(Holly probably knows most of my story but writing about myself seems fun so I’m going to do it anyway… maybe it’ll be somehow useful for someone too)
When I was 5, I refused to eat meat for emotional reasons (something along the lines of “Mum, that thing you’re cutting up still looks like a real chicken and that is sad, I’m going to cry lots now”).
When I was about 16, my schoolfriend (also a vegetarian) bought me Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation for my birthday. Reading this turned my personal, emotional choice into something which felt like a moral imperative. Despite never having engaged with any philosophy before, Singer’s views felt almost like a manifesto of what I thought I believed in. I’ve been pretty staunchly utilitarian since (although I still haven’t engaged very deeply with much philosophy).
I knew that I wanted to contribute positively to the world through my career. Given that history was my favourite subject, it seemed like the best way to help the world was to become a history teacher. I fixed my career plans upon this, and didn’t really consider any alternatives to this for years to come...
When I went to university I had hoped to find an animal advocacy student society, but there was none, so I set one up within weeks, alongside a few other people.
It was at uni that I first heard of Effective Altruism. Max Dalton (now at CEA) was at my college at uni and so was in my (extended) friendship group. He was heavily involved in the Oxford GWWC society. I didn’t ever speak to Max about EA whilst I was at uni, but I’d guess that most undergrads in my college had heard of EA because of Max. I also went to hear Peter Singer gives talks twice while I was there, and I think one of the talks was about Effective Altruism (before I knew much about it); I don’t remember it well, so it obviously didn’t leave as much of an impression on me at the time as Animal Liberation had. I thought that EA sounded like a great idea, but that I couldn’t engage with it yet, because I wasn’t earning any money, and my understanding was that EA was about donating effectively. So I decided I would donate 10% of my income to effective charities once I started earning, but that there was nothing else I needed to do in the meantime.
After my degree and 1 year teacher training course, I began working as a teacher and immediately began donating 10% of my income. I also started tentatively looking for potential EA-related volunteering opportunities (e.g. ACE) but nothing came of this at the time.
I spoke to some uni friends who were at similar levels of support for EA as I was. They said they had taken the GWWC pledge. I decided to sign up, since I was already donating 10%.
After signing up, David Nash (EA London) sent me an email asking if I’d like to come to EA London events. I said yes and asked how else I could get involved; I ended up taking over the majority of the organising of the Effective Animal Altruism London sub-group which he had set up with Saulius (another EA based in London) but didn’t have much time to put into organising.
My responsibility for this group (and my general interest) led to a period of deepening involvement in EA; trying to read as much as I could that came out relating to EA and animals and volunteering for several EAA organisations. At some point I decided that I wanted to change my career to have a greater positive impact; this was why I had chosen teaching in the first place anyway, I just hadn’t thought the implications of this through. After several months of agonising, speaking to various people and an 80K coaching call, I decided to work towards working directly in the Effective Animal Advocacy community (as opposed to focusing on building more flexible career capital). So I started an EAA blog, contiued to focus on reading into the area and my volunteering.
A few months later, I have just started working full time as a researcher at Sentience Institute.
(Holly probably knows most of my story but writing about myself seems fun so I’m going to do it anyway… maybe it’ll be somehow useful for someone too)
When I was 5, I refused to eat meat for emotional reasons (something along the lines of “Mum, that thing you’re cutting up still looks like a real chicken and that is sad, I’m going to cry lots now”).
When I was about 16, my schoolfriend (also a vegetarian) bought me Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation for my birthday. Reading this turned my personal, emotional choice into something which felt like a moral imperative. Despite never having engaged with any philosophy before, Singer’s views felt almost like a manifesto of what I thought I believed in. I’ve been pretty staunchly utilitarian since (although I still haven’t engaged very deeply with much philosophy).
I knew that I wanted to contribute positively to the world through my career. Given that history was my favourite subject, it seemed like the best way to help the world was to become a history teacher. I fixed my career plans upon this, and didn’t really consider any alternatives to this for years to come...
When I went to university I had hoped to find an animal advocacy student society, but there was none, so I set one up within weeks, alongside a few other people.
It was at uni that I first heard of Effective Altruism. Max Dalton (now at CEA) was at my college at uni and so was in my (extended) friendship group. He was heavily involved in the Oxford GWWC society. I didn’t ever speak to Max about EA whilst I was at uni, but I’d guess that most undergrads in my college had heard of EA because of Max. I also went to hear Peter Singer gives talks twice while I was there, and I think one of the talks was about Effective Altruism (before I knew much about it); I don’t remember it well, so it obviously didn’t leave as much of an impression on me at the time as Animal Liberation had. I thought that EA sounded like a great idea, but that I couldn’t engage with it yet, because I wasn’t earning any money, and my understanding was that EA was about donating effectively. So I decided I would donate 10% of my income to effective charities once I started earning, but that there was nothing else I needed to do in the meantime.
After my degree and 1 year teacher training course, I began working as a teacher and immediately began donating 10% of my income. I also started tentatively looking for potential EA-related volunteering opportunities (e.g. ACE) but nothing came of this at the time.
I spoke to some uni friends who were at similar levels of support for EA as I was. They said they had taken the GWWC pledge. I decided to sign up, since I was already donating 10%.
After signing up, David Nash (EA London) sent me an email asking if I’d like to come to EA London events. I said yes and asked how else I could get involved; I ended up taking over the majority of the organising of the Effective Animal Altruism London sub-group which he had set up with Saulius (another EA based in London) but didn’t have much time to put into organising.
My responsibility for this group (and my general interest) led to a period of deepening involvement in EA; trying to read as much as I could that came out relating to EA and animals and volunteering for several EAA organisations. At some point I decided that I wanted to change my career to have a greater positive impact; this was why I had chosen teaching in the first place anyway, I just hadn’t thought the implications of this through. After several months of agonising, speaking to various people and an 80K coaching call, I decided to work towards working directly in the Effective Animal Advocacy community (as opposed to focusing on building more flexible career capital). So I started an EAA blog, contiued to focus on reading into the area and my volunteering.
A few months later, I have just started working full time as a researcher at Sentience Institute.