Thanks for the writeup Lucas, it’s particularly useful to see people openly share which meta activities that they’ve tried have been found unpromising. Understanding this better would be action-relevant to me and several others, so that end I have a few questions if you have time for them:
What knowledge and/or messages did you try to spread? Effective charity, or GiveWell, or effective animal activism, or broad EA under that name, or x-risk, or anything else?
In what combinations did you spread them? Did you try spreading knowledge of GiveWell without packaging it with e.g. x-risk?
How did you try to spread this, any were any particular methods notably promising or unpromising?
What concrete actions do you expect the people you spread effective animal activism to take take? Which ones do you have relatively robust evidence that they’ll take?
Do you think Spain is less promising than other European countries with similar GDP? If so, why?
Hi Tom! :) I will reply each question briefly, as I’m a bit busy.
What knowledge and/or messages did you try to spread? Effective charity, or GiveWell, or effective animal activism, or broad EA under that name, or x-risk, or anything else?
We wrote about Effective Charity, Earning to Give, Deworming, Rationality and Effective animal activism in general. We also translated some popular EA texts from GiveWell, Yudkowsky and Scott.
In what combinations did you spread them? Did you try spreading knowledge of GiveWell without packaging it with e.g. x-risk?
We talked little about x-risk. That topic was on a separate introductory essay that I wrote. We tried to avoid mixing x-risk with other topics for strategic reasons.
We always had tact with inferential distances, so we didn’t combine incompatible or controversial topics. We tried to separate things and to make everything accessible.
How did you try to spread this, any were any particular methods notably promising or unpromising?
My most successful texts always had at least a few of these:
Good images of animals
Humor and silly stories or jokes
Strong encouraging messages for activists
Controversial points that also automatically felt correct
I wrote a text called “Introduction to the science of rationality” and It’s by far the less successful one in the whole site. It didn’t have a single one of those elements. Many texts about effective animal activism which did have those elements had much more success.
My advice is that telling stories and willing to make jokes is really important. It may make us feel uncomfortable or unprofessional, but It’s generally worth it. At the very least, everybody should seriously consider it.
What concrete actions do you expect the people you spread effective animal activism to take take? Which ones do you have relatively robust evidence that they’ll take?
As a result of my texts about effective animal activism, many organizations improved their leaflets and started following many of Animal Charity Evaluators recommendations. Many activists recommend my texts and they are now a required reading in some activist groups. They once even asked me for permission to print the text and give them in Vegan Festivals.
The texts will keep spreading and every activist shall be filled with evidence and effectiveness ;) I’m happy with this victory.
Regarding your two last questions, I don’t have enough knowledge about those topics to tell you, but I want to say that the title of my text might be a bit misleading because we do have good reasons to believe that an EA movement in Spain would be worth it.
Thanks for the writeup Lucas, it’s particularly useful to see people openly share which meta activities that they’ve tried have been found unpromising. Understanding this better would be action-relevant to me and several others, so that end I have a few questions if you have time for them:
What knowledge and/or messages did you try to spread? Effective charity, or GiveWell, or effective animal activism, or broad EA under that name, or x-risk, or anything else?
In what combinations did you spread them? Did you try spreading knowledge of GiveWell without packaging it with e.g. x-risk?
How did you try to spread this, any were any particular methods notably promising or unpromising?
What concrete actions do you expect the people you spread effective animal activism to take take? Which ones do you have relatively robust evidence that they’ll take?
Do you think Spain is less promising than other European countries with similar GDP? If so, why?
What do you think of the discussion under Non-English language effective altruism (including a list of venues), including of North European/historically protestant countries being particularly strong?
If someone were to try spreading broad EA or some aspect thereof in Spain, what steps would you recommend they take?
Hi Tom! :) I will reply each question briefly, as I’m a bit busy.
We wrote about Effective Charity, Earning to Give, Deworming, Rationality and Effective animal activism in general. We also translated some popular EA texts from GiveWell, Yudkowsky and Scott.
We talked little about x-risk. That topic was on a separate introductory essay that I wrote. We tried to avoid mixing x-risk with other topics for strategic reasons.
We always had tact with inferential distances, so we didn’t combine incompatible or controversial topics. We tried to separate things and to make everything accessible.
My most successful texts always had at least a few of these:
Good images of animals Humor and silly stories or jokes Strong encouraging messages for activists Controversial points that also automatically felt correct
I wrote a text called “Introduction to the science of rationality” and It’s by far the less successful one in the whole site. It didn’t have a single one of those elements. Many texts about effective animal activism which did have those elements had much more success.
My advice is that telling stories and willing to make jokes is really important. It may make us feel uncomfortable or unprofessional, but It’s generally worth it. At the very least, everybody should seriously consider it.
As a result of my texts about effective animal activism, many organizations improved their leaflets and started following many of Animal Charity Evaluators recommendations. Many activists recommend my texts and they are now a required reading in some activist groups. They once even asked me for permission to print the text and give them in Vegan Festivals.
The texts will keep spreading and every activist shall be filled with evidence and effectiveness ;) I’m happy with this victory.
Regarding your two last questions, I don’t have enough knowledge about those topics to tell you, but I want to say that the title of my text might be a bit misleading because we do have good reasons to believe that an EA movement in Spain would be worth it.