There is so much art already in the world that remixes and reinterpretations seem like the most promising sources of âEA artâ. For example, I got into effective altruism largely due to the influence of the film Life in a Day, which has nothing to do with EA but is very good at cultivating the notion that every personâs life has value, no matter where they liveâit makes everyone seem equally ârealâ.
Iâve shown this movie to multiple EA groups after speaking about its influence on me, and it seems like people are often able to view it through the lens Iâve suggested, taking away the same message I did (if not with the same level of intensity).
Other examples (besides Schindlerâs List, which is probably the clearest one Iâve seen):
This essay on Dorothea Brooke, a fictional character who first appeared in 1871 but still pursued the same goals as the EA movement.
This document, which contains a few different examples, including writeups from me on the films Eye in the Sky and The Act of Killing.
The book Stargirl (by Jerry Spinelli), which contains this quote.
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Regarding your examples: I find most of these unappealing, either because they are viscerally unpleasant (âdead baby currencyâ) or far too didactic (power-ups based on charity effectiveness). Few of the worldâs most successful stories were created to teach someone a lesson; instead, the lesson ârides alongâ with the story. If we follow a good system of ethics, telling stories about the world should naturally carry an ethical message.
(Harry Potter isnât about loyalty or courage; itâs about children trying to do the right thing, which naturally requires loyalty and courage as a side effect. HPMOR is about rationality, but still places the character in a world where rationality is naturally useful, not a world where making rational decisions makes you look more handsome. Ethical actions are good in the same way rational actions are useful; a story about ethics can be a story about people doing good for its own sake.)
I liked the first part of the scope-sensitive ethics story the most; it relies on real-world events and real cognitive biases. I donât think âgenetic engineeringâ is necessary if we focus on the struggle of an empathetic person to navigate an awful world; by understanding her mind, we may naturally move closer to EA.
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An example of a story you could write about EA without being too didactic or visceral:
A new kid shows up at school. Itâs an ordinary school, and students are cruel to each other in ordinary ways (but realisticâteasing and gossip and an occasional shove, not fistfights that would result in expulsion from any actual public school).
The kid comes from a homeschool-ish background where she learned in a small, tightly-knit group of children who liked and supported each other. She views the state of the school as horrible. She decides sheâs going to fix it by helping her classmates to cooperate and focus on problems that arenât nearly as petty. She assembles a motley crew of altruistic allies from the schoolâs various cliques, and together they bring about relative harmony.
There are many directions in which one could take the story from there:
The kids could try to reform the school board, learning about how to fix broken systems in the process.
They could research the best education/âpublic policy reforms in the world and try to reform the city in that direction.
If you want to be a bit more explicit, they could get involved in charity and start a high-school EA group (perhaps under a different name), occasionally hanging out with visitors from the EA world (like Bob Riblin, who offers career advice, or journalist Kelsie Pyle, who wants to learn how this particular town became so⌠effective). Itâs best if they do this after realizing how hard it is to make incremental progress on entrenched social issuesâafter all, thatâs how plenty of people actually become interested in EA.
The key is that you need to show people using an EA mindset (thinking about consequences and counterfactuals, remembering that everyone is valuable), even if they arenât working on EA causes. Show people characters who do incredible things and invite them to contemplate the virtues of those characters, and you donât need to hammer too hard on the philosophy.
There is so much art already in the world that remixes and reinterpretations seem like the most promising sources of âEA artâ. For example, I got into effective altruism largely due to the influence of the film Life in a Day, which has nothing to do with EA but is very good at cultivating the notion that every personâs life has value, no matter where they liveâit makes everyone seem equally ârealâ.
Iâve shown this movie to multiple EA groups after speaking about its influence on me, and it seems like people are often able to view it through the lens Iâve suggested, taking away the same message I did (if not with the same level of intensity).
Other examples (besides Schindlerâs List, which is probably the clearest one Iâve seen):
This essay on Dorothea Brooke, a fictional character who first appeared in 1871 but still pursued the same goals as the EA movement.
This document, which contains a few different examples, including writeups from me on the films Eye in the Sky and The Act of Killing.
The book Stargirl (by Jerry Spinelli), which contains this quote.
--
Regarding your examples: I find most of these unappealing, either because they are viscerally unpleasant (âdead baby currencyâ) or far too didactic (power-ups based on charity effectiveness). Few of the worldâs most successful stories were created to teach someone a lesson; instead, the lesson ârides alongâ with the story. If we follow a good system of ethics, telling stories about the world should naturally carry an ethical message.
(Harry Potter isnât about loyalty or courage; itâs about children trying to do the right thing, which naturally requires loyalty and courage as a side effect. HPMOR is about rationality, but still places the character in a world where rationality is naturally useful, not a world where making rational decisions makes you look more handsome. Ethical actions are good in the same way rational actions are useful; a story about ethics can be a story about people doing good for its own sake.)
I liked the first part of the scope-sensitive ethics story the most; it relies on real-world events and real cognitive biases. I donât think âgenetic engineeringâ is necessary if we focus on the struggle of an empathetic person to navigate an awful world; by understanding her mind, we may naturally move closer to EA.
--
An example of a story you could write about EA without being too didactic or visceral:
A new kid shows up at school. Itâs an ordinary school, and students are cruel to each other in ordinary ways (but realisticâteasing and gossip and an occasional shove, not fistfights that would result in expulsion from any actual public school).
The kid comes from a homeschool-ish background where she learned in a small, tightly-knit group of children who liked and supported each other. She views the state of the school as horrible. She decides sheâs going to fix it by helping her classmates to cooperate and focus on problems that arenât nearly as petty. She assembles a motley crew of altruistic allies from the schoolâs various cliques, and together they bring about relative harmony.
There are many directions in which one could take the story from there:
The kids could try to reform the school board, learning about how to fix broken systems in the process.
They could research the best education/âpublic policy reforms in the world and try to reform the city in that direction.
If you want to be a bit more explicit, they could get involved in charity and start a high-school EA group (perhaps under a different name), occasionally hanging out with visitors from the EA world (like Bob Riblin, who offers career advice, or journalist Kelsie Pyle, who wants to learn how this particular town became so⌠effective). Itâs best if they do this after realizing how hard it is to make incremental progress on entrenched social issuesâafter all, thatâs how plenty of people actually become interested in EA.
The key is that you need to show people using an EA mindset (thinking about consequences and counterfactuals, remembering that everyone is valuable), even if they arenât working on EA causes. Show people characters who do incredible things and invite them to contemplate the virtues of those characters, and you donât need to hammer too hard on the philosophy.