To keep up to date on our upcoming events, check out our calendar on Facebook or Meetup, or add us to your Google Calendar!

Weekly Events
Every Monday, 1:00 - 3:00 pm: Virtual Coworking
Join EA NYC’s weekly virtual coworking space! Drop in for a bit or stay for the full block using this Zoom link.

Every Thursday, 1:30 - 2:00 pm: Office Hours
Join EA NYC Director Rocky any time from 1:30 to 2 pm on Thursdays using this Zoom link. From career advice to understanding EA concepts to anything else on your mind, stop by and chat!

May Central Park Picnic: Hang out and share EAG(x) experiences!
Thursday, May 26th from 6:30 to 8:30 pm
We'll gather on Thursday evening at Frisbee Hill in Central Park for snacks and conversation.
In addition to general chilling out and mingling, we'll also give community members who attended April's EAGx and EAG conferences a chance to share their experiences and answer any questions for folks considering applying for July and September's EA Global conferences in San Francisco and DC.
(In-person at Frisbee Hill in Central Park. See details & RSVP on Facebook and Meetup.)

Info Session: EA NYC Hiring & Expansion Plans
Wednesday, June 1st from 7:00 to 8:00 pm
Building the effective altruism community is an exciting and high-impact career path. EA NYC is growing and hiring for two full-time roles (applications due June 15) and accepting expressions of interest for several roles we are considering hiring for later in 2022. Join EA NYC Director Rocky, former Co-director Arushi, and other EA NYC leadership for an informal Q&A session to learn more about working at EA NYC, working in community building more generally, and EA NYC's plans for the year ahead!
(Virtual: Zoom Link. See details & RSVP on Facebook and Meetup.)

EAs go to Storm King
Saturday, June 11th from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm
The EA NYC group and guests will be heading for a day trip to Storm King Art Center, the unique and massive "sculpture park" an hour north of NYC on the Hudson. It's a sprawling, picturesque setting for discussion and some fresh air! We had a fun outing there back in 2017.
(In-person with travel. See details & RSVP on Facebook and Meetup.)

Monthly Foundational Topics in EA Discussion Group: Making Effective Donations
Tuesday, June 14th from 7:00 to 8:00 pm
Are there concepts in Effective Altruism you’re confused about or just want to understand more fully? Or are you particularly good at explaining all things EA? Join our monthly discussion group that will cover a different foundational topic each month! For June, we will discuss how to think about decisions around giving and why you may want to pledge to donate a percentage of your income. We'll be joined by Luke Freeman, Executive Director of Giving What We Can.
You can read Giving What We Can's recent guide for more context.
(Virtual: Zoom Link. See details & RSVP on Facebook and Meetup.)

First Day of Summer Picnic & "Something I Changed My Mind About" Lightning Talks
Tuesday, June 21st from 6:30 to 8:30 pm
We're honoring the official start of summer and the transition of seasons with a beautiful picnic in the park and a series of outdoor lightning talks about change! We'll have plenty of time for casual conversation and we'll also hear a series of five-minute lightning talks themed around "Something I Changed My Mind About." This could be something small ("I used to think brussels sprouts were disgusting until I gave a new recipe a shot.") or something monumental ("I used to think animals weren't important and now I'm devoting my career to their welfare.") We want to hear from you! Sign up to present here!
(In-Person at Robert F Wagner Junior Park. See details & RSVP on Facebook and Meetup.)

Monthly Reading Group: Humankind: A Hopeful History
Monday, June 27th from 6:30 to 7:30 pm
Join us for our monthly reading group! This month, we are reading Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. If you need assistance paying for a copy of the book, please reach out to Rocky.
(Virtual: Zoom Link. See details & RSVP on Facebook and Meetup.)

Improving Institutional Decision-Making with Sophia Brown-Heidenreich of fp21
Thursday, June 30th from 6:30 to 9:00 pm
In this discussion, participants will learn about improving institutional decision-making as a cause area. Sophia will offer a landscape overview of IIDM upfront, sharing her insight into the relevant issues at hand. A discussion on the key topics and questions will follow.
Sophia Brown-Heidenreich is Chief of Staff for fp21, a nonprofit working to transform the process and institutions of U.S. foreign policy. fp21 researches, designs, and advocates for pragmatic and evidence-based solutions at each stage of the policy process.
(Location TBD. See details & RSVP on Facebook and Meetup.)

There are many events in the broader EA community you can join online!

As always, there’s a ton of high-impact job opportunities available at a wide variety of organizations. If you’re interested in a new role, we suggest checking out the 80,000 Hours job board, the EA Job Postings Facebook group, and the EA Internships Board. There is a new EA-aligned tech jobs spreadsheet. Here are several jobs in particular we want to flag:

Opportunities

• Charity Entrepreneurship is now offering career coaching for impact-focused entrepreneurs.
• Global Catastrophic Risk Institute has opened a call for advisees and collaborators.
• Redwood Research is running another iteration of MLAB, a machine learning bootcamp for people interested in AI alignment. You can learn more about the program here. Applications close on May 27. 
• Undergraduate students are invited to apply to the Machine Learning Safety Scholars Program, a paid, 9-week course designed to help participants skill up in machine learning for the purpose of empirical AI safety research. Learn more here. Applications close May 31.
• Open Philanthropy is looking for proposals from anyone interested in contributing to a research project on estimating biosecurity-related “base rates,” due June 5.
• New Harvest 2022 is a live, in-person event here in NY about the emerging field of cellular agriculture—the growing of animal products like meat, milk, and eggs from cells instead of animals, running June 9 & 10.
• The Voyager Scholarship was created by the Obamas and Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO, to help shape young leaders who can bridge divides and help solve our biggest challenges together, due June 14.
• Legal Priorities Summer Institute is an intensive, week-long program with the goal of introducing altruistically-minded law and policy students to projects, theories, and tools relevant to tackling critical issues affecting the long-term future and apps are due by June 17.
• Applications are open for a new retreat focused on EA fiction writing. The retreat is being organized by Adam, one of the winners of the EA Forum Fiction Writing Competition (which made me cry) and a philosopher at Global Priorities Institute. It should be great and apps are due by June 26.
• Open Philanthropy Project just announced the Cause Exploration Prizes around a set of questions that will help them explore new areas. They’re most interested in responses to our open prompt: “What new cause area should Open Philanthropy consider funding?” Submissions are due by August 4.
• Open Philanthropy’s University Organizer Fellowship provides funding for individuals who want to direct or support university student groups focused on topics relevant to improving the long-term future, including effective altruism, longtermism, rationality, or specific cause areas. Individuals are eligible for funding at any college or university and may apply without a particular university in mind. Applications are open on a rolling basis.
• Open Philanthropy are running The Century Fellowship - 'a 2-year program that supports people early in their careers who want to work on challenges the world may face this century that could have a lasting and significant impact on the long-term future' and applications are open until the end of the year.

Community News

• A community of online EA coworkers—with longer-lasting connections than Focusmate and more flexibility than Discord— is taking off at the new EA gather.town space. It’s pretty cool and totally free and open for use!
• The Centre for Effective Altruism’s Community Health Team published an update on their work and how they may be useful to you.
• GiveWell released a major update in their assessment of water quality interventions.
• EA Forum users voted on their favorite posts from the first decade of effective altruism.
• Vox published an article on preventing human-made pandemics.
• A team of researchers, including EA NYCers Joshua Lewis and Erin Morrissey, published the results of a study conducted on NYU students showing Most students who would agree with EA ideas haven't heard of EA yet. (Consider applying for a job with EA NYC to help change this!)

There have also been several major streams of discussion happening within the broader EA community this spring that are focused on big questions around how an influx of large-scale funding has affected EA’s relationship with money, as well as larger shifts in the community’s values and norms.

The conversation started with: Free-spending EA might be a big problem for optics and epistemics back in April, which now has 188 comments, many of them extensive and worth the read. Among the popular and thought-provoking posts that followed, here’s a brief roundup:

• The biggest risk of free-spending EA is not optics or motivated cognition, but grift
• EA is more than longtermism
• EA and the current funding situation
• Some clarifications on the Future Fund's approach to grantmaking
• "Big tent" effective altruism is very important (particularly right now)
• The EA movement’s values are drifting. You’re allowed to stay put.
• EA culture is special; we should proceed with intentionality
• EA will likely get more attention soon
• Bad Omens in Current Community Building

There have also been several recent posts about understanding failures, prioritization, and heuristics for decision-making.

• What are some high-EV but failed EA projects?
• How many EAs failed in high risk, high reward projects?
• How I torched my biggest career opportunity so far
• EA needs to understand its “failures” better
• Messy personal stuff that affected my cause prioritization (or: how I started to care about AI safety)
• My bargain with the EA machine
• Demandingness and Time/Money Tradeoffs are Orthogonal
• An easy win for hard decisions.

Interested in contributing to the conversation? Post in the EA NYC Slack or directly on the EA Forum!

Open Philanthropy announced a number of grants and investments, including (but not limited to):

• In Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness: The Nigerian Institute of Medical Research to support immunogenicity trials of fractional doses of the Moderna, AstraZeneca, and J&J COVID vaccines in Nigeria.
• In Farm Animal Welfare: Eurogroup for Animals to support their efforts to insert language around farm animal welfare into EU trade agreements.
• In Global Health and Development: PATH to support ministries of health in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi in the implementation of the RTS,S malaria vaccine; the Center for Global Development to support early access to COVID antivirals in low- and middle-income countries.
• In Macroeconomic Stabilization Policy: Employ America to support their advocacy for policies that encourage full employment.
• In Potential Risks from Advanced Artificial Intelligence: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology to support research led by Neil Thompson on modeling the trends and impacts of AI and computing; Hofvarpnir Studios to support the creation of a compute cluster for AI safety research.
• In Scientific Research: The University of Victoria to support work led by Caroline Cameron to develop an improved diagnostic for syphilis.
• In other areas: The Atlas Fellowship to support a summer program and scholarship funding for talented high school students; Probably Good to support their work to help people find highly impactful careers.

This month, we'll be reading (or listening to) Humankind: A Hopeful History.

“If there is one belief that has united the left and the right, psychologists and philosophers, ancient thinkers and modern ones, it is the tacit assumption that humans are bad. It's a notion that drives newspaper headlines and guides the laws that shape our lives. From Machiavelli to Hobbes, Freud to Pinker, the roots of this belief have sunk deep into Western thought. Human beings, we're taught, are by nature selfish and governed primarily by self-interest.

But what if it isn't true? International bestseller Rutger Bregman provides new perspective on the past 200,000 years of human history, setting out to prove that we are hardwired for kindness, geared toward cooperation rather than competition, and more inclined to trust rather than distrust one another. In fact this instinct has a firm evolutionary basis going back to the beginning of Homo sapiens.”

Make sure to join the #reading-group channel on the EA NYC Slack (join here) to discuss throughout the month. Stick around since that's where we decide on the books for future months!

Have a lovely month!
 
Cheers,
Rocky