EA - Peter Singer AMA (July 30th) by Toby Tremlett

The Nonlinear Library

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Peter Singer AMA (July 30th), published by Toby Tremlett on July 22, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum. On July 30th, Peter Singer will be answering your questions in a Forum AMA. He has agreed to answer questions for an hour in the evening (Melbourne time), so if your question hasn't been answered by the 31st, it likely won't be. Singer needs little introduction for many people in the Forum. In fact, it is fairly likely that his work was the reason we first heard about effective altruism. However, I've included some information here to orient your questions, if you'd benefit from it. What Singer has been up to recently Singer retired from his Princeton professorship recently, ending with a conference celebrating his work (written about my Richard Chappell here - I also recommend this post as a place to start looking for questions to ask Singer). Since, then, he has: Started a podcast, L ives Well Lived, along with his frequent collaborator Kasia de Lazari-Radek, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. They've released episodes with Jane Goodall, Yuval Harari, Ingrid Newkirk, Daniel Kahneman, Kate Grant, and more. Published a dialogue with the female Buddhist monastic and ethicist Shih Chao-Hwei, called The Buddhist and the Ethicist. Continued his work on the Journal of Controversial Ideas. Started a substack, and written on various topics for Project Syndicate. EA-relevant moments in Singer's career For those who don't know, here are some top EA-relevant moments in Singer's career, which you might want to ask about: 1971- Singer wrote Famine, Affluence and Morality in response to the starving of Bangladesh Liberation War refugees, a moral philosophy paper which argued that we all have an obligation to help the people we can, whether they live near us, or far away. This paper is the origin of the drowning child argument. 1975- Singer published Animal Liberation, the book which arguably started the modern animal rights movement. Singer published a substantially updated version, Animal Liberation Now, in 2023. Singer has been an engaged supporter and critic of Effective Altruism since its inception, notably delivering a very popular TED talk about EA in 2013. NB: I'm adding Peter Singer as a co-author for this post, but it was written by me, Toby. Errors are my own. Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org