions(22:17) The global health comparison: Spotlighting hasnt backfired (for humans)(23:22) Action-inaction distinctions(25:01) Why should justification standards be the same?(26:53) Conclusion ---
First published:
November 14th, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/2YjqfYktNGcx6YNRy/if-wild-animal-welfare-is-intractable-everything-is
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
--------
28:45
--------
28:45
“12 Theses on EA” by Mjreard
This is a crosspost from my Substack, where people have been liking and commenting a bunch. I'm too busy during my self-imposed version of Inkhaven to engage much – yes, pity me, I have to blog – but I don't want to leave Forum folks out of the loop! I’ve been following Effective Altruism discourse since 2014 and involved with the Effective Altruist community since 2015. My credentials are having run Harvard Law School and Harvard University (pan-grad schools) EA, donating $45,000 to EA causes (eep, not 10%), working at 80,000 Hours for three years, and working at a safety-oriented AI org for 10 months after that. I’m also proud of the public comms I’ve done for EA on this blog (here, here, and here), through my 80k podcast series, current podcast series, and through EA career advice talks I’ve given at EAGs and smaller events. With that background, you can at least be confident that I am familiar with my subject matter in the takes that follow. As before, let me know which of these seems interesting or wrong and there's a good chance I’ll write them up with you the commenter very much in mind as [...] ---
First published:
November 6th, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/s8aNPnrGH2fF3Hkpi/12-theses-on-ea
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
--------
13:03
--------
13:03
“Recruitment is extremely important and impactful. Some people should be completely obsessed with it.” by abrahamrowe
Cross-post from Good Structures. Over the last few years, I helped run several dozen hiring rounds for around 15 high-impact organizations. I've also spent the last few months talking with organizations about their recruitment. I've noticed three recurring themes: Candidates generally have a terrible time Work tests are often unpleasant (and the best candidates have to complete many of them), there are hundreds or thousands of candidates for each role, and generally, people can't get the jobs they’ve been told are the best path to impact. Organizations are often somewhat to moderately unhappy with their candidate pools Organizations really struggle to find the talent they want, despite the number of candidates who apply. Organizations can't find or retain the recruiting talent they want It's extremely hard to find people to do recruitment in this space. Talented recruiters rarely want to stay in their roles. I think the first two points need more discussion, but I haven't seen much discussion about the last. I think this is a major issue: recruitment is probably the most important function for a growing organization, and a skilled recruiter has a fairly large counterfactual impact for the organization they support. So why is it [...] ---Outline:(01:33) Recruitment is high leverage and high impact(03:33) Organizations struggle to hire recruiters(07:52) Many of the people applying to recruitment roles emphasize their experience in recruitment. This isnt the background organizations need(08:44) Almost no one is appropriately obsessed with hiring(10:29) The state of evidence on hiring practices is bad(13:22) Retaining strong recruiters is really hard(14:51) Why might this be less important than I think?(16:40) Im trying to find people interested in this kind of approach to hiring. If this is you, please reach out. ---
First published:
November 3rd, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/HLktkw5LXeqSLCchH/recruitment-is-extremely-important-and-impactful-some-people
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
16 minute read We update our list of Recommended Charities annually. This year, we announced recommendations on November 4. Each year, hundreds of billions of animals are trapped in the food industry and killed for food —that is more than all the humans who have ever walked on the face of the Earth.1 When faced with such a magnitude of suffering, it can feel overwhelming and hard to know how to help. One of the most impactful things you can do to help animals is to donate to effective animal charities—even a small donation can have a big impact. Our goal is to help you do the most good for animals by providing you with effective giving opportunities that greatly reduce their suffering. Following our comprehensive charity evaluations, we are pleased to announce our Recommended Charities!Charities awarded the status in 2025Charities retaining the status from 2024Animal Welfare ObservatoryAquatic Life InstituteShrimp Welfare ProjectÇiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma DerneğiSociedade Vegetariana BrasileiraDansk Vegetarisk ForeningThe Humane LeagueGood Food FundWild Animal InitiativeSinergia Animal The Humane League (working globally), Shrimp Welfare Project (in Central and South America, Southeast Asia, and India), and Wild Animal Initiative (global) have continued to work on the most important issues for animals [...] ---Outline:(03:54) Charities Recommended in 2025(03:59) Animal Welfare Observatory(05:44) Shrimp Welfare Project(07:38) Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira(09:41) The Humane League(11:22) Wild Animal Initiative(13:15) Charities Recommended in 2024(13:20) Aquatic Life Institute(15:25) Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği(17:34) Dansk Vegetarisk Forening(19:18) The Good Food Fund(21:19) Sinergia Animal(23:20) Support our Recommended Charities The original text contained 2 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. ---
First published:
November 4th, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/waL3iwczrjNt8PreZ/announcing-ace-s-2025-charity-recommendations
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.
--------
24:27
--------
24:27
“Leaving Open Philanthropy, going to Anthropic” by Joe_Carlsmith
(Audio version, read by the author, here, or search for "Joe Carlsmith Audio" on your podcast app.) Last Friday was my last day at Open Philanthropy. I’ll be starting a new role at Anthropic in mid-November, helping with the design of Claude's character/constitution/spec. This post reflects on my time at Open Philanthropy, and it goes into more detail about my perspective and intentions with respect to Anthropic – including some of my takes on AI-safety-focused people working at frontier AI companies. (I shared this post with Open Phil and Anthropic comms before publishing, but I’m speaking only for myself and not for Open Phil or Anthropic.)On my time at Open PhilanthropyI joined Open Philanthropy full-time at the beginning of 2019.[1] At the time, the organization was starting to spin up a new “Worldview Investigations” team, aimed at investigating and documenting key beliefs driving the organization's cause prioritization – and with a special focus on how the organization should think about the potential impact at stake in work on transformatively powerful AI systems.[2] I joined (and eventually: led) the team devoted to this effort, and it's been an amazing project to be a part of. I remember [...] ---Outline:(00:51) On my time at Open Philanthropy(08:11) On going to Anthropic ---
First published:
November 3rd, 2025
Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EFF6wSRm9h7Xc6RMt/leaving-open-philanthropy-going-to-anthropic
---
Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
Audio narrations from the Effective Altruism Forum, including curated posts and posts with 125 karma.
If you'd like more episodes, subscribe to the "EA Forum (All audio)" podcast instead.
South Africa