A policy shop working to implement the civilizational low-hanging fruit.

Balsa Research is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on crafting shovel-ready policies that actually address core underlying human needs. We model issues, draft viable legislation, commission academic studies, spread ideas, and work to enact change.

Balsa will focus initially on some combination of four fronts: Repealing the Jones Act, Reimagining NEPA, ensuring housing gets built where people want to live, and protecting against the risk that AI will cause human extinction.

We take a full stack approach to policy:
1. Model the world. Find improvements that balance viability with physical impact.
2. Compile options into Official Policy Binder and Official Solutions Website.
3. Commission proper academic work to credibly quantify impacts on all fronts.
4. Use this as an opportunity to run experiments and learn more.
5. Draft model legislation using learnings.
6. Spread the world via media and writing.
7. Lobby. Pitch members of Congress and their staff. Do the work. Find champions.
8. Start small if necessary. Wins beget wins.


Balsa Policy Institute Inc.

Delivering unconditional cash directly to the world's poorest households via secure mobile transfers. 

Since 2009, GiveDirectly has delivered more than $580 million in unconditional cash transfers to families in need. These one-time cash transfers allow recipients to invest in what they need most and have been shown to improve their earnings, children’s school attendance, health, nutrition, and mental well-being.
 
GiveDirectly uses government data to target villages where most or all residents are living in extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as earning under $2.15/day. In-country GiveDirectly staff enroll one member of each household in the entire village to receive a one-time transfer of about $1,000 USD sent in two installments using mobile money. Recipients can then withdraw the mobile funds as cash with local agents and use the funds to invest in what they need – whether it’s on starting a business, education, making their home safer/sturdier, healthcare, or livestock.
 
GiveDirectly uses rigorous experimental research (randomized controlled trials) to measure the impact of their unconditional cash programs and answer public policy questions, generating evidence on key design and implementation questions across varied contexts. You can find over 300 studies on the positive impacts of cash transfers in GiveDirectly’s Cash Research Explorer.

GiveDirectly

Communicating the best research and data to understand big global problems and make progress against them

Poverty, disease, hunger, climate change, war, existential risks, and inequality: The world faces many great and terrifying problems. Our World in Data focuses on communicating the best research and data that helps us understand and find solutions to the world’s largest problems.


Our World in Data publishes an open-access publication where users can understand the state of the world today, where we are making progress and where we are falling behind. Through interactive data visualizations we can see how the world has changed; by summarizing the scientific literature we can understand why. We cover everything from global poverty to natural disasters, education and health, democracy; we have over 13,000 charts across hundreds of topics.


Our World in Data is free, open-source and provided as a public good. It has millions of users every month, and is cited in research and media across the world every day. This allows millions of people to understand the large problems the world is facing, and how we can solve them.

Our World in Data

This century is critical for humanity. We build tech, infrastructure, and community to navigate it.

This century is critical for humanity. We build tech, infrastructure, and community to navigate it.

Humanity's future could be vast, spanning billions of flourishing galaxies, reaching far into our future light cone [1]. However, it seems humanity might never achieve this; we might not even survive the century. To increase our odds, we build services and infrastructure for people who are helping humanity navigate this crucial period.

[1]: Or even more than the light cone, depending on how the [acausal trade stuff](https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/acausal-trade) works out.

Learn more about what we do here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5n2ZQcbc7r4R8mvqc/the-lightcone-is-nothing-without-its-people-lw-lighthaven-s-5 

Lightcone Infrastructure

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We are a nonprofit, so instead of charging fees we rely on the generosity of donors like you.

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