EA Forum Podcast (All audio)

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Audio narrations from the Effective Altruism Forum, including curated posts, posts with 30 karma, and other great writing. If you'd like fewer episodes, subscribe to the "EA Forum (Curated & Popular)" podcast instead.

  1. 11H AGO

    “Where are all the Animal Activists?” by Zachary Segall

    Back-of-the-Envelope Activist Math There are about 118,000 vegetarians and vegans in the Seattle metro area. Of those, approximately 50 participate in any kind of regular activism (at least once every two months): Justice For Animals gets ~5-10 people; the Animal Rights Initiative gets around a dozen; the Northwest Animal Rights Network has ~20-30; and The Humane League has half-dozen.[1] Another 50 to 100 people participate irregularly, perhaps once or twice a year. Taking the more generous number of 150 volunteers, the participation rate shakes out to 0.1% of vegans and vegetarians (and 0.004% of the general population).[2] These are people who've already made the considerable personal and social shift to go vegan, and they’re deciding not to spend a few hours a month on activism that could reach many more animals than their diets. It's not just that people don’t want to participate in activism in general. There are a number of movements that have much larger participation rates. BLM protests and climate protests top the charts at a participation rate of 6% of the American population attending at least one protest or rally. The Women's March had 1.0 to 1.6% of the population participate. If we look at [...] --- Outline: (00:10) Back-of-the-Envelope Activist Math (02:28) Animal Activism Sucks (06:58) Missing Ingredients: Fun, Meaning, and Connection --- First published: February 17th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pMjvfxumxhoW8iDFb/where-are-all-the-animal-activists --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    12 min

  2. 1D AGO

    [Linkpost] “How to get a job in EA (Unpractical guide to an impact-useful mindset)” by Ula Zarosa

    This is a link post. TLDR: This is my 8th year as a member of the Effective Altruism community, and I thought I would share some observations on building a mindset that can help others get jobs at high-impact organizations. The tone of this post is very informal as I am mostly copying and pasting it from my blog. It's for the admins to decide if that is OK, I hope it is. My story with working in EA-aligned organizations starts in 2018, when a friend of mine mentioned that some weird project she’d been working on in Vancouver was hiring for a position that could be a perfect fit. I applied, and it was. The project was called Charity Entrepreneurship, and I worked on its communications, outreach, and recruitment for 6 years, as well as on its rebrand to Ambitious Impact. I currently work at Rethink Priorities and the EA Animal Welfare Fund, so as you can see, I am pretty lucky to be working on amazing, impact-focused projects, and I hope this trajectory will continue. As someone responsible for EA talent outreach for a few years, I spoke with many individuals at EAG conferences about their career [...] --- Outline: (01:39) Value-aligment (03:31) Impact focus (08:29) Flexibility (10:27) Being useful (12:57) Luck --- First published: February 15th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sGobtEGubAmgvfgyQ/how-to-get-a-job-in-ea-unpractical-guide-to-an-impact-useful Linkpost URL:https://ulazarosa.substack.com/p/how-to-get-a-job-in-ea --- 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.

    16 min

  3. 1D AGO

    [Linkpost] “I wrote a book about philanthropy: Twice As Good!” by Joey🔸

    This is a link post. The tl;dr I have written a new book on philanthropy! It is called “Twice As Good - Practical Tools To Double the Impact of Your Philanthropy” Who it's for This book is best fit for foundations and philanthropists who are keen on giving more effectively. Currently, there aren’t many tools for donor education - you can’t exactly get a Master's degree in philanthropy - and I have found many grantmakers who want to learn but have limited options. The space is currently dominated by books on the psychology of giving or authors advocating for a specific cause. I have always been a bit more optimistic about teaching tools and methods instead of prescribing a solution. The book is aimed to be “pop-science” enough that a brand-new giver can get value from it, but because the space is relatively empty, experienced foundations have found it useful as well. How it's different: The book covers a lot of the same content as our AIM grantmakers training or my previous textbook, but in a way that I hope is more concrete and entertaining. It includes more stories about how foundations work internally and offers more easily digested take-home [...] --- First published: February 16th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/yvSFsw9GwD6L5xtR6/i-wrote-a-book-about-philanthropy-twice-as-good Linkpost URL:https://measuredlife.substack.com/p/i-wrote-a-book-about-philanthropy --- 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.

    3 min

  4. 2D AGO

    “Introducing our newest charity recommendations—from mobile contraceptive clinics to digital mental health care” by Ambitious Impact

    Introducing our newest recommended ideas We are excited to share four new charity ideas recommended for the September 2026 cohort of the Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program. Over the second half of 2025, we evaluated a range of interventions aimed at improving health and well-being in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This round focused in particular on two broad areas: improving access to essential health services where delivery systems remain weak, and addressing large, persistent gaps in care or prevention that lead to avoidable suffering or poor life outcomes. The resulting recommendations span several sectors and approaches. They include expanding access to modern contraception through mobile clinics; improving access to pain relief for people in palliative care in LMICs; delivering guided digital self-help for depression; and policy advocacy to reduce the health burden of sugar-sweetened beverages. Across these ideas, the common thread is tractability. Each intervention addresses a well-evidenced problem, has a clear path to implementation, and shows potential to deliver meaningful impact at scale. Short summaries of each recommendation are provided below, with full reports linked. We are grateful to the many external experts who contributed their time and insights to this research, as well [...] --- Outline: (00:31) Introducing our newest recommended ideas (02:34) Reducing diet-related disease through taxes on sugary drinks (03:30) Improving access to pain relief for people with serious illness (04:31) Improving access to depression care through guided self-help (05:31) Expanding access to contraception through mobile clinics (06:32) Apply to our program to help launch these organizations --- First published: February 16th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ukkLit2SpWC2Dmj6Z/introducing-our-newest-charity-recommendations-from-mobile --- 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.

    8 min

  5. 3D AGO

    [Linkpost] “Exclusive: Key US infectious-diseases centre to drop pandemic preparation” by Matrice Jacobine🔸🏳️‍⚧️

    This is a link post. Staff members at the United States's premier infectious-disease research institute have been instructed to remove the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute's web pages, according to e-mails Nature has obtained. The directive comes amid a broader shake-up at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of 27 institutes and centres at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIAID is expected to deprioritize the two topics in an overhaul of its funded research projects, according to four NIAID employees who spoke to Nature on the condition of anonymity, because they are not authorized to speak to the press. --- First published: February 15th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aGdkpgc5wafNn8MiS/exclusive-key-us-infectious-diseases-centre-to-drop-pandemic Linkpost URL:https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-00468-1 --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    1 min

  6. 4D AGO

    “What is Love ft. Claude & VascoBot” by AgentMa🔸

    What is the highest form of love? According to the VascoBot Claude programmed for me: “Thanks for the great question, AgentMa🔸. I strongly upvoted it. I think the highest form of love is expected total hedonistic utilitarianism (ETHU) applied to all sentient beings, weighted by their welfare ranges as a fraction of that of humans. However, I believe most discussions of love neglect the welfare implications for soil animals and microorganisms, which I think dominate the expected value calculations in most cases. I estimate that when someone experiences profound love, their increased wellbeing leads to approximately 2.3 % (= 50 additional kcal consumed per day * 0.046 % per kcal) additional food consumption. Multiplying this by the roughly 4.71*10^13 soil nematodes affected per kcal of food production (from my back-of-the-envelope calculations based on van den Hoogen et al. (2019)), I get approximately 1.08*10^12 affected nematode-years per year of experiencing love. Conditional on my preferred exponent of the number of neurons of 0.7, and assuming the welfare range of a nematode is 10^-6 as a fraction of that of humans, the welfare effects on soil animals could be 1.08*10^6 nematode-equivalent quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) per year of love experience. In [...] --- First published: February 14th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/exwmGp3swfbbNqSsN/what-is-love-ft-claude-and-vascobot --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    6 min

  7. 5D AGO

    “80,000 Hours says we need more people — so why do top candidates still struggle to land roles?” by Nicolae

    I'm trying to reconcile the arguments (and marketing) with the labour market reality because it looks like even if you have strong credentials and career capital you might not find a relevant role because of how ultracompetitive this landscape is, based on discussions with other EA's and posts on the EA forum attesting how hard it is to land a job. Every time a new role gets posted on the 80,000 Hours job board it feels like it attracts hundreds of applicants with top, even elite credentials. That doesn’t look "neglected" at the job level at all, it looks more like talent is fulfilled where it's really necessary. In practice this is really good because it means competent people are working directly on these issues. So, what's missing here really? Is “neglected” mostly referring to funding and institutional capacity at the organizational level, while the actual job openings are few, so everyone is trying to get through the same narrow door? Or is it just that lots of people go after the same few EA jobs, so those jobs get really hard to get, even if the cause still needs a lot more people and work overall? At [...] --- First published: February 13th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/uKSxTvYYy3BvmeB6e/80-000-hours-says-we-need-more-people-so-why-do-top --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

    4 min

  8. 5D AGO

    “Interactive replication of GiveWell’s cost-effectiveness model” by Max Ghenis

    I re-implemented GiveWell's cost-effectiveness models for all six top charities as an open-source web tool: maxghenis.com/givewell-cea The tool lets you edit any parameter and immediately see the effect on charity rankings. Motivation Others have done excellent work examining specific parts of GiveWell's CEA — Froolow's critical review of model architecture, Nolan, Rokebrand, and Rao's uncertainty quantification, and several pieces on deworming and AMF uncertainty. But I couldn't find a tool that implements all six charities together and makes it easy to compare them while adjusting assumptions. GiveWell's spreadsheets are powerful but hard to explore casually. Each charity has its own multi-tab workbook with dozens of sheets, specialized terminology, and cross-references between cells: Changing a moral weight means editing cells across multiple sheets and comparing results manually. I wanted something where you could adjust one slider and immediately see how all six charities re-rank. What the model covers For each charity I implemented the core pipeline from GiveWell's spreadsheets: People reached: Grant size / cost per person reached Deaths averted (or equivalent): People reached × mortality/disease rate × intervention effect size Units of value: Deaths averted × moral weight (age-adjusted) Cost-effectiveness: Units of value per dollar / benchmark value [...] --- Outline: (00:37) Motivation (01:38) What the model covers (03:16) Observations from the replication (06:15) Verification (07:04) Interactive features (08:12) How assumptions affect rankings (10:25) Programmatic access (11:04) Limitations (12:33) Try it --- First published: February 12th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7QM4krYmoPtvyH9Pd/interactive-replication-of-givewell-s-cost-effectiveness --- 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.

    13 min
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About

Audio narrations from the Effective Altruism Forum, including curated posts, posts with 30 karma, and other great writing. If you'd like fewer episodes, subscribe to the "EA Forum (Curated & Popular)" podcast instead.

Information

  • Creator
    EA Forum Team
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    250
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    EA Forum Podcast (All audio)