Date-me docs
I am involved in the effective altruism (EA) movement, and have been for about four years. I have a bunch of feelings about it. I'm not going to unpack those feelings tonight (I'm writing again at night, haven't I learned my lesson yet?). What I am going to share tonight is a sampling of what my day included today. Initially I was just going to share a website of date-me docs, as a single (get it) example of the types of endearing (quirky? earnest? extremely online?) things you can find by hanging around the EA space. But then I realized that today, while not a completely unusual day, was impacted throughout by the consequences of my involvement in various aspects of the movement.
Here is a quick sampling of what I learned and talked about today that likely wouldn't have happened had I not been involved in the EA movement:
- I missed a free online workshop aimed at building animal advocacy skills. I'd registered for it a few weeks ago but must have misread the time, because I shouldn't have registered for a 2 am workshop in the first place. The workshop is run by someone who runs a design agency and has always been a supportive and encouraging presence for me at EAG conferences. A more generalizable insight here is that EA is an increasingly global community, and stuff is happening across all time zones and people in EA commonly feel like IRL location isn't a huge barrier to building connection and getting things done. Another generalizable insight is that I see many examples of people in EA generously offering of their time and expertise.
- As a result of an online conference a few weekends ago, I finally connected today with someone that I'd first met in 2021, who worked with me to set up the Google Ad Grant at work. They did this as a freelancer working with an ad agency that provides this kind of paid ad consultancy services for free to organizations in the EA space. We'd been trying to have a chat since earlier this year. We talked about digital marketing, fundraising, burnout, healthy and toxic workplace culture, toxic masculinity, wild animal welfare, denial, and how they and their partner take in snails with broken shells, put them in a terrarium, and provide them with appropriate light and moisture levels until they can heal their shell (and lay many eggs, as the case may be).
- I was connected with a person who I think is based in Turkey who runs a new organization trying to improve the quality of evidence and economic analysis for animal welfare interventions in the Global South, for a potential opportunity to volunteer with fundraising efforts.
- I attended an online mini-conference thing that showcased many new charities that have been recently launched and that are now either testing out their program in a pilot, or are scaling up successful programs. These charities run the gamut, from one trying to help South Asian economic migrants evade abusive and manipulative work visa schemes, to one working with non-corporate farmers in India to help them improve the welfare of their farmed fish, to one working to end lead poisoning in children globally, to one working to reduce intimate partner violence in the Global South through the use of edutainment media (radio etc).
- I was contacted about whether it might be a good fit for me to volunteer for a new organization working to make AI beneficial for animals.
- And, yes, for one reason or another I ended up on the date-me doc database and seen that it had grown since the last time I'd checked. I'm not looking for new people to date, but I do just love learning about people, and I find these docs interesting and endearing. I also know or have worked with a few people on the list, and I admire that they're putting themselves out there in this way.
- I confirmed a virtual coffee date with a person I'd met in an 8-minute breakout room during the virtual conference a few weekends ago, who is looking into working in AI Governance; I have exactly zero experience in this area but Bell currently works in it, so I'd reached out to see if she'd wanted to be connected to Bell. There is a norm in EA--and to be fair this norm definitely existed in its own way when I worked in the oil and gas industry in Calgary--of people wanting to help each other and make introductions that are mutually beneficial.
- I reconnected with my former mentor, because our paths have recently crossed in a shared Slack workspace.
- I read the rest of the sample of "Getting Relationships Right" by Dr. Melanie Joy, a book I discovered through her interview on the Reducetarian podcast.
Frankly I'm exhausted from just typing up this list with all of its socializing. Most days aren't like this. That said, most of my days are impacted by my involvement in EA in at least a few ways. I'll probably have a low day within the next week arising from comparing a future day to everything "that was achieved" on this day. But in the moment, throughout today, it didn't feel particularly about achievement, honest. It felt like connecting with people and causes that I'm curious and care about. A few minutes have gone by and I have one more thing to say, after having the feelings of quickly having a blog post (and a busy day) explode onto the page. I feel a deep gratitude to have opportunities to meet people who share some of my core values, and who are earnestly trying to help people and animals as best they can.