I wanted to ask if you could help me with something, or point me in the right direction. I teach economics at an international school. We have about two dozen different student-led charities in the high school section. I pitched an idea to start an after-school activity based on the study of effective altruism. I got the response that it may be a possibility for next year, but this year they wanted me to introduce all the existing charities to some of the principles of effective altruism. I am struggling to come up with good material and discussion topics for the 30-45 minutes that I am allocated. Do you have any suggestions?
I wanted something that examines important concepts in effective giving, such as marginal benefits vs marginal costs, neglected causes, examples of ineffective vs effective charities, scaling, solvability, crowding, etc, through easy to understand examples. If it is interactive (polling, questions, etc) it would be even better. I planned on letting the students prepare for the meeting by watching the TED-talk by William McAskill about the most important problems. I may also give them a few pages to read from his book afterwards. I wanted to deal with career choices at a later meeting, and have this one focus on having them think critically about the focus and methods of their respective charities.
Hi, I am new here, and a complex systems scientist looking at solving humanity’s and Earth’s large-scale issues.
I would ask that as you are an economist, pls don’t forget to discuss opportunity cost, as well as externalities and intangibles ( which require more research on metrics), to help ppl reframe the issues and their mindset.
Also, for future researchers, the research itself that remains undone in establishing standards and metrics is critical. Things like ecosystem services are still under a banner of “invisibles ” for most ppl, yet maintaining this core infrastructure is critical to all other services and infrastructures. Metrics on this are, imo, way underestimated, yet their cascade effect and high impact due to effects on entire cities, countries,civilizations, is extremely high.
So for students, paths of research that will intrinsically aid EA metrics and arguments are very high value.
Glad to see all this info, and amazing ppl!
Hi everyone!
I wanted to ask if you could help me with something, or point me in the right direction. I teach economics at an international school. We have about two dozen different student-led charities in the high school section. I pitched an idea to start an after-school activity based on the study of effective altruism. I got the response that it may be a possibility for next year, but this year they wanted me to introduce all the existing charities to some of the principles of effective altruism. I am struggling to come up with good material and discussion topics for the 30-45 minutes that I am allocated. Do you have any suggestions?
I wanted something that examines important concepts in effective giving, such as marginal benefits vs marginal costs, neglected causes, examples of ineffective vs effective charities, scaling, solvability, crowding, etc, through easy to understand examples. If it is interactive (polling, questions, etc) it would be even better. I planned on letting the students prepare for the meeting by watching the TED-talk by William McAskill about the most important problems. I may also give them a few pages to read from his book afterwards. I wanted to deal with career choices at a later meeting, and have this one focus on having them think critically about the focus and methods of their respective charities.
Any ideas?
Thanks
/Dan
Hi, I am new here, and a complex systems scientist looking at solving humanity’s and Earth’s large-scale issues. I would ask that as you are an economist, pls don’t forget to discuss opportunity cost, as well as externalities and intangibles ( which require more research on metrics), to help ppl reframe the issues and their mindset. Also, for future researchers, the research itself that remains undone in establishing standards and metrics is critical. Things like ecosystem services are still under a banner of “invisibles ” for most ppl, yet maintaining this core infrastructure is critical to all other services and infrastructures. Metrics on this are, imo, way underestimated, yet their cascade effect and high impact due to effects on entire cities, countries,civilizations, is extremely high. So for students, paths of research that will intrinsically aid EA metrics and arguments are very high value. Glad to see all this info, and amazing ppl!
Welcome to the forum!
Hey, Dan!
I just came across this comment. I’m curious—did you end up running the activity? If so, how did it go?