“My understanding (though I could be wrong) is that this discussion was set up to be broken into a series of mini-lessons for users of the Waking Up app.” ← I can confirm this is correct.
The first episode came out August 2016. This is highly speculative, but could the Trump 2016 successful campaign have played a role in the impact of this episode?
I wouldn’t suggest this, however this first episode influenced me heavily with donations and enthusiasm for EA. I had decided prior to listening, I ought to donate more of my wealth to charity and was pretty firm on the idea. This was likely due to a couple of reasons, but Trump’s popularity was definitely one of them. The strong nationalism and disregard for decency (in my opinion) conflicted with my moral views. Maybe I wasn’t that unique and a lot of people with similar globalised moral inclinations were “triggered” or encouraged by this environment to reflect more on their beliefs.
I found the episode via googling something along the lines of “effective charities” (November/December, 2016), and it would have been one of the top links (on first few pages). I’m not sure if I had ever listened to a Sam Harris podcast before, but would have recognised the name as someone I respected from my early adult “anti-religion” phase.
Sorry if that is self-indulgent over sharing, but it might just be relevant that the first episode came out at a fairly convenient time?
I do think that the possible factors in the article, as well as “fit with audience” mentioned by Ben Todd and others are stronger factors.
That’s an interesting theory, but if there was an effect, I don’t see it in the data we have on the growth of Giving What We Can. (The slope goes a bit higher around the 2016 election, but that happens every holiday season, because there’s a lot more charitable giving then.)
“My understanding (though I could be wrong) is that this discussion was set up to be broken into a series of mini-lessons for users of the Waking Up app.” ← I can confirm this is correct.
The first episode came out August 2016. This is highly speculative, but could the Trump 2016 successful campaign have played a role in the impact of this episode?
I wouldn’t suggest this, however this first episode influenced me heavily with donations and enthusiasm for EA. I had decided prior to listening, I ought to donate more of my wealth to charity and was pretty firm on the idea. This was likely due to a couple of reasons, but Trump’s popularity was definitely one of them. The strong nationalism and disregard for decency (in my opinion) conflicted with my moral views. Maybe I wasn’t that unique and a lot of people with similar globalised moral inclinations were “triggered” or encouraged by this environment to reflect more on their beliefs.
I found the episode via googling something along the lines of “effective charities” (November/December, 2016), and it would have been one of the top links (on first few pages). I’m not sure if I had ever listened to a Sam Harris podcast before, but would have recognised the name as someone I respected from my early adult “anti-religion” phase.
Sorry if that is self-indulgent over sharing, but it might just be relevant that the first episode came out at a fairly convenient time?
I do think that the possible factors in the article, as well as “fit with audience” mentioned by Ben Todd and others are stronger factors.
That’s an interesting theory, but if there was an effect, I don’t see it in the data we have on the growth of Giving What We Can. (The slope goes a bit higher around the 2016 election, but that happens every holiday season, because there’s a lot more charitable giving then.)