Cognitive and emotional barriers to EA’s growth

This morning I gave a colloquium to my Psychology Department here at University of New Mexico. Most of the 30+ audience members had never heard of EA, although a few had a vague idea about it.

I analyzed 10 cognitive and emotional barriers that people face in accepting EA approaches to moral activism, from confirmation bias and speciesism to scope-insensitivity and Theory of Mind failures in understanding likely AGI systems.

I also made a pitch for more psychology grad students and faculty to get involved in EA, to share our expertise on human nature, statistics, research design, public outreach, program evaluation, mental health welfare issues, etc.

The powerpoint is here if anyone’s interested: https://​​geoffrey-miller-y5jr.squarespace.com/​​s/​​EA-talk-march09-public-shorter-tcdh.pptx

I’ve proposed to give a similar but shorter talk at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) conference this June in Amsterdam, which is the main evolutionary psychology research meeting—so I’d appreciate any feedback on this version.