Events

Combining Empathy with Evidence

We organize events ranging from workshops to lectures to study breaks, and we’re always looking for new event ideas. Got an idea? Send us a tip! 

To see our weekly reading group topics and get links to the readings, please contact us to be added to our email list.

If you have suggestions for EA or EA-related topics to be discussed at Reading Group, feel free to let us know!

A photo of reading group in action! Members gathered around a table, in discussion.

Reading group in action! A picture from our reading group discussion on mental health in spring 2019.

Our Most Recent Reading Groups and their Topics (See an archive of older reading groups here):

  1. 1st February 2021: Worm Wars; Readings: “Why I Mostly Believe in Worms” and “How Thin the Reed? Generalizing from ‘Worms at Work’” by David Roodman
  2. 8th February 2021: Sino-Western Coordination; Reading: “Improving Sino-Western Coordination on Global Catastrophic Risks and Other Key Problems” by Benjamin Todd and Brian Tse.
  3. 15th February 2021: Good Judgment; Reading: “Notes on Good Judgement and How to Develop It” by Benjamin Todd
  4. 22nd February 2021: AI and China; Reading: “Helen Toner on “Misconceptions about China and artificial intelligence” with Helen Toner and Julia Galef
  5. 1st March 2021: Unattractive Altruists?; Readings: “We Admire These Do-gooders. We Just Don’t Want to Date Them” by Sigal Samuel. “The Hidden Biases That Drive Anti-vegan Hatred” by Zaria Gorvett.
  6. 8th March 2021: How to Run a Reading group; Reading: “How to Run a High-energy Reading Group” by Tessa Alexanian
  7. 15th March 2021: Cyberattacks; The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics by Ben Buchanan
  8. 22nd March 2021: Hollis Howe from Wild Animal Initiative; Reading: “What is the value of wild animal welfare for restoration ecology?” by Luke Hecht, Jane Capozzelli, and Samniqueka Halsey.
  9. 29th March 2021: Maintaining Motivation; Reading: Maintaining Motivation
  10. 5th April 2021: Science and Society; Reading: “Yes, experts will lie to you sometimes” by Noah Smith
  11. 12th April 2021: Vaccine Hesitancy; Reading: “How to (Try to) Talk Your Family into Getting Vaccinated” by Emily Oster.
  12. 19th April 2021: Psychology of Effective Altruism; Reading: “Why aren’t people donating more effectively?” by Stefan Schubert
  13. 26th April 2021: Book Review of The Precipice; Reading: The Precipice by Toby Ord
  14. 3rd May 2021: Biorisk; Reading: “Engineering the Apocalypse” with Sam Harris and Rob Reid
  15. 10th May 2021: Working in Congress; Readings: “Working in Congress (Part #1): Background and some EA cause area analysis” and “Working in Congress (Part #2): Assessing fit and landing a job” by Locke.
  16. 17th May 2021: Game Night!
  17. 24th May 2021: Psychedelics; Reading: “AMA: Tim Ferriss, Michael Pollan, and Dr. Matthew W. Johnson on psychedelics research and philanthropy.”
  18. 31st May 2021: AI Alignment; Reading: What Failure Looks Like by Paul Christiano
  19. 7th June 2021: US Democracy; Readings: “Mike Berkowitz on keeping the U.S. a liberal democratic country” with Rob Wiblin and Keiran Harris  
  20. 14th June 2021: Polarization; Reading: Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein; helpful info about phishing
  21. 21st June 2021: Chicken vs. Cow, Offsetting Meat Consumption; Reading: “Moral Costs Of Chicken Vs. Beef: Also: does offsetting still work if you skip the step where you pay the offsets?” by Scott Alexander
  22. 28th June 2021: High Impact Behavioral Sciences;
  23. 5th July 2021: History of Ideas about Existential risks; Reading: “A Very Rational End of the World” by Thomas Moynihan
  24. 12th July 2021: Nick Bostrom on Existential Risks; Reading:  this TED talk by Nick Bostrom
  25. 19th Julhy 2021: Game Night!
  26. 26th July 2021: Global Health; Readings: “Alexander Berger on improving global health and wellbeing in clear and direct ways” with Rob Wiblin and Keiran Harris
  27. 2nd August 2021: Moral Circles; Reading: “Moral circles: Degrees, dimensions, visuals” by Michael Aird
  28. 9th August 2021: Through the Eyes of an AI; Readings: “Chris Olah on what the hell is going on inside neural networks”(00:33:30-00:53:41). “Multimodal Neurons in Artificial Neural Networks” by Gabriel Goh, Nick Cammarata, Chelsea Voss, Shan Carter, Michale Petrov, Ludwig Schubert, Alec Radford, and Chris Olah.
  29. 16th August 2021: Game Night!
  30. 23th August 2021: Biorisk Infohazards; Readings: a 20-minute presentation from Kevin Esvelt