Interesting post and curriculum. I look forward to hearing about the outcomes of the first run as you evaluate them and get results. My own estimates for the likeliness of this achieving 85% better outcomes than the current method are significantly lower, but I think thereâs a chance this will be an improvement.
That being said, some points of disagreement.
I think the framing of âcreatingâ rather than âfindingâ motivated altruistic individuals does not match my own expectation of dealing with university students. When I was an undergraduate myself, I definitely conceived of myself as altruistic, and was actively looking for a cause/âgroup to become active in, both for the social and ethical aspects of activism. Now that I teach first-year students, I think there is a large group of similar motivated altruistic individuals that seek a group to engage with, and I think there is a lot of value in identifying them and pointing them towards EA as a way to act on their altruistic motivation. Many students I meet then stay in the first group/âbroad direction they focused their altruism on, making it even more valuable to present them with EA as an option early-on.
I am worried that this group in particular would be somewhat turned off by the flair of the syllabus you present. Young people that are already altruistically motivated may not look to âUnderstand Themselvesâ, âFind Meaningâ or âTry to live a happy lifeâ. Rather, they may be focused on their altruistic motivation, being angry and upset not at their own life not going well, but the injustice they have become aware of as they grew up (think: Climate Change, Poverty, Racism, Discrimination etc). A syllabus that focuses on one-self, rather than others, may not be a good fit for already altruistic young adults. I myself would likely not have enrolled in this program at an early age, having been a pretty arrogant young man that thought he âfigured outâ the problems and solutions facing the world, as I was mainly scouting for groups that helped me address problems I found most pressing.
One reason for skepticism about your predictions is that my prior for âintervention induces altruistic motivationâ is relatively low after reading about a series of philosophers experimenting with using prompts and/âor courses to induce altruistic behaviour, which turned out to be pretty tough! That being said, if this program were to achieve this goal, that would be very impressive and meaningful, so I applaud the effort going into executing and evaluating the program.
I appreciate your thoughts Malte. Thank you for sharing them! I agree with your point that there are university students who are already altruistically motivated and actively seeking ways to make an impact. I also agree that this type of audience may be less interested in this track because they have already covered the related topics and themes. It will be interesting to see to what extent this is the case. I think the Introductory EA Program is very appropriate for this group.
However, I argue that there is a large group of students who have not yet reflected on their core priorities in life and the importance of doing good. These students may not be immediately inclined to explore ways to improve their impact, as they have not yet internalised the reasons of why doing good matters to them.
The PLP Track is primarily intended to provide value to this second group of students. Itâs goal is to help them consider what they truly value in the long-term and what kind of life they want to live. Through this process, they may come to realize that incorporating a focus on doing good aligns with their values and goals, and become more motivated to explore ways of doing good better, such as by participating in the Introductory EA Program.
It is important to note that that my first hypothesis intended to convey that the PLP Track is 85% more effective in converting this type of audience, those that are not altruistically motivated yet. I hypothesize that this type of audience will not even join the Introductory EA Program in the first place (there are of course exceptions). This is because unless people have internalised why doing good matters to them I argue that they will be a lot less likely to care about how to do good better.
I could have made that clearer in the post, and I think it is possible that my prediction is overly confident. Time will most likely reveal the validity of this hypothesis and whether my tendency to be rather optimistic distorted the accuracy of my prediction. Then I am happy to update my beliefs and learn from it for the next time. Thanks again for your thoughts!
Interesting post and curriculum. I look forward to hearing about the outcomes of the first run as you evaluate them and get results. My own estimates for the likeliness of this achieving 85% better outcomes than the current method are significantly lower, but I think thereâs a chance this will be an improvement.
That being said, some points of disagreement.
I think the framing of âcreatingâ rather than âfindingâ motivated altruistic individuals does not match my own expectation of dealing with university students. When I was an undergraduate myself, I definitely conceived of myself as altruistic, and was actively looking for a cause/âgroup to become active in, both for the social and ethical aspects of activism. Now that I teach first-year students, I think there is a large group of similar motivated altruistic individuals that seek a group to engage with, and I think there is a lot of value in identifying them and pointing them towards EA as a way to act on their altruistic motivation. Many students I meet then stay in the first group/âbroad direction they focused their altruism on, making it even more valuable to present them with EA as an option early-on.
I am worried that this group in particular would be somewhat turned off by the flair of the syllabus you present. Young people that are already altruistically motivated may not look to âUnderstand Themselvesâ, âFind Meaningâ or âTry to live a happy lifeâ. Rather, they may be focused on their altruistic motivation, being angry and upset not at their own life not going well, but the injustice they have become aware of as they grew up (think: Climate Change, Poverty, Racism, Discrimination etc). A syllabus that focuses on one-self, rather than others, may not be a good fit for already altruistic young adults. I myself would likely not have enrolled in this program at an early age, having been a pretty arrogant young man that thought he âfigured outâ the problems and solutions facing the world, as I was mainly scouting for groups that helped me address problems I found most pressing.
One reason for skepticism about your predictions is that my prior for âintervention induces altruistic motivationâ is relatively low after reading about a series of philosophers experimenting with using prompts and/âor courses to induce altruistic behaviour, which turned out to be pretty tough! That being said, if this program were to achieve this goal, that would be very impressive and meaningful, so I applaud the effort going into executing and evaluating the program.
I appreciate your thoughts Malte. Thank you for sharing them! I agree with your point that there are university students who are already altruistically motivated and actively seeking ways to make an impact. I also agree that this type of audience may be less interested in this track because they have already covered the related topics and themes. It will be interesting to see to what extent this is the case. I think the Introductory EA Program is very appropriate for this group.
However, I argue that there is a large group of students who have not yet reflected on their core priorities in life and the importance of doing good. These students may not be immediately inclined to explore ways to improve their impact, as they have not yet internalised the reasons of why doing good matters to them.
The PLP Track is primarily intended to provide value to this second group of students. Itâs goal is to help them consider what they truly value in the long-term and what kind of life they want to live. Through this process, they may come to realize that incorporating a focus on doing good aligns with their values and goals, and become more motivated to explore ways of doing good better, such as by participating in the Introductory EA Program.
It is important to note that that my first hypothesis intended to convey that the PLP Track is 85% more effective in converting this type of audience, those that are not altruistically motivated yet. I hypothesize that this type of audience will not even join the Introductory EA Program in the first place (there are of course exceptions). This is because unless people have internalised why doing good matters to them I argue that they will be a lot less likely to care about how to do good better.
I could have made that clearer in the post, and I think it is possible that my prediction is overly confident. Time will most likely reveal the validity of this hypothesis and whether my tendency to be rather optimistic distorted the accuracy of my prediction. Then I am happy to update my beliefs and learn from it for the next time. Thanks again for your thoughts!