When I was around 10, I found the killing and torture of animals for meat and fur atrocious, so this is when I decided to become vegetarian. I have been vegetarian since then.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I became more interested in a larger variety of issues, with my pet topics being environmentalism and feminism. I started doing political work when I was 16. I joined a left-wing political group that also focussed on a lot of other issues, like global poverty, democracy and animal rights. It was the first time in my life I met smart and dedicated people.
Apart from that, I spent most of my time reading through all the non-fiction books in the library I could find. I had always wanted to go into academia. I think I started looking forward to doing a PhD when I was around 10.
When I was 17 I found LessWrong. A year later someone who was also interested in LessWrong introduced me to EA and I started talking to the Swiss EA crowd. I had never previously thought about cause prioritisation and was really excited about the concept. This was in 2012.
At the same time, I started a cultural anthropology degree. Given the focus of psychology on WEIRD subjects, it seemed like a great starting point to dismantle misconceptions about humanity.
But I was quite disappointed in how the subject was taught, so half a year later, I switched to maths.
It was 2013 by now and I stayed in touch with the EA Community online and visited the UK and Swiss EA Hubs a couple of times. I lived in Germany at the time where no EA Community existed yet. I started organizing a local LW meetup.
I stopped doing political work when I was around 19 because I thought it wasn’t “effective” enough. I thoroughly regret this. I had a great network and know quite a few people who have great roles now and lots of experience. EA only came around to politics as a worthwhile avenue to doing good years later.
I focussed on finishing my degree, continued to make sure to stay in touch with the international EA Community and started organizing a local EA meetup once there was more interest in EA in Germany. I mostly regret now how I spent those years. I wish I had been around more people who were actually trying to do things which I cannot say about my local EA/LW network. Continuing political work would have been good, or moving to an EA Hub. But the latter would have conflicted with my degree.
I finished my degree last year and moved to London and recently also spent a few months in Berkeley. This has been a large improvement compared to the previous situation.
Great idea!
When I was around 10, I found the killing and torture of animals for meat and fur atrocious, so this is when I decided to become vegetarian. I have been vegetarian since then.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I became more interested in a larger variety of issues, with my pet topics being environmentalism and feminism. I started doing political work when I was 16. I joined a left-wing political group that also focussed on a lot of other issues, like global poverty, democracy and animal rights. It was the first time in my life I met smart and dedicated people.
Apart from that, I spent most of my time reading through all the non-fiction books in the library I could find. I had always wanted to go into academia. I think I started looking forward to doing a PhD when I was around 10.
When I was 17 I found LessWrong. A year later someone who was also interested in LessWrong introduced me to EA and I started talking to the Swiss EA crowd. I had never previously thought about cause prioritisation and was really excited about the concept. This was in 2012.
At the same time, I started a cultural anthropology degree. Given the focus of psychology on WEIRD subjects, it seemed like a great starting point to dismantle misconceptions about humanity. But I was quite disappointed in how the subject was taught, so half a year later, I switched to maths.
It was 2013 by now and I stayed in touch with the EA Community online and visited the UK and Swiss EA Hubs a couple of times. I lived in Germany at the time where no EA Community existed yet. I started organizing a local LW meetup.
I stopped doing political work when I was around 19 because I thought it wasn’t “effective” enough. I thoroughly regret this. I had a great network and know quite a few people who have great roles now and lots of experience. EA only came around to politics as a worthwhile avenue to doing good years later.
I focussed on finishing my degree, continued to make sure to stay in touch with the international EA Community and started organizing a local EA meetup once there was more interest in EA in Germany. I mostly regret now how I spent those years. I wish I had been around more people who were actually trying to do things which I cannot say about my local EA/LW network. Continuing political work would have been good, or moving to an EA Hub. But the latter would have conflicted with my degree.
I finished my degree last year and moved to London and recently also spent a few months in Berkeley. This has been a large improvement compared to the previous situation.