Kirsten's Notebook

A friend of mine recently decided to do a run on behalf of an HIV/AIDS charity. It's a cause that means a lot to him as a member of the LGBTQ community. He mentioned the run to me, but said he knew I probably wouldn't donate, because I am part of the Effective Altruism community. Effective Altruism is about doing as much good as you can, using reason and evidence. For example, here's an article that describes different HIV/AIDS charities. The most cost-effective HIV/AIDS charity can provide an estimated 27 years of healthy life for each $1000 donation; the least cost-effective charity provides less than 1 additional year of healthy life. I find this logic really compelling! I set aside a part of my income each year and I try to make sure that money does as much good as possible. But I still donate to my friends' fundraisers and don't see that as contradictory. The truth is, donating to this fundraiser didn't come from the "charity" part of my budget; ...

 Sheryl Sandberg's manifesto for white middle-class feminists,  Lean In , is a guilty pleasure of mine. I've read it a few times and honestly find it really useful because, um, I'm a white middle-class feminist. My favourite chapter of the book is titled "Don't leave before you leave". It tells the story of a young woman who approached Sheryl and asked a series of panicked questions about how to balance work and family life. As the conversations progressed, it eventually came out that this young woman wasn't expecting a baby and didn't even have a boyfriend yet, she just wanted to be prepared. And what preparation looked like to this young woman was potentially working at a certain kind of company in a certain kind of role, even though she could still be 5 or 10 years away from having children! Thinking about the future balance of work and children may be the most common reason for opting out of roles, but I'm sure it's not the only one. People...

At EA Global last month, I saw a talk between Julia Wise and Alex Gordon-Brown about parenting. He made an off-hand comment that having a satisfying personal life makes it easier to deal when work isn't going well. That seems so relateable to me! I get a huge sense of meaning and purpose and fulfillment from my job and feel pretty down or frustrated when it's not going well. But there are some things in my personal life, like being married to my awesome husband, my involvement in the EA community, and feeling valued and included and needed in my group of friends that also gives me a sense of meaning and connection and which balances out the highs and lows from my job. I can totally believe that parenting has a similar effect. For my own benefit, and for anyone who may be reading, I'm going to brainstorm some other examples of ways people experience meaning and connection and fulfillment that I could potentially add to my life: Doing repairs around your house - experiencing ...

 Cal Newport's A World Without Email would have been revolutionary three years ago. Now it feels a little out of date. To be fair, this might be a me thing. I skipped the first half because I'm already sold on the problem: checking your email every 5 minutes is clearly bad for getting any actual work done. I'm familiar with Cal's previous work (including Deep Work and So Good They Can't Ignore You ) so I get it! The second half of the book sets out some proposed solutions. This is the section I bought the book for and the section that underwhelmed me. Cal suggests things like use Calendly to schedule meetings. I agree, but it's a lot less radical than I thought he would be, given the whole book is supposed to be about eliminating email altogether! In addition, he doesn't seem aware that Microsoft Outlook (the most mainstream of email clients) has included a scheduling tool for years that lets you view your coworkers calendars and book a meeting at a time w...

 I was listening to Cal Newport's most recent podcast episode and he made an interesting point. Some people use schedules and other productivity tools to constrain their future self; other people use schedules to help their future selves. It's a subtle difference but I think it matters. For example, right now it's Friday afternoon, and I've just scheduled what I'm going to do on the Tuesday after the long weekend. If I think I'm going to be lazy on Tuesday, but actually I don't want to be lazy on Tuesday, there are a few things I can do. I can list all the tasks I want Tuesday-me to do. I can even tell someone about my plans, or set financial penalties. There's plenty of this kind of motivational advice on the internet, and it can be very helpful, but it's not the only way to use productivity tools. If I trust myself on Tuesday, and want to optimize for achieving Tuesday-me's goals rather than Friday-me's goals, some of the actions I take mig...

I have a surprising number of friends, or friends of friends, who believe the world as we know it will likely end in the next 20 or 30 years. They believe that transformative artificial intelligence will eventually either: solve most human problems, allowing humans to live forever, or kill/enslave everyone. A lot of people honestly aren't sure of the timelines, but they're sure that this is the future. You can witness a bit of the debate amongst believers  here . People who believe there's a good chance of transformative AI in the next 20-30 years are called people with "short timelines." There are a lot of parallels between people with short AI timelines and the early Christian church. Early Christians believed that Jesus was going to come back within their lifetimes. A lot of early Christians were quitting their jobs and selling their property to devote more to the church, in part because they thought they wouldn't be on earth for much longer! Both early Chr...

Here are two reasons I've been reluctant to start blogging again: It's embarrassing when people notice I'm wrong about stuff Blogging stats clicker-train me on what to write (which for me effectively means being clicker-trained on what and how to think) Everyone on Twitter already knows I'm wrong about some things, so that's not a particularly robust reason to avoid writing! And it's really important to me to start sharing my thoughts publicly - to get comfortable being accountable for my thoughts. As Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff said, "If you stop saying what you think now, you'll forget what it's supposed to sound like when you finally get the chance." Over the past few years, I have trained myself out of having a firm opinion on a lot of topics. This blog isn't meant to be full of "firm opinions" in the sense that I'll stand by them forever, but I want to publish things that I stand by now, even if I cringe in 5 ye...