It's really important to think for yourself and reflect on the arguments you've heard in previous weeks: you might uncover places where you disagree, or mistakes in the reasoning. And even if you don't you'll probably understand the ideas more deeply if you've thought about their weakest points.

So this week, we encourage you to take some time to reflect on your confusion and concerns about the ideas so far and to read up on some of the strongest counterarguments.

Fellows will be our “guest speakers” for this week, as they participate in lightning talks.

Transformative artificial intelligence may well be developed this century. If it is, it may begin to make many significant decisions for us, and rapidly accelerate changes like economic growth. Are we set up to deal with this new technology safely?

We are also including pieces on Bayes’ rule in this session because it is an important theory for helping us think clearly about all sorts of difficult questions. The insights into how to assess the evidence that follows from Bayes’ rule are applicable both in the particular case of transformative artificial intelligence as well as much more broadly.

Speaker: Simon Marshall, a PhD Candidate in Quantum Reinforcement Learning

“Longtermism” is the view that improving the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. This can bolster arguments for working on reducing some of the extinction risks that we covered in the last section.

We’ll also explore some views on what our future could look like, and why it might be pretty different from the present. And we'll introduce forecasting: a set of methods for improving and learning from our attempts to predict the future.

Speaker: Sam Bogerd, strategic advisor at the Dutch Ministry of the Interior

Humanity appears to face existential risks: a chance that we'll destroy our long-term potential. We’ll examine why existential risks might be a moral priority, and explore why they are so neglected by society. We’ll also look into one of the major risks that we might face: a human-made pandemic, worse than COVID-19.

Alongside this, we'll introduce you to the concepts of neglectedness, marginal thinking, and explore whether you could lose all of your impact by missing one crucial consideration.

Speaker: Susi Snyder, coordinator at International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

Should we care about non-human animals? We'll show how it can be important to care impartially rather than ignoring weird topics or unusual beneficiaries. We'll also cover expected value theory (which helps when we're uncertain about the impact of an intervention) and give some ideas for how we could improve the lives of animals that suffer in factory farms.

Speaker: Koen van Pelt, Co-Founder of the animal welfare organization Piscavata.

Around 700 million people still live in poverty, mostly in low-income countries. Efforts to help them - by policy reform, cash transfers, or provision of health services - can be incredibly effective.

Alongside investigating this issue, we also discuss how much more effective some interventions are than others, and we introduce a simple tool for estimating important figures.

Speaker: Jan Anne Amelink from Doneer Effectief.

If you want to use your time or money to help others, you probably want to help as many people as you can. But you only have so much time to help, so you can have a much bigger impact if you focus on the interventions that help more people rather than fewer.

But finding such interventions is incredibly difficult: it requires a "scout mindset" - seeking the truth, rather than to defend our current ideas.

Speaker to be announced!

This event is for everyone who joins the Intro Fellowship. Sign up here!

Get to know the other fellows that joined the program! We’ll have games, drinks, and a “gezellig” atmosphere. This event is optional.

All THEA members can celebrate the new members who have completed this semester’s fellowship. You’ve earned this dinner with your hard work spent throughout the fellowship, as well as to receive your certificate of completion.

On the first Thursday of the month, all professionals* from The Hague interested in effective altruism meet up at a great local bar. This month that will be the centrally located Irish pub The Fiddler. To help you find us, we'll be putting a rose on the table. First person there gets to take it home!

We'll be talking about the importance of donating money to important causes, caring about other humans and animals, developments that can be signifcant for the future, and just anything that's on our mind.

*This event is intended for all professionals of any profession, job hunters, retirees and any of the like.

In this final section, we hope to help you apply the principles of effective altruism to your own life and career.

You probably won’t be ready to make a major change just yet - you might want to read and reflect more before you do that. So instead we’ll help you to think through some of your key uncertainties, generate tests for those uncertainties, and plan out how you can make sure you follow through on your intentions.

Marieke de Visscher, the co-director of Effective Altruism Netherlands, will join us as a guest speaker.

Transformative artificial intelligence may well be developed this century. If it is, it may begin to make many significant decisions for us, and rapidly accelerate changes like economic growth. Are we set up to deal with this new technology safely?

We are also including pieces on Bayes’ rule in this session because it is an important theory for helping us think clearly about all sorts of difficult questions. The insights into how to assess the evidence that follows from Bayes’ rule are applicable both in the particular case of transformative artificial intelligence as well as much more broadly.

Joep Meindertsma, founder of PauseAI, will join us as a speaker.

Every month, all those interested in Effective Altruism in The Hague meet up to chat. Normally, we do this at a bar but this time, we’ll go to the THEA Office. This meetup is aimed at professionals of any profession, graduates, retirees and similar. Please let us know if you’re coming: text Jasper on +31 6 8310 9543

This month’s social event is going to be a little different! We will meet at the THEA Office to watch the award-winning movie My Octopus Teacher. Many people have not only enjoyed this film, it also changed their believes about intelligence and consciousness. We provide drinks and snacks as well!

“Longtermism” is the view that improving the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. This can bolster arguments for working on reducing some of the extinction risks that we covered in the last section.

We’ll also explore some views on what our future could look like, and why it might be pretty different from the present. And we'll introduce forecasting: a set of methods for improving and learning from our attempts to predict the future.

Sam Bogerd, a policy officer in the Dutch government will join us as a guest speaker.

Every month, all those interested in Effective Altruism in The Hague meet at a cozy bar. The bar of this month is Café De La Gare. This meetup is aimed at professionals of any profession, graduates, retirees and similar. Please let us know if you’re coming; you can Whatsapp Pippa on +31 6 8185 4010.

Humanity appears to face existential risks: a chance that we'll destroy our long-term potential. We’ll examine why existential risks might be a moral priority, and explore why they are so neglected by society. We’ll also look into one of the major risks that we might face: a human-made pandemic, worse than COVID-19.

Alongside this, we'll introduce you to the concepts of neglectedness, marginal thinking, and explore whether you could lose all of your impact by missing one crucial consideration.

Susi Snyder, program coordinator for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), will join us as a guest speaker.

Should we care about non-human animals? We'll show how it can be important to care impartially rather than ignoring weird topics or unusual beneficiaries. We'll also cover expected value theory (which helps when we're uncertain about the impact of an intervention) and give some ideas for how we could improve the lives of animals that suffer in factory farms.

Soemano Zeijlmans, a former policy analyst at the Good Food Institute, will join us as a guest speaker.

Come to celebrate the 2nd birthday of THEA at our brand new office! The party is happening right after the intro fellowship, so you will also get to know our new fellows! Snacks and drinks will be provided, but you’re welcome to bring your own too!

Around 700 million people still live in poverty, mostly in low-income countries. Efforts to help them - by policy reform, cash transfers, or provision of health services - can be incredibly effective.

Alongside investigating this issue, we also discuss how much more effective some interventions are than others, and we introduce a simple tool for estimating important figures.

If you want to use your time or money to help others, you probably want to help as many people as you can. But you only have so much time to help, so you can have a much bigger impact if you focus on the interventions that help more people rather than fewer.

But finding such interventions is incredibly difficult: it requires a "scout mindset" - seeking the truth, rather than to defend our current ideas.

Get to know the other fellows that joined the program! We’ll have games, drinks, and a “gezellig” environment. This event is optional.

Join this year’s first social to connect and meet with like-minded professionals! Please let us know if you’re coming; you can Whatsapp Pippa on +31 6 8185 4010.

(Find us at the table at the back)