The Brain Preservation Foundation’s Small Mammalian Brain Prize has been won with fantastic preservation of a whole rabbit brain using a new fixative+slow-vitrification process.

• BPF announcement (21CM’s announcement)
• evaluation

• The process was published as “Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation”, McIntyre & Fahy 2015 (mirror)

  We describe here a new cryobiological and neurobiological technique, aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation (ASC), which demonstrates the relevance and utility of advanced cryopreservation science for the neurobiological research community. ASC is a new brain-banking technique designed to facilitate neuroanatomic research such as connectomics research, and has the unique ability to combine stable long term ice-free sample storage with excellent anatomical resolution. To demonstrate the feasibility of ASC, we perfuse-fixed rabbit and pig brains with a glutaraldehyde-based fixative, then slowly perfused increasing concentrations of ethylene glycol over several hours in a manner similar to techniques used for whole organ cryopreservation. Once 65% w/v ethylene glycol was reached, we vitrified brains at −135 °C for indefinite long-term storage. Vitrified brains were rewarmed and the cryoprotectant removed either by perfusion or gradual diffusion from brain slices. We evaluated ASC-processed brains by electron microscopy of multiple regions across the whole brain and by Focused Ion Beam Milling and Scanning Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM) imaging of selected brain volumes. Preservation was uniformly excellent: processes were easily traceable and synapses were crisp in both species. Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation has many advantages over other brain-banking techniques: chemicals are delivered via perfusion, which enables easy scaling to brains of any size; vitrification ensures that the ultrastructure of the brain will not degrade even over very long storage times; and the cryoprotectant can be removed, yielding a perfusable aldehyde-preserved brain which is suitable for a wide variety of brain assays…We have shown that both rabbit brains (10 g) and pig brains (80 g) can be preserved equally well. We do not anticipate that there will be significant barriers to preserving even larger brains such as bovine, canine, or primate brains using ASC.

  (They had problems with 2 pigs and got 1 pig brain successfully cryopreserved but it wasn’t part of the entry. I’m not sure why: is that because the Large Mammalian Brain Prize is not yet set up?)
• previous discussion: Mikula’s plastination came close but ultimately didn’t seem to preserve the whole brain when applied.
• commentary: Alcor, Robin Hanson, John Smart, Evidence-Based Cryonics, Vice, Pop Sci
  

• donation link

To summarize it, you might say that this is a hybrid of current plastination and vitrification methods, where instead of allowing slow plastination (with unknown decay & loss) or forcing fast cooling (with unknown damage and loss), a staged approach is taking: a fixative is injected into the brain first to immediately lock down all proteins and stop all decay/change, and then it is leisurely cooled down to be vitrified.

This is exciting progress because the new method may wind up preserving better than either of the parent methods, but also because it gives much greater visibility into the end-results: the aldehyde-vitrified brains can be easily scanned with electron microscopes and the results seen in high detail, showing fantastic preservation of structure, unlike regular vitrification where the scans leave opaque how good the preservation was. This opacity is one reason that as Mike Darwin has pointed out at length on his blog and jkaufman has also noted that we cannot be confident in how well ALCOR or CI’s vitrification works - because if it didn’t, we have little way of knowing.

EDIT: BPF’s founder Ken Hayworth (Reddit account) has posted a piece, arguing that ALCOR & CI cannot be trusted to do procedures well and that future work should be done via rigorous clinical trials and only then rolled out. “Opinion: The prize win is a vindication of the idea of cryonics, not of unaccountable cryonics service organizations”

…“Should cryonics service organizations immediately start offering this new ASC procedure to their ‘patients’?” My personal answer (speaking for myself, not on behalf of the BPF) has been a steadfast NO. It should be remembered that these same cryonics service organizations have been offering a different procedure for years. A procedure that was not able to demonstrate, to even my minimal expectations, preservation of the brain’s neural circuitry. This result, I must say, surprised and disappointed me personally, leading me to give up my membership in one such organization and to become extremely skeptical of all since. Again, I stress, current cryonics procedures were NOT able to meet our challenge EVEN UNDER IDEAL LABORATORY CONDITIONS despite being offered to paying customers for years[1]. Should we really expect that these same organizations can now be trusted to further develop and properly implement such a new, independently-invented technique for use under non-ideal conditions?

Let’s step back for a moment. A single, independently-researched, scientific publication has come out that demonstrates a method of structural brain preservation (ASC) compatible with long-term cryogenic storage in animal models (rabbit and pig) under ideal laboratory conditions (i.e. a healthy living animal immediately being perfused with fixative). Should this one paper instantly open the floodgates to human application? Under untested real-world conditions where the ‘patient’ is either terminally ill or already declared legally dead? Should it be performed by unlicensed persons, in unaccountable organizations, operating outside of the traditional medical establishment with its checks and balances designed to ensure high standards of quality and ethics? To me, the clear answer is NO. If this was a new drug for cancer therapy, or a new type of heart surgery, many additional steps would be expected before even clinical trials could start. Why should our expectations be any lower for this?

The fact that the ASC procedure has won the brain preservation prize should rightly be seen as a vindication of the central idea of cryonics –the brain’s delicate circuitry underlying memory and personality CAN in fact be preserved indefinitely, potentially serving as a lifesaving bridge to future revival technologies. But, this milestone should certainly not be interpreted as a vindication of the very different cryonics procedures that are practiced on human patients today. And it should not be seen as a mandate for more of the same but with an aldehyde stabilization step casually tacked on. …

As you probably know, Giving What We Can exists to move donations to the charities that can most effectively help others. Our members take a pledge to give 10% of their incomes for the rest of their life to the most impactful charities. Along with other extensive resources for donors such as GiveWell and OpenPhil, we produce and communicate, in an accessible way, research to help members determine where their money will do the most good. We also impress upon members and the general public the vast differences between the best charities and the rest.

Many LessWrongers are members or supporters, including of course the author of Slate Star Codex. We also recently changed our pledge so that people could give to whichever cause they felt best helped others, such as existential risk reduction or life extension, depending on their views. Many new members now choose to do this.

What you might not know is that 2014 was a fantastic year for us - our rate of membership growth more than tripled! Amazingly, our 1066 members have now pledged over $422 million, and already given over $2 million to our top rated charities. We've accomplished this on a total budget of just $400,000 since we were founded. This new rapid growth is thanks to the many lessons we have learned by trial and error, and the hard work of our team of staff and volunteers.

To make it to the end of the year we need to raise just another £110,000. Most charities have a budget in the millions or tens of millions of pounds and we do what we do with a fraction of that.

We want to raise the money as quickly as possible, so that our staff can stop focusing on fundraising (which takes up a considerable amount of energy), and get back to the job of growing our membership.

Some of our supporters are willing to sweeten the deal as well: if you haven't given us more than £1,000 before, then they'll match 1:1 a gift between £1,000 and £5,000.

You can give now or email me (robert dot wiblin at centreforeffectivealtruism dot org) for our bank details. Info on tax deductible giving from the USA and non-UK Europe are also available on our website.

What we are doing this year

The second half of this year is looking like it will be a very exciting for us. Four books about effective altruism are being released this year, including one by our own trustee William MacAskill, which will be heavily promoted in the US and UK. The Effective Altruism Summit is also turning into 'EA Global' with events at Google Headquarters in San Francisco, Oxford University and Melbourne, headlined by Elon Musk.

Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people will be finding out about our philosophy of effective giving for the first time.

To do these opportunities justice Giving What We Can needs to expand its staff to support its rapidly growing membership and local chapters, and ensure we properly follow up with all prospective members. We want to take people who are starting to think about how they can best make the world a better place, and encourage them to make a serious long-term commitment to effective giving, and help them discover where their money can do the most good.

Looking back at our experience over the last five years, we estimate that each $1 given to Giving What We Can has already moved $6, and will likely end up moving between $60 and $100 to the most effective charities in the world. (This are time discounted, counterfactual donations, only to charities we regard very highly. Check out this report for more details.)

This represents a great return on investment, and I would be very sad if we couldn't take these opportunities just because we lacked the necessary funding.

Our marginal hire

If we don't raise this money we will not have the resources to keep on our current Director of Communications. He has invaluable experience as a Communications Director for several high-profile Australian politicians, which has given him skills in web-development, public relations, graphic design, public speaking and social media. Amongst the things he has already achieved in his three months here are: automation of the book-keeping on our Trust (saving huge amounts of time and minimising errors), very much improved our published materials including our fundraising prospectus, written a press release and planned a media push to capitalise on our getting to 1,000 members and Peter Singer’s book release in the UK.

His wide variety of skills mean that there are a large number of projects he would be capable of doing which would increase our member growth, and we are keen for him to test a number of these. His first project would be to optimise our website to make the most of the increased attention effective altruism will be generating over the summer and turn that into people actually donating 10% of their incomes to the most effective causes. In the past we have had trouble finding someone with such a broad set of crucial skills. Combined with how swiftly and well he has integrated into our team, it would be a massive loss to have to let him go and later down the line need to try to recruit a replacement.

As I wrote earlier you can give now or email me (robert dot wiblin at centreforeffectivealtruism dot org) for bank details or personalised advice on how to give best. If you need tax deductibility in another country check these pages on the USA and non-UK Europe.

I'm happy to take questions here or by email!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/12/occupy-wall-street-activists-15m-personal-debt

A collection of Occupy activists recently bought over $14,000,000 in personal debt for $400,000.

Normally, debt-buying companies do this with the intention of collecting the money from the debtors--Occupy did not, and I was struck by the lopsidedness of the figures.

A number I see often in the high-impact philanthropy world is $2300 to save a life (with plenty of caveats). At Occupy's rates, that would buy roughly $80,000 in debt--enough to get two or three families out of a hole that would otherwise render them bankrupt.

By itself, this isn't enough to be better than mosquito nets or deworming. But the thing about personal debt is that, thanks to interest payments and stress, it prevents people with high earning potential (compared to an average African) from making decisions that would optimal were they debt-free--like finishing college or buying a used car so they can take on a higher-paying job.

My idea, though it's a tentative, spur-of-the-moment thing:

Why not found a charity that acts like a combination of Vittana and Giving What We Can, freeing people with good prospects from debt in exchange for their signing a contract to donate a small portion of their future salary to charity?

A few issues that come to mind:

1) Occupy bought a lot of medical debt, which this company wouldn't, and other types of debt might be harder to buy.

2) People who have decent earning potential have more valuable debt, since they're more likely to pay it off later. (On the other hand, freeing them of interest payments might help them get into a better position for repayment.)

3) The idea is a lot like micro-lending, and organizations that offer that service don't have a great track record (though some have been successful).

4) People just freed from debt might not be in a position to donate much salary/might be unreliable. (Deferred payments until college is finished/the new job is had could be helpful here.)

5) There might be (well, almost certainly are) difficult legal issues with finding information on people in debt before you actually own their debt.

Are there any other obstacles you all can think of? Other features of the charity that might make it more effective? How does it sound as an intervention that increases the world's productivity in the long run, stacked up against other such interventions?

When I talk about the poor distribution of funds in charity, people in the effective altruism movement sometimes say, "Didn't Holden Karnofsky show that charity is an efficient market in his post Broad Market Efficiency?"

My reply is "No. Holden never said, and doesn't believe, that charity is an efficient market."

What is an efficient market?

An efficient market is one in which "one cannot consistently achieve returns in excess of average market returns... given the information available at the time the investment is made." (Details here.)

Of course, market efficiency is a spectrum, not a yes/no question. As Holden writes, "The most efficient markets can be consistently beaten only by the most talented/dedicated players, while the least efficient [markets] can be beaten with fairly little in the way of talent and dedication."

Moreover, market efficiency is multi-dimensional. Any particular market may be efficient in some ways, and in some domains, while highly inefficient in other ways and other domains.

Follow up to: Why I'm Skeptical About Unproven Causes (And You Should Be Too)

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My previous essay Why I'm Skeptical About Unproven Causes (And You Should Be Too) generated a lot of discussion here and on the Effective Altruist blog.  Some related questions that came up a lot was: what does it take to prove a cause?  What separates "proven" from "speculative" causes?  And how do you get a "speculative" cause to move into the "proven" column?  I've decided that this discussion is important enough that it merits a bit of elaboration at length, so I'm going to do that in this essay.

Proven Cause vs. Speculative Cause

My prime example of proven causes are GiveWell's top charities.  These organizations -- The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), GiveDirectly, and Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) -- are rolling out programs that have been the target of significant scientific scrutiny.  For example, delivering long-lasting insecticide-treated anti-malaria nets (what AMF does) has been studied by 23 different randomized, controlled trials (RCTs).  GiveWell has also published thorough reviews of all three organizations (see reviews for AMF, GiveDirectly, and SCI).

On the other hand, a speculative cause is a cause where the case is made entirely by intuition and speculation, with zero scientific study.  For some of these causes, scientific study may even be impossible.

Now, I think 23 RCTs is a very high burden to meet.  Instead, we should recognize that being "proven" is not a binary yes or no, but rather a sliding scale.  Even AMF isn't proven -- there still are some areas of concern or potential weaknesses in the case for AMF. Likewise, other organizations working in the area, like Nothing But Nets, also are nearly as proven, but don't have key elements of transparency and track record to make myself confident enough.  And AMF is a lot more proven that GiveDirectly, which is potentially more proven than SCI given recent developments in deworming research.

Ideally, we'd take a Bayesian approach, where we have a certain prior estimate about how cost-effective the organization is, and then update our cost-effectiveness estimate based on additional evidence as it comes in.  For reasons I argued earlier and GiveWell has argued in "Why We Can't Take Expected Value Estimates Literally (Even When They're Unbiased)", "Maximizing Cost-Effectiveness Estimates via Critical Inquiry"</a>, "Some Considerations Against More Investment in Cost-Effectiveness Estimates", I think our prior estimate should be quite skeptical (i.e. expect cost-effectiveness to be not as good as AMF / much closer to average than naïvely estimated) until proven otherwise.

Right now, I consider AMF, GiveDirectly, and SCI to be the only sufficiently proven interventions, but I'm open to other organizations also entering this area.  Of course, this doesn't mean that all other organizations must be speculative -- instead there is a middle ground of organizations that are neither speculative or "sufficiently proven".

From Speculative to Proven

So how does a cause become proven?  Through more measurement.  I think this is best described through examples:

Vegan Outreach and The Humane League work to advertise people reducing the amount of meat in their diets in order to avoid cruelty in factory farms.  They do this through leafleting and Facebook ads.  Naïve cost-effectiveness estimates would guess that, even under rather pessimistic assumptions, this kind of advocacy is very cost-effective, perhaps around $0.02 to $65.92 to reduce one year of suffering on a factory farm.

But we can't be sure enough about this and I don't think this estimate is reliable.  But we can make it better with additional study.  I think that if we ran three or so more studies that were relatively independent (taking place in different areas and run by different researchers), addressed current problems with the studies (like lack of a control group), had longer time-frames and larger sample sizes, and still pointed toward a conversion rate of 1% or more, than I would start donating to this kind of outreach instead, believing it to be "sufficiently proven".

Another example could be 80,000 Hours, an organization that runs careers advice and encourages people to shoot for higher impact careers using their free careers advising and resources.  One could select a group of people that seem like good candidates for careers advice, give them all an initial survey asking them specific things about their current thoughts on careers, and then randomly accept or deny them to get careers advice.  Then follow up with everyone a year or two later and see what initial careers they ended up in, how they got the jobs, and for the group that got advising, how valuable in retrospect the advising was.  With continued follow up, one could measure the difference in expected impact between the two groups and figure out how good 80K is at careers advice.

Perhaps even The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) could benefit from more measurement.  The trouble is that it's working on a problem (making sure that advanced artificial intelligence goes well for humanity) that's so distant, it's difficult to get feedback.  But they still potentially could assess the success or failures of their attempt to influence the AI community and they still could try to solicit more external reviews of their work from independent AI experts.  I'm not close enough to MIRI to know whether these would be good or bad ideas, but it seems plausible at first glance that even MIRI could be better measured.

And it wouldn't be too difficult to expand this to other areas.  For example, I think GiveWell's tracking of money moved is reliable enough and their commitment to self-evaluation (and external review) strong enough that I would strongly consider funding them before any of their top charities, if they ever had any room for more funding (which they currently do not and urge you to donate to their top charities instead).  Effective Animal Activism could do the same and I think have even higher success, because I think it's moderately likely that if someone starts donating to animal charities after joining EAA, there are few other things that could have influenced them.

Of course, these forms of measurement have their problems, and no measurement -- even two dozen RCTs -- will be perfect.  But some level of feedback and measurement is incredibly necessary to avoid our own biases and failures in naïve estimation.

The Proven and The Promising: My Current Donation Strategy

My current donation strategy is to separate organizations into three categories: proven, promising, and not promising.

Proven organizations are the ones that I talked about earlier -- AMF, GiveDirectly, and SCI.

Promising organizations are organizations I think have a hope of becoming proven, someday.  They're organizations practicing interventions that intuitively seem like they would have high upside (like 80K Hours in getting people into better careers and The Humane League in persuading a bunch of people to become vegetarian), have a good commitment to transparency and self-measurement (The Humane League shines here), and have opportunities for additional money to be converted into additional information on their impact.

My goal in donating would be to first ensure the survival of all promising organizations (make sure they have enough funding to stay around) and then try to buy information from promising organizations as much as I can.  For example, I'd be interested in funding more studies about vegetarian outreach or making sure 80K has the money they need to hire a new careers advisor.

Once these needs are met, I'll save a fair amount of my donation to meet future needs down the road.  But then, I'll spend some on proven organizations to (a) achieve impact, (b) continue the incentive for organizations to want to be proven, and (c) show public support for those organizations and donating in general.

...Now I just need to actually get some more money.

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(This was also cross-posted on my blog.)

I'd like to thank Jonas Vollmer for having the critical conversation with me that inspired this piece.

Bryan Caplan of Econlog asks his readers how to improve his will (given a few constraints) in light of the principles of optimal philanthropy. His current draft reads:

I give and bequeath to whatever charity is currently ranked #1 by GiveWell, the sum of $100,000 adjusted for inflation since 2013 using the U.S. Consumer Price Index, or 10% of the total value of my estate excluding our primary residence, whichever is smaller.  If GiveWell no longer exists, I give and bequeath the same sum to another charity, selected by my wife and children, dedicated to helping the deserving poor in the Third World in a maximally cost-effective manner.  I request that my wife and children consult my friends Robin Hanson, Alexander Tabarrok, Fabio Rojas, James Schneider, Michael Huemer, William Dickens, and Jason Brennan to help them select the most cost-effective charity with this mission.  If possible, funding for this bequest should come from my tax-deferred 403(b) retirement accounts.

The full blog post can be found here.

Robin Hanson responds:

I fear "the Third World" might not be a robust reference, and that GiveWell will no longer exist. You might pick some "ex ante % chance that I'd have died by now", such as 25%, and give the money away when you are at an age where you've suffered that % chance. This could ensure at 75% chance that you'll give the money away yourself.

Givewell's blog has recently begun a series of 5 self-evaluation posts (they are on the 4th right now) which discuss where the organization is at and where they're going. They're all worth a read. In particular, they build up to a survey for Givewell followers about how you'd like the organization to direct their research in the future, with options to emphasize existential risk and research even if the evidence is lower quality.

Summary: advert for students to do charity cost-effectiveness research at Giving What We Can.

Do you want to join the fight against global poverty and gain experience of research or communications at one of the world's handful of organisations dedicated to improving the world as efficiently as possible? Giving What We Can is running a summer internship programme for students interested in promoting effective charitable giving. On the two-week programme (16th-27th September 2013) interns will gain training and experience in the area of their choice; either Cost-Effectiveness Research, Communications or Operations.

The date is cunningly placed sufficiently late in the year that students can do an internship with another company and then come to us afterwards; this is what I did last year.

The intership will take place in Oxford, UK. Housing and living expenses will be provided.

To apply

Please send us an email at internship@givingwhatwecan.org with your CV. The deadline for applications is 12:00 GMT on the 20th March 2013.

Roles availableResearch into charity cost-effectiveness

Giving What We Can conducts research to help people find the most cost effective charities to donate to, lead by our director of research, Overcoming Bias co-blogger Robert Wiblin. You can get a sense of the research here and see a full list of current projects here. Some sample areas of interest are:

   Evaluations of how effective particular charities or programmes are.

   Comparing efforts to reduce climate change to other ways of assisting the world’s poor.

   Biomedical research which could offer vaccines or cures for neglected diseases. 

   Political Advocacy - how worthwhile is it to lobby for better government aid?

Requirements: A quantitative background is strongly preferred, especially in statistics, mathematics and economics.

Communications: Media content creation

Creating infographics, videos and other materials to communicate our message about the power of giving and research on effective charity.

Requirements: experience with appropriate software, such as vector graphics or video editing packages.

Communications: Outreach

Research and reach out to relevant groups, from organisations we could work with to websites and online communities where we could build a reputation and broaden our member base. This will require both research into the most appropriate and receptive places to contact, and establishing a rapport with them before suggesting that a partnership of sorts be made.

Communications: Online outreach

Work with our social media manager to plan and implement social media strategies, and research the most effective way to convey Giving What We Can’s message to other online communities.

Requirements: a good understanding of social media strategy and the dynamic of online communities.

Operations: Legal/financial research

We have many projects in this area, but an example of a major one is reporting on how our activities fit with formally recognised charitable purposes. This will involve working towards the reports we have to file with the Charities Commission. Other projects include registering us as a charity overseas.

Requirements: Having studied law is helpful, but not required.

AidGrade is a new charity evaluator that looks to be comparable to GiveWell. Their primary difference is that they *only* focus on how charities compare along particular measured outcomes (such as school attendance, birthrate, chance of opening a business, malaria), without making any effort to compare between types of charities. (This includes interesting results like "Conditional Cash Transfers and Deworming are better at improving attendance rates than scholarships")

GiveWell also does this, but designs their site to direct people towards their top charities. This is better for people with don't have the time to do the (fairly complex) work of comparing charities across domains, but AidGrade aims to be better for people that just want the raw data and the ability to form their own conclusions.

I haven't looked it enough to compare the quality of the two organizations' work, but I'm glad we finally have another organization, to encourage some competition and dialog about different approaches.

This is a fun page to play around with to get a feel for what they do:
http://www.aidgrade.org/compare-programs-by-outcome

And this is a blog post outlining their differences with GiveWell:
http://www.aidgrade.org/uncategorized/some-friendly-concerns-with-givewell

Peter Singer, makes a (refreshingly simple) ethical case for anti-aging research, and endorses increased funding.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-ethics-of-anti-aging-by-peter-singer

On which problems should we focus research in medicine and the biological sciences? There is a strong argument for tackling the diseases that kill the most people –diseases like malaria, measles, and diarrhea, which kill millions in developing countries, but very few in the developed world.

Developed countries, however, devote most of their research funds to the diseases from which their citizens suffer, and that seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Given that constraint, which medical breakthrough would do the most to improve our lives?

If your first thought is “a cure for cancer” or “a cure for heart disease,” think again. Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer of SENS Foundation and the world’s most prominent advocate of anti-aging research, argues that it makes no sense to spend the vast majority of our medical resources on trying to combat the diseases of aging without tackling aging itself. If we cure one of these diseases, those who would have died from it can expect to succumb to another in a few years. The benefit is therefore modest.

[...]

De Grey has set up SENS Foundation to promote research into anti-aging. By most standards, his fundraising efforts have been successful, for the foundation now has an annual budget of around $4 million. But that is still pitifully small by the standards of medical research foundations. De Grey might be mistaken, but if there is only a small chance that he is right, the huge pay-offs make anti-aging research a better bet than areas of medical research that are currently far better funded.

Just read this article, which describes a splashy, interesting narrative which jives nicely with my worldview. Which makes me suspicious.

http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php

The One Laptop Per Child project started as a way of delivering technology and resources to schools in countries with little or no education infrastructure, using inexpensive computers to improve traditional curricula. What the OLPC Project has realized over the last five or six years, though, is that teaching kids stuff is really not that valuable. Yes, knowing all your state capitols how to spell "neighborhood" properly and whatnot isn't a bad thing, but memorizing facts and procedures isn't going to inspire kids to go out and learn by teaching themselves, which is the key to a good education. Instead, OLPC is trying to figure out a way to teach kids to learn, which is what this experiment is all about.

Rather than give out laptops (they're actually Motorola Zoom tablets plus solar chargers running custom software) to kids in schools with teachers, the OLPC Project decided to try something completely different: it delivered some boxes of tablets to two villages in Ethiopia, taped shut, with no instructions whatsoever. Just like, "hey kids, here's this box, you can open it if you want, see ya!"

Just to give you a sense of what these villages in Ethiopia are like, the kids (and most of the adults) there have never seen a word. No books, no newspapers, no street signs, no labels on packaged foods or goods. Nothing. And these villages aren't unique in that respect; there are many of them in Africa where the literacy rate is close to zero. So you might think that if you're going to give out fancy tablet computers, it would be helpful to have someone along to show these people how to use them, right?

But that's not what OLPC did. They just left the boxes there, sealed up, containing one tablet for every kid in each of the villages (nearly a thousand tablets in total), pre-loaded with a custom English-language operating system and SD cards with tracking software on them to record how the tablets were used. Here's how it went down, as related by OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte at MIT Technology Review's EmTech conference last week:

"We left the boxes in the village. Closed. Taped shut. No instruction, no human being. I thought, the kids will play with the boxes! Within four minutes, one kid not only opened the box, but found the on/off switch. He'd never seen an on/off switch. He powered it up. Within five days, they were using 47 apps per child per day. Within two weeks, they were singing ABC songs [in English] in the village. And within five months, they had hacked Android. Some idiot in our organization or in the Media Lab had disabled the camera! And they figured out it had a camera, and they hacked Android.

So this sounds really inspiring and stuff, even subtracting some obviously sensational stuff (I assume "hacked Android" means "opened up the preferences dialog and flicked a switch"). I've poked around a bit and found similarly fluffy pop-philanthropy articles. Anyone know if there's more reliable information about this out there?

There is a standard argument against diversification of donations, popularly explained by Steven Landsburg in the essay Giving Your All. This post is an attempt to communicate a narrow special case of that argument in a form that resists misinterpretation better, for the benefit of people with a bit of mathematical training. Understanding this special case in detail might be useful as a stepping stone to the understanding of the more general argument. (If you already agree that one should donate only to the charity that provides the greatest marginal value, and that it makes sense to talk about the comparison of marginal value of different charities, there is probably no point in reading this post.)¹

Suppose you are considering two charities, one that accomplishes the saving of antelopes, and the other the saving of babies. Depending on how much funding these charities secure, they are able to save respectively A antelopes and B babies, so the outcome can be described by a point (A,B) that specifies both pieces of data.

Let's say you have a complete transitive preference over possible values of (A,B), that is you can make a comparison between any two points, and if you prefer (A1,B1) over (A2,B2) and also (A2,B2) over (A3,B3), then you prefer (A1,B1) over (A3,B3). Let's further suppose that this preference can be represented by a sufficiently smooth real-valued function U(A,B), such that U(A1,B1)>U(A2,B2) precisely when you prefer (A1,B1) to (A2,B2). U doesn't need to be a utility function in the standard sense, since we won't be considering uncertainty, it only needs to represent ordering over individual points, so let's call it "preference level".

Let A(Ma) be the dependence of the number of antelopes saved by the Antelopes charity if it attains the level of funding Ma, and B(Mb) the corresponding function for the Babies charity. (For simplicity, let's work with U, A, B, Ma and Mb as variables that depend on each other in specified ways.)

You are considering a decision to donate, and at the moment the charities have already secured Ma and Mb amounts of money, sufficient to save A antelopes and B babies, which would result in your preference level U. You have a relatively small amount of money dM that you want to distribute between these charities. dM is such that it's small compared to Ma and Mb, and if donated to either charity, it will result in changes of A and B that are small compared to A and B, and in a change of U that is small compared to U.

Remember the Brain Preservation Foundation? This is Kenneth Heyworth's project to test methods of brain preservation, with a large rewards going to (1) the first group to preserve a mouse brain, and (2) the first group to preserve a large mammalian brain. Two teams, attempting preservation via cryonics and plastination respectively, are ready to have their mouse brain preservations evaluated. But the BPF lacks the funds to carry out the tests (5nm 3D scans of a randomly selected cubic millimeter to verify high-fidelity preservation).

Solicitations for donations have come from both Robin Hanson and Eliezer Yudkowsky, but the response has been...underwhelming thus far.

The BPF general fund has 9 donors listed; The Evaluation Fund has 5, one of whom is BPF's President. This does not include large donations from the anonymous $100k prize backer, Robin Hanson, John Smart, Daniel Crevier, and (again) Kenneth Hayworth. This puts an upper limit on the number of people in the world willing to donate to find out if there exists a method of reliably preserving brains indefinitely at...18 people.

I know that there are more than 17 other people like me in the world, who really want to see the results of these attempts. A world in which brains can be cheaply preserved indefinitely is a world I want to live in - and it would just be sad if this project fizzled because it lacked the funds to verify the already-existing results.

Donate here.

THINK, The High Impact Network, is going live this week.

We're a network of Effective Altruists (EAs), looking to do the most good for the most people¹ as efficiently as possible. We aren't bound by a central cause or ethical framework, but rather by a process, and a commitment to rigor and rationality as we try to make the world a better place.

THINK meetups are forming around the world. Some are functioning as student groups at prominent universities, others are general meetups for people of all ages who want to make effective altruism a part of their life. As I write this, 20 meetups are getting ready to launch in the fall, and discussions are underway for an additional 30. If you'd like to connect with other EA-types, see if a meetup's forming in your area, or run your own meetup, send us an e-mail here, or visit our website.

We're putting together a collection of meetup modules, which newly formed groups can use for content at weekly meetups. These fall into roughly two categories:

• Introductory materials, designed to teach the basics of Effective Altruism to newcomers.
• Self Improvement tools, helping newcomers and veterans to become strong enough to tackle the difficult problems ahead.

Five sample modules are available on our website, and more are coming. If you have ideas for a module and would like to create you own, e-mail us at modules@thehighimpactnetwork.org.

But most importantly - we want bright, enthusiastic people who care deeply about the world to collaborate with each other on high impact projects. 

Optimal Philanthropy. Effective Altruism.

Less Wrong veterans will recognize the basics of Optimal Philanthropy, although we consider avenues beyond traditional charity. (The phrase "effective altruism" was settled on after much deliberation). For those unfamiliar, a brief overview.

Over the past decade, important changes have begun to take root in the philanthropy/altruist sector:

• Organizations like Givewell, as well as a growing number of foundations like the Gates Foundation, are shifting the discussion of giving towards efficiency and evidence.
• Groups like Giving What We Can and Bolder Giving are encouraging people to incorporate philanthropy into their lifestyle. You can donate 10% or more of your income and still be among the richest people on the planet, living a satisfying life.
• The organization 80,000 Hours is promoting high impact career choice. You'll spent thousands of hours at your job. You can accomplish dramatically more good for the world if you optimize for it.

Above all, serious discussion is slowly mounting towards an incredibly important question - if you want to have the biggest impact you possibly can, what do you do?

Donating to provably efficient charities is an obvious first step, but more is possible. Systemic changes can have a powerful impact. New technologies have the potential to radically improve lives - as well as the capacity to destroy life as we know it. The Singularity Institute, the Future of Humanity Institute, Givewell and others are all in the process of grappling with this problem. I think it's fair to say that the Less Wrong community has had a noteworthy impact on the discussion.

Among the most valuable things the Less Wrong community has taught is the importance of... well, community. For Effective Altruism to be successful as a movement and a lifestyle, it needs people working together who share a passion for it, a commitment to intellectual rigor, and a sense of humor. People who can help each other grow, collaborate on important projects, and more.

THINK. The High Impact Network. Ready to launch this fall.

¹ _{Where by "help 'people'" we mean "and animals too." Depending on your ethical framework. Probably not including clams. Quite possibly including future sentient beings of various sorts. It's complicated. Come to a meetup, we'll talk about it.}

I donated to Wikipedia before.  However, this year, I'm not donating, and my rationalization is this: there need to be more Wikipedia clones on the internet, to best prevent the possibility that a single organization (Wikimedia) abuses its control of the biggest worldwide information source.  Thus, instead of donating to Wikipedia, I would like to subsidize potential Wikipedia clones.  Whether or not it has ads is of little concern to me.

I managed to turn an essay assignment into an opportunity to write about the Singularity, and I thought I'd turn to LW for feedback on the paper. The paper is about Thomas Pogge, a German philosopher who works on institutional efforts to end poverty and is a pledger for Giving What We Can. 

I offer a basic argument that he and other poverty activists should work on creating a positive Singularity, sampling liberally from well-known Less Wrong arguments. It's more academic than I would prefer, and it includes some loose talk of 'duties' (which bothers me), but for its goals, these things shouldn't be a huge problem. But maybe they are - I want to know that too.

I've already turned the assignment in, but when I make a better version, I'll send the paper to Pogge himself. I'd like to see if I can successfully introduce him to these ideas. My one conversation with him indicates that he would be open to actually changing his mind. He's clearly thought deeply about how to do good, and may simply have not been exposed to the idea of the Singularity yet.

I want feedback on all aspects of the paper  - style, argumentation, clarity. Be as constructively cruel as I know only you can.

If anyone's up for it, fee free to add feedback using Track Changes and email me a copy - mjcurzi[at]wustl.edu. I obviously welcome comments on the thread as well.

You can read the paper here in various formats.

Upvotes for all. Thank you!

I’m a utilitarian contemplating a career change.  I currently give all my income to international development (which is possible because my husband supports us both financially).  I don’t have any special gift for science, etc. that would help save the world, so I think donations are the best way I can help.

I’m 26 and halfway through social work school.  I enjoy social work and am reasonably good at it, but the most I’ll ever earn is probably $80K/year.  I’m now thinking more about the moral imperative to earn more and thus give more.

Most high-earning careers are not ones I think I would enjoy.  That means I would be fighting burnout for the rest of my career.  (I'm open to suggestions if you think otherwise.)  The exception is psychiatry, which I do think I would enjoy and be moderately good at.  But I would need about nine years of school and residency to become a psychiatrist.

If I go to medical school and become an average psychiatrist, I’d double my expected lifetime earnings compared to social work (even after paying for school).  I could give about 2 million dollars more, which GiveWell thinks turns into about 2,500 lives saved.  No amount of inconvenience on my part compares with that many lives.

So what I want to do is figure out whether I could be productive as a psychiatrist or some other profession, or whether there’s a good reason I should stay on my current course.

Some considerations:

I’m fairly smart but not competitive-natured.  I think this would make me bad at a lot of careers that pay well but don’t require extra school, because there’s more competition for those jobs.

I’m not sure about my academic capabilities.  I haven’t taken a real science course since high school.  It’s also been a long time since I had to do the kind of rote memorization that I believe is needed in law or medical school.  I’m worried that I would get into one of these and then find I wasn’t up to the work.

I have no interest in chemistry.  Also, I don’t do well when sleep-deprived.  Both of these might make me a terrible med student.

I’ve had bouts of depression in the past, but never ones that crippled my ability to study/work.  If I were busier, they might cripple me more.

I would need at least a year of postbac science classes before I could go to medical school.  This would bring the time to become a psychiatrist to nine years, plus at least a year to apply.  That seems like forever, though I know when I’m older it won’t seem as long as it does now.

Investing that time in more school has an opportunity cost.  If I stick with social work, I could start donating again in one year.  If I become a psychiatrist, it would be more like twelve years before I could donate again.  I don’t know what effect that delay would have.  Psychiatry earnings would overtake social work earnings about 18 years from now.

I know I should count my useless undergraduate major and one year of social work school as sunk costs.  But adding a lot more school on top of the eighteen years I’ve already done feels exhausting, and I think I’m more likely to fail now than I would have been if I’d started planning earlier.

Medical school would mean nine years of giving up many of the things I enjoy – spending time with my husband, cooking, gardening, reading.  This gives me an incentive to burn out, because it would mean I could do those things again.

I’m married.  I don’t want to believe it applies to us, but statistically, me going to medical school would increase our risk of divorce.  This study says 51% of married psychiatry students divorce during or after medical school (about double our current statistical risk).  I don’t think my marriage is more important than 2,500 people’s lives. But I do think seeing it die would make me much worse at school.  Even if we didn’t actually divorce, I would expect our relationship to be significantly stressed because I would be gone or busy so much of the time. 

If I quit or fail out of medical school, I’ve wasted a lot of time and money.

If my coworkers are high earners, convincing any of them to donate effectively would have a larger impact than convincing social workers to do the same.  However, I’ve had zero luck persuading anyone I know (except my husband), so this may be irrelevant.

The questions

Do you have advice on powering through an unpleasant experience for a good cause?  Is nine years too long to power through?  Are there other careers I should be considering?

Update, May 2012: I decided not to try medical school, because I thought I would hate it.  I finished social work school and am looking for jobs in psychiatric social work, which I was doing this last year and really enjoyed.