I think the most important GITV moments are often connected to people, and I think we as a community should put the effort into understanding new people. In my case, I think I had not one but two different moments, and different people connected to those:
The first one happened in early 2018 in Oxford. I was lucky enough to have gone there for a master’s degree, and mid-way through it, I found out about one talk by Catherine Hollander, from Givewell, on making the best out of your money. I had always been interested in how to end poverty, so quite appealing. There, I met Darius Meissner, they invited me for a dinner after the event, and I think he really took the time to understand me well. In particular, I starkly remember one conversation where he argued that eating animals might not be good, and me saying that I cared more about the environmental reasons.
This is something that in retrospect feels weird, almost as if the only reason I said that was because I heard other people believe so. But it also highlights something important: changing the (moral) views of people takes time, even when they make a lot of sense. The good thing was that such a simple conversation made me slip towards becoming a vegetarian, and I remember buying much less meat already there.
2018 was also a year that EAs were putting a lot of focus on longtermism. Indeed, after this first event, Huw from EA Oxford invited me to talk a bit and gave me a couple of books to read. Unfortunately, the talk, focussed mostly on longtermism did not resonate well with me. I was (1) confused about the fuzzy arguments on the “astronomical” importance of the long-term future, (2) unsure if that was even actionable, it’s not like going vegetarian or donating money. They were arguing for a career change, which felt probably too much. Later on, I attended a couple of career planning events, which I liked, but I never really bought in so much into longtermism. I think I somewhat took it into account when choosing my PhD, but it was far from being the main consideration. The second career retreat especially was a bit offputting. Too much crazy conversation around paperclips and the sort. I remember being in a conversation where someone was arguing that having fewer children was better because it would free you more time to do greater amounts of good. I honestly think this is the kind of weird stuff that is not really super helpful. Maybe intellectually interesting, but not … the kind of thing we should be focused on?
After that, I went back to Spain, Madrid, not knowing that there was an incipient group there. I found out about this group relatively quickly afterward because I enjoyed going to entrepreneurship events and they were hosting one intro event on the Google campus. I honestly did not know whether I would stick around or not. But I think the reason I did was that Pablo Melchor was there and was very welcoming, and willing to listen. They needed someone to help organize events and I helped him more or less until covid happened, when big changes happened and we became more international (now there is one large Hispanic speaking group 🙂). I also remember talking to Jaime Sevilla (a good friend of mine) and feeling a bit defensive, because he wanted to know what I was more interested in and encouraged me to take action and organize events straightforwardly 😜
From all of this, I try to remember that doing good as an EA is socially demanding, as it requires doing things people don’t usually do. For that reason, I try to give people time and space to learn. I think reading is a great way to learn more and get more engaged, and as a community, we have really good written material. On the other hand, my path to EA is very different from the people who, like Jaime, got interested in EA from a rationalist perspective. In any case, it is good to remember that at EA is very weird, and at some point you were on the other side of the conversation where you would have liked to feel included, and listened to.
I think the most important GITV moments are often connected to people, and I think we as a community should put the effort into understanding new people. In my case, I think I had not one but two different moments, and different people connected to those:
The first one happened in early 2018 in Oxford. I was lucky enough to have gone there for a master’s degree, and mid-way through it, I found out about one talk by Catherine Hollander, from Givewell, on making the best out of your money. I had always been interested in how to end poverty, so quite appealing. There, I met Darius Meissner, they invited me for a dinner after the event, and I think he really took the time to understand me well. In particular, I starkly remember one conversation where he argued that eating animals might not be good, and me saying that I cared more about the environmental reasons. This is something that in retrospect feels weird, almost as if the only reason I said that was because I heard other people believe so. But it also highlights something important: changing the (moral) views of people takes time, even when they make a lot of sense. The good thing was that such a simple conversation made me slip towards becoming a vegetarian, and I remember buying much less meat already there. 2018 was also a year that EAs were putting a lot of focus on longtermism. Indeed, after this first event, Huw from EA Oxford invited me to talk a bit and gave me a couple of books to read. Unfortunately, the talk, focussed mostly on longtermism did not resonate well with me. I was (1) confused about the fuzzy arguments on the “astronomical” importance of the long-term future, (2) unsure if that was even actionable, it’s not like going vegetarian or donating money. They were arguing for a career change, which felt probably too much. Later on, I attended a couple of career planning events, which I liked, but I never really bought in so much into longtermism. I think I somewhat took it into account when choosing my PhD, but it was far from being the main consideration. The second career retreat especially was a bit offputting. Too much crazy conversation around paperclips and the sort. I remember being in a conversation where someone was arguing that having fewer children was better because it would free you more time to do greater amounts of good. I honestly think this is the kind of weird stuff that is not really super helpful. Maybe intellectually interesting, but not … the kind of thing we should be focused on?
After that, I went back to Spain, Madrid, not knowing that there was an incipient group there. I found out about this group relatively quickly afterward because I enjoyed going to entrepreneurship events and they were hosting one intro event on the Google campus. I honestly did not know whether I would stick around or not. But I think the reason I did was that Pablo Melchor was there and was very welcoming, and willing to listen. They needed someone to help organize events and I helped him more or less until covid happened, when big changes happened and we became more international (now there is one large Hispanic speaking group 🙂). I also remember talking to Jaime Sevilla (a good friend of mine) and feeling a bit defensive, because he wanted to know what I was more interested in and encouraged me to take action and organize events straightforwardly 😜
From all of this, I try to remember that doing good as an EA is socially demanding, as it requires doing things people don’t usually do. For that reason, I try to give people time and space to learn. I think reading is a great way to learn more and get more engaged, and as a community, we have really good written material. On the other hand, my path to EA is very different from the people who, like Jaime, got interested in EA from a rationalist perspective. In any case, it is good to remember that at EA is very weird, and at some point you were on the other side of the conversation where you would have liked to feel included, and listened to.