I was recently a guest on a podcast, and did an episode giving an introduction to EA. The podcast was Not Overthinking by Ali Abdaal and Taimur Abdaal, and the episode is called ‘How can we optimise for a meaningful life?’, and can be found on any sensible podcast player. The audience is mostly non-EA, and it tends to focus on productivity, goals and life-optimisation (it feels fairly rationalist-adjacent to me).
The episode was aimed at people unfamiliar with EA, especially younger people interested in productivity and life-optimisation. I tried to focus on the optimisation angle of EA ideas, how EA engages with motivation (especially if you care about altruism on an intellectual level but not emotional level), and how EA ideas can be a central part of your career plans.
Aspects that I think might be interesting to people already familiar with EA:
A different take on introducing EA ideas (with framing mostly stolen from this recent 80K episode)
A collection of my favourite intuitive examples for key ideas. I think good examples is a majorly underrated part of good outreach
Using COVID and biosecurity examples to introduce longtermist ideas
Connecting EA ideas to self-improvement/productivity ideas (80/20-ing, time management, motivation hacking, etc)
Thoughts on how to make doing good a big life priority, while keeping motivation sustainable
(Possibly) Something to send to friends who fit into the intended audience
Any feedback on things the episode did well or badly are welcome!
Optimisation-focused introduction to EA podcast episode
Link post
I was recently a guest on a podcast, and did an episode giving an introduction to EA. The podcast was Not Overthinking by Ali Abdaal and Taimur Abdaal, and the episode is called ‘How can we optimise for a meaningful life?’, and can be found on any sensible podcast player. The audience is mostly non-EA, and it tends to focus on productivity, goals and life-optimisation (it feels fairly rationalist-adjacent to me).
The episode was aimed at people unfamiliar with EA, especially younger people interested in productivity and life-optimisation. I tried to focus on the optimisation angle of EA ideas, how EA engages with motivation (especially if you care about altruism on an intellectual level but not emotional level), and how EA ideas can be a central part of your career plans.
Aspects that I think might be interesting to people already familiar with EA:
A different take on introducing EA ideas (with framing mostly stolen from this recent 80K episode)
A collection of my favourite intuitive examples for key ideas. I think good examples is a majorly underrated part of good outreach
Using COVID and biosecurity examples to introduce longtermist ideas
Connecting EA ideas to self-improvement/productivity ideas (80/20-ing, time management, motivation hacking, etc)
Thoughts on how to make doing good a big life priority, while keeping motivation sustainable
(Possibly) Something to send to friends who fit into the intended audience
Any feedback on things the episode did well or badly are welcome!