Thanks for writing this! I think we could use a lot more discussion of how to turn people who aren’t EAs or regular donors into EAs or regular donors. I especially like your point about letting people take their time changing their minds. I find a lot of my excuses for myself wear down over time, so I’m more likely to decide to donate more a month or two after someone tries to convince me than during the conversation.
You suggested starting a talk without telling your audience what your conclusion is. There’s a tactic that fits this description, that I don’t think is what you’re describing, but that I think bothers a lot of people. Sometimes presenters will start a talk by presenting non-controversial premises, and then make an argument that these premises imply a controversial conclusion, insisting that since the audience accepted the premises, they have to accept the conclusion. This tends to annoy me more than it convinces me, and although I think some (extremely virtuous) people may not have this experience, I suspect that they’re in the minority. If you’re going to give a talk (or have a conversation) where the main point is to try to convince people to donate more to charity, you should make that clear from the start, even if the first few things you talk about aren’t focused on your end goal.
Thanks for writing this! I think we could use a lot more discussion of how to turn people who aren’t EAs or regular donors into EAs or regular donors. I especially like your point about letting people take their time changing their minds. I find a lot of my excuses for myself wear down over time, so I’m more likely to decide to donate more a month or two after someone tries to convince me than during the conversation.
I have one addition and one caution.
My addition is that one of the best techniques of persuasion I know is to present your own excitement about what you’re doing. A dry conversation or talk about moral obligations with numbers of lives saved is a lot less likely to cause people to change than one where you talk about how happy you are to be doing what you’re doing. This post (http://effective-altruism.com/ea/8h/effective_altruism_as_the_most_exciting_cause_in/) does a good job of this, and I love this letter (http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/10/8/philosophy-is-awesome/) and honestly particularly the title that Ben Kuhn wrote in the Harvard Crimson.
You suggested starting a talk without telling your audience what your conclusion is. There’s a tactic that fits this description, that I don’t think is what you’re describing, but that I think bothers a lot of people. Sometimes presenters will start a talk by presenting non-controversial premises, and then make an argument that these premises imply a controversial conclusion, insisting that since the audience accepted the premises, they have to accept the conclusion. This tends to annoy me more than it convinces me, and although I think some (extremely virtuous) people may not have this experience, I suspect that they’re in the minority. If you’re going to give a talk (or have a conversation) where the main point is to try to convince people to donate more to charity, you should make that clear from the start, even if the first few things you talk about aren’t focused on your end goal.