Season 1, Episode 5: Brian Tomasik
Lightbulb Moment - A podcast by Effective Altruism at Harvard
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Brian Tomasik writes about ethics, animal welfare, and far-future scenarios from a suffering-focused perspective, all of which you can find on reducing-suffering.com. He helped to found Foundational Research Institute, a think tank that explores crucial considerations for reducing suffering in the long-run future. (Full-disclosure, Holly is currently a contractor for FRI.) Previously, Brian earned to give as a programmer at FlyHomes, and before that at Microsoft. Brian is something of a cult figure in EA. You’ll see in the interview that he has an extremely thoroughly thought out viewpoint that still strikes a lot of EAs as very unituitive. That combination is pretty irresistable. Brian has changed our minds a lot and convinced me of the importance of a lot of things I previously overlooked. And he does it with such serenity and goodwill that you can’t help but like him while he’s dutifully showing you how wrong you are. Ales and I really loved the experience, and we hope you will, too.
