Giving What We Can is a charitable movement promoting giving some of your money to the developing world or other worthy causes. If you're interested in this, consider taking their Pledge as a formal and public declaration of intent.
Substack is a blogging site that helps writers earn money and readers discover articles they'll like.
Jane Street is a quantitative trading firm with a focus on technology and collaborative problem solving. We're always hiring talented programmers, traders, and researchers and have internships and fulltime positions in New York, London, and Hong Kong. No background in finance required.
Dr. Laura Baur is a psychiatrist with interests in literature review, reproductive psychiatry, and relational psychotherapy; see her website for more. Note that due to conflict of interest she doesn't treat people in the NYC rationalist social scene.
The COVID-19 Forecasting Project at the University of Oxford is making advanced pandemic simulations of 150+ countries available to the public, and also offer pro-bono forecasting services to decision-makers.
Support Slate Star Codex on Patreon. I have a day job and SSC gets free hosting, so don't feel pressured to contribute. But extra cash helps pay for contest prizes, meetup expenses, and me spending extra time blogging instead of working.
B4X is a free and open source developer tool that allows users to write apps for Android, iOS, and more.
Metaculus is a platform for generating crowd-sourced predictions about the future, especially science and technology. If you're interested in testing yourself and contributing to their project, check out their questions page
Beeminder's an evidence-based willpower augmention tool that collects quantifiable data about your life, then helps you organize it into commitment mechanisms so you can keep resolutions. They've also got a blog about what they're doing here
The Effective Altruism newsletter provides monthly updates on the highest-impact ways to do good and help others.
AISafety.com hosts a Skype reading group Wednesdays at 19:45 UTC, reading new and old articles on different aspects of AI Safety. We start with a presentation of a summary of the article, and then discuss in a friendly atmosphere.
Altruisto is a browser extension so that when you shop online, a portion of the money you pay goes to effective charities (no extra cost to you). Just install an extension and when you buy something, people in poverty will get medicines, bed nets, or financial aid.
Norwegian founders with an international team on a mission to offer the equivalent of a Norwegian social safety net globally available as a membership. Currently offering travel medical insurance for nomads, and global health insurance for remote teams.
Seattle Anxiety Specialists are a therapy practice helping people overcome anxiety and related mental health issues (eg GAD, OCD, PTSD) through evidence based interventions and self-exploration. Check out their free anti-anxiety guide here
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MealSquares is a "nutritionally complete" food that contains a balanced diet worth of nutrients in a few tasty easily measurable units. Think Soylent, except zero preparation, made with natural ingredients, and looks/tastes a lot like an ordinary scone.
80,000 Hours researches different problems and professions to help you figure out how to do as much good as possible. Their free career guide show you how to choose a career that's fulfilling and maximises your contribution to solving the world's most pressing problems.
Tag Archives: book review
Book Review: Albion’s Seed
I. Albion’s Seed by David Fischer is a history professor’s nine-hundred-page treatise on patterns of early immigration to the Eastern United States. It’s not light reading and not the sort of thing I would normally pick up. I read it … Continue reading
Book Review: My Brother Ron
[Content warning: mental illness, forced institutionalization, anorexia. As always all patient anecdotes are obfuscated composites of multiple cases with all the details changed in order to protect people’s privacy] I. After I wrote about Prison And Mental Illness, a reader … Continue reading
Book Review: The Art Of The Deal
I. Many of my friends recommend Robert Cialdini’s Influence, a book about how to be persuasive and successful. I read it most of the way through, and it was okay, but I didn’t have it in me to finish the … Continue reading
Book Review: Superforecasting
Philip Tetlock, author of Superforecasting, got famous by studying prediction. His first major experiment, the Expert Political Judgment experiment, is frequently cited as saying that top pundits’ predictions are no more accurate than a chimp throwing darts at a list … Continue reading
Book Review: Hive Mind
[Conflict of interest notice: Author Garett Jones sometimes reads this blog and is generally great.] Garett Jones’ book Hive Mind is classic pop science writing: an intriguing hypothesis, a long parade of interesting studies presented as catchy anecdotes, and not … Continue reading
Book Review: Chronicles Of Wasted Time
I. I was recently recommended Chronicles of Wasted Time, the autobiography of Malcolm Muggeridge. It was a good choice, and not just because its title appropriately described my expectations about reading 500-page books on people’s recommendation. Muggeridge is an obvious … Continue reading
Book Review: The Machinery Of Freedom
[conflict of interest: David Friedman is an amazing person who has been very nice to me and among other things hosted the San Jose SSC meetup earlier this month] David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom is half Libertarianism 101: Introduction … Continue reading
List Of Passages I Highlighted In My Copy Of “Willpower”
[content note: dieting] Warning: I have not checked any of these claims for truth, I was generally not impressed with the skepticism level displayed in this book, and I highlighted the passages I found most surprising or counterintuitive. So these … Continue reading
Book Review: Willpower
I. Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney attracted me with the following pitch: there are only two quantities in psychology that have been robustly linked to a broad range of important life outcomes. One … Continue reading
Practically-A-Book Review: Dying To Be Free
I am the last person with a right to complain about Internet articles being too long. But if I did have that right, I think I would exercise it on Dying To Be Free, the Huffington Post’s 20,000-word article on … Continue reading