Join us for weekly virtual Houston Effective Altruism meetups!
This is part of our virtual discussion meetup series for Houston Effective Altruism, open to anyone worldwide! They’re on Tuesdays (USA time) throughout June-July. Feel free to join these events or share them with anyone you know. These events are designed to be useful for both newcomers and highly engaged EAs 😁
During the first hour, the host will welcome everyone and make announcements, followed by brief introductions from attendees.
There will also be a 10-20 minute presentation about an article or idea.
The host will then kick off a discussion with a question, and if the group is larger than 5 people, attendees will break off into separate breakout rooms.
The conversation will unfold freely, and the host will ask another question when there is a lull.
At the end of the first hour, the host will wrap up the group discussion and ask for feedback, encouraging participants to stay in the virtual meeting room and mingle informally for as long as they wish.
This week’s topic: Evaluating Impact
Effective altruism involves figuring out how to do the most good possible. This includes looking at how different charitable actions affect people’s lives. To do this, we use methods to measure the impact of each action, such as how many lives are saved or how much suffering is reduced.
The goal is to find the actions that have the greatest positive impact on the most people. Examples: comparing the costs and benefits of different interventions; taking into account factors such as the number of people affected, the severity of the problem, and the durability of the solution.
Discussion questions:
Can you think of examples where relying on numbers and data has oversimplified the complexity of a social problem or human suffering?
Virtual Discussion: Is Data Making Complex Social Problems Seem Too Simple?
Join us for weekly virtual Houston Effective Altruism meetups!
This is part of our virtual discussion meetup series for Houston Effective Altruism, open to anyone worldwide! They’re on Tuesdays (USA time) throughout June-July. Feel free to join these events or share them with anyone you know. These events are designed to be useful for both newcomers and highly engaged EAs 😁
View all the meetups and register on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/virtual-discussion-series-2206519
Event format:
During the first hour, the host will welcome everyone and make announcements, followed by brief introductions from attendees.
There will also be a 10-20 minute presentation about an article or idea.
The host will then kick off a discussion with a question, and if the group is larger than 5 people, attendees will break off into separate breakout rooms.
The conversation will unfold freely, and the host will ask another question when there is a lull.
At the end of the first hour, the host will wrap up the group discussion and ask for feedback, encouraging participants to stay in the virtual meeting room and mingle informally for as long as they wish.
This week’s topic: Evaluating Impact
Effective altruism involves figuring out how to do the most good possible. This includes looking at how different charitable actions affect people’s lives. To do this, we use methods to measure the impact of each action, such as how many lives are saved or how much suffering is reduced.
The goal is to find the actions that have the greatest positive impact on the most people. Examples: comparing the costs and benefits of different interventions; taking into account factors such as the number of people affected, the severity of the problem, and the durability of the solution.
Discussion questions:
Can you think of examples where relying on numbers and data has oversimplified the complexity of a social problem or human suffering?
How can we address this issue?