EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular)

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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.

  1. 7h ago

    “Let’s taboo the V-word” by lincolnq

    “How long have you been v*g*n?” This is one of the most common icebreakers at animal protection events. It's a baseline assumption, and it mostly holds true: if you’re out advocating for animals not to be tortured or abused, realistically these days you are v**n, or close. And it makes for good conversation. It seems fairly safe to assume when you meet strangers. But this assumption is hurting the movement in a way which we don’t always notice: someone new comes into the space, has a few conversations, realizes they’re surrounded by v**ns, and they have one of two experiences: a) if they are v**n, they feel like they’ve found their people; or b) otherwise they immediately feel out of place—maybe they’re stressing: “uh-oh, I’m realizing everyone else here is v**n, I probably need to be very cautious about what I reveal about myself, do I need to hide?”[1] This makes it hard to interact normally and they’re probably on track to silently not returning. Compare this to a slightly different world where the word never comes up—where you just get what you expected, namely participation in an animal-protection movement which you opted into. A dogmatic culture The V-word [...] --- Outline: (01:25) A dogmatic culture (02:18) Diet restrictions have costs, sometimes very high (03:43) Minimizing and gaslighting (05:45) There are lots of pro-animal people who eat meat (08:38) Language can change culture (09:56) Really? Stop saying the V-word entirely? (11:23) What to do instead The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 12th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fWyFHfZiFKg3GGzNf/let-s-taboo-the-v-word --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

  2. 6d ago

    “Giving What We Can’s first YouTube Video is out now!” by JustinPortela

    Hello! I'm Justin Portela. I got hired by GWWC to make YouTube videos after AI in Context did such a kickass job. My channel is using that same cinematic, high-production value beauty to talk about everything in the EA universe that isn't AI. My first video is out now. It's about an obscure and unknown World Health Organization Meeting in 1955 that helped shape the conditions that have left up to 40 million people dead of malaria in sub-saharan Africa. I think it's pretty dope. I hope you do too. What you can do Watch it, subscribe to it, share it, do anything to help us reach more people. I made this channel to appeal to people who have never heard of EA. I want to be people's first introduction to the principles of EA and effective giving, so the more people that this reaches the better. Feedback? If you have thoughts, let me know! Either comment here or email me at Justin.Portela@GivingWhatWeCan.org --- First published: July 7th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/8XXyGubWDWv2hEa5f/giving-what-we-can-s-first-youtube-video-is-out-now --- 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. 6d ago

    “I’m never satisfied” by Ajeya

    Note: This post was crossposted from Planned Obsolescence by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post. But we get the job done I was twenty one when I joined Open Phil,[1] as a zealous young EA who had idolized the organization since I was in high school (back when it was called GiveWell Labs). I worked there for over nine years, leaving about six months ago (shortly after it rebranded as Coefficient Giving). By the time I left, I was kind of a fixture in the organization, and a significant driver of culture and thought within the AI team of 45-ish people. My manager felt that a lot of people on the team would be worried to see me go, and encouraged me to convey that I believed in their work in my goodbye message. If you read that message, I meant what I said. I do think the kind of ambitious, foresightful philanthropy that OP (ugh fine, cG) does at its best is extremely impactful, and I do think the AI team is really great and has unique strengths. But before I articulated that, I sat [...] The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/kMsrxqF5BQcX5FEAr/i-m-never-satisfied --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

  4. 6d ago

    “Mabye do the thing you wish CEA would do” by AlejoAcelas🔸

    I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences. Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts: Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do NEST is an opinionated ideas-first support network for EA (university) groups. And you can see from Matt's blog the absolutely insane care he has for us. BlueDot grew out of a group of Cambridge EAs that wanted to make much better introductions to EA topics than what was available out there, and now they're basically trying to solve the talent gap for anything bad AI forever after My natural next thought, is that maybe some more of the responsibilities currently conceived as “CEA's job” would be better handled by small teams not directly (or only very loosely affiliated with) CEA. Beyond the previous examples, there's many advantages to small independent teams here: You can take risks that CEA can't You can kindle a culture that promotes ambitious [...] --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ovSoLXJHNu2LbcsDb/mabye-do-the-thing-you-wish-cea-would-do --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

  5. 6d ago

    “Maybe do the thing you wish CEA would do” by alejoacelas 🔸

    I used AI to fix transcription errors, rerrarange the ideas, and suggest tweaks to the title and some sentences. Three of the most exciting projects to come out of EA in recent years are, in a vague sense, CEA spinouts: Kairos is directly a spinout of CEA and now handles most support for university AI safety groups. Basically everyone I've found who knows them is really excited about what they do NEST is an opinionated ideas-first support network for EA (university) groups. And you can see from Matt's blog the absolutely insane care he has for us. BlueDot grew out of a group of Cambridge EAs that wanted to make much better introductions to EA topics than what was available out there, and now they're basically trying to solve the talent gap for anything bad AI forever after My natural next thought, is that maybe some more of the responsibilities currently conceived as “CEA's job” would be better handled by small teams not directly (or only very loosely affiliated with) CEA. Beyond the previous examples, there's many advantages to small independent teams here: You can take risks that CEA can't You can kindle a culture that promotes ambitious [...] --- First published: July 3rd, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ovSoLXJHNu2LbcsDb/maybe-do-the-thing-you-wish-cea-would-do --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

  6. Jun 29

    “Possible mistake EAs are making and shout out to Pause AI UK” by Michelle_Hutchinson

    I think right now EAs might be making a significant mistake by paying insufficient attention to the political realm. As EAs we tend to figure out what's most impactful for us to work on and focus hard. That's great! But there are various actions that are ‘non-delegatable’ - the extent to which an individual can do the action is limited (like voting, going to a protest, making hard money contributions to particular campaigns). It might be useful if we were all more in the habit of doing various of these alongside what we’re most focused on. I think more attention is starting to go to this - as evidenced by Jeff's blog post about how he thinks political donations should be his primary method of giving going forward. But I think we probably have a ways to go. Political actions look better than they used to I think it's pretty unsurprising that EAs are sceptical of lobbying policy makers as a theory of change. By my lights, it looked decidedly less effective a decade ago. At that point, work on existential risk was very speculative, and mostly needed additional research. It was totally unclear what better legislation would [...] --- Outline: (00:56) Political actions look better than they used to (02:20) An example of making it tractable: PauseAI UK's campaign this week (03:57) How valuable and achievable is it for us to do more of this? --- First published: June 24th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/dieuDkXYAveFsX48c/possible-mistake-eas-are-making-and-shout-out-to-pause-ai-uk --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

  7. Jun 12

    “Coming Around To Political Donations” by Jeff Kaufman 🔸

    Five years ago I read a post on the EA Forum arguing that "election campaign contributions might be a way in which you can have a substantial impact as a small donor". It struck me as weird but plausible: a combination that you see a lot of on the Forum. A few months later I read another post, a case for Carrick Flynn in particular. It made a lot of sense, but while I don't remember my specific reservations I do remember not being convinced initially. After a lot of talking with Julia and others, however, this campaign did seem like a really promising opportunity. Six days later we made the donation: We hadn't donated to a political campaign since college, but Julia was impressed with this candidate's work on pandemic preparedness, which is an area we've both thought was important for a long time. In general, we prefer to donate through funds because they are able to put a lot more time and attention into identifying excellent donation opportunities, but campaign finance rules mean this model doesn't work for political donations. Flynn lost, and not for lack of funding. People took away a range of lessons (see the [...] --- First published: June 6th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/YYNH5uvmmaEKi4h2m/coming-around-to-political-donations --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

  8. Jun 6

    “animal welfare has an evidence problem” by matthes

    Why I stopped donating to animal welfare charities but feel more motivated than ever to redirect money and talent to the cause. I have wanted to write this post for a while. It is an uncomfortable thing to bring up. Many people in the animal welfare space are working really hard, and this post might leave some feeling defeated. But I think this is one of the most important things to talk about in animal welfare right now. My intention is not to be a downer or create infighting. Instead, I hope this post inspires lots of people to tackle this major neglected problem. key takeaways  Even some of the most prominent animal welfare interventions have surprisingly weak evidence behind them. In some cases, the available evidence even suggests that the intervention may be causing harm. Specifically We have very limited data on electrical shrimp stunning that doesn't support a confident conclusion as to whether it's good or bad. We have mixed evidence on whether transitioning egg producers to cage-free improves welfare overall. We have evidence that the substitution effect of alternative proteins is weak, at best. Significant additional funding and talent should be allocated to raise [...] --- Outline: (00:44) key takeaways (01:45) introduction (02:29) three salient animal welfare interventions and their evidence bases (03:17) shrimp stunning and slaughter (11:01) cage-free (20:29) alternative proteins (21:47) this is a field-wide problem (22:18) my recommendations to funders (22:22) animal welfare should not be de-funded (23:36) we should be taking ownership of the entire evidence pipeline (24:49) when bet making doesn't make sense (25:38) conclusion --- First published: June 5th, 2026 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/svjqgyFuFQ34qSgmw/animal-welfare-has-an-evidence-problem --- 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.

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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.

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