We want to encourage a broader, public conversation around effective altruism and longtermism. To do so, we’re offering up to 5 awards of $100,000 for the best new and recent blogs. We're also making grants to promising young writers.
Some of the nation’s foremost public intellectuals—like Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein—started as bloggers. SlateStarCodex, Wait But Why, Gwern, Overcoming Bias, Marginal Revolution, the Money Illusion, Cold Takes, and LessWrong and the EA Forum have shaped our worldviews. We’re eager to nurture the next generation of public thinkers, and support a flourishing discourse on the most important issues.
There is a burning need for new ideas, new arguments, new people, and a more lively public discourse around effective altruism—how to use reason to do good and how we can help our civilization flourish in the long run.
We can’t wait to see what you all come up with!
Rules and guidelines for the prize are below, as well as form to get your blog on our radar. To follow participating blogs, bookmark our feed, or follow us on Twitter. This project is supported by FTX Future Fund and Longview Philanthropy.
This project is led and judged by
Nick Whitaker
Works in Progress
Founder and panelist
Leopold Aschenbrenner
FTX Future Fund
Advisor and panelist
Avital Balwit
Future of Humanity Institute
Panelist
Fin Moorhouse
Future of Humanity Institute
Blog mentor and panelist
Contributors
Bradley Davis
Writing and Editorial Mentor
Bridget Williams
Bridget Williams is a public health physician and a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Population-Level Bioethics, Rutgers University. She’s writing on topics including public health, ethics, and global health priorities, with a particular focus on issues that are relevant to longtermism.
You can follow her on Twitter here
Aria Babu
Aria Babu is a Senior Researcher at the Entrepreneurs Network. She is writing The Take Machine. She’s interested in improving the world through political coordination and transhumanist technology.
You can follow her on Twitter here
A FEW OF OUR BLOGGERS
RULES & GUIDELINES
- Up to 5 prizes of $100,000 will be awarded.
- Qualifying blogs and newsletters explore themes related to effective altruism and longtermism, including:
- Using reason, evidence, expected value, and the scout mindset to think clearly about the world, and to think clearly about how to do good.
- Big picture thinking about science, philosophy, economics and the long-term trajectory of humanity.
- Cutting-edge discussion of traditional areas like AI, biorisk, and weird utilitarian philosophy, as well as exploring potentially important new areas, like population, China, and institutions for space settlement.
- Personal agency, ambition, and opposing the cheems mindset.
- The areas of interest page on the FTX Future Fund website is a good overview of issues we are interested in.
- Ideas that could make it on the Future Fund Project List or even evolve into a moonshot project you take on.
- More ideas are available here.
- While blogs should generally explore these ideas, not every post needs to be on-topic to qualify. (Your foremost goal is to write an interesting and thought-provoking blog!)
- We have a particular interest in iconic blog posts that stand the test of time.
- Paywalled blogs will not be eligible for the prize. Donations or optional subscriptions are acceptable.
- Qualifying blogs will generally need to be new or started within the last 12 months, though exceptions could be made for special cases (like a long inactive blog). Please reach out if you have questions.
- Group blogs may qualify for a single prize, with money split among participants.
- There is not a fixed end date for the awards, but we hope to award the prizes within 2022. Additional smaller prizes may be announced at our discretion.
- The grants awarded are charitable and we will assess charitable impact during the assessment stage.
- For any further questions or concerns, contact nickwhitaker@effectiveideas.org.
- Make sure to follow @Effective_Ideas on Twitter!
A longer guide on how to build and run a successful blog is available here.
Richard Yetter Chappell
Richard Yetter Chappell is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami, and lead editor of utilitarianism.net. His blog, Good Thoughts, explores topics in moral philosophy and applied ethics from a broadly consequentialist perspective.
You can follow him on Twitter here
Heloise Southwood
Heloise Southwood is a doctor writing Heloise Investigates, where she applies her medical background to understanding issues including low hanging fruit in public health, science guided wellness, psychology, and fertility and population.
You can follow her on Twitter here
A FEW OF OUR BLOGGERS