Let’s face it. Long-termism is not very intuitively compelling to most people when they first hear of it. Not only do you have to think in very consequentialist terms, you also have to be extremely committed to acting and prioritizing on the basis of fairly abstract philosophical arguments. In my view, that’s just not very appealing—sometimes even off-putting—if you’ve never even thought in terms of cost-effectiveness or total-view consequentialism before.
I agree. Because of this, the 2nd edition of the EA handbook doesn’t seem appealing at all as an EA introduction. I don’t want to hijack this thread, but along these lines, what do you think about the following content as an introduction to effective altruism?:
Week 1:
MacAskill’s intro: “How can you do the most good?” (14 pages)
MacAskill’s 1st chapter: “Just how much can you achieve?” (11 pages)
MacAskill’s conclusion: “What should you do right now?” and “The five key questions of effective altruism” (8 pages)
Addition: Reflect on the stipend
We are about to run our stipend with this content in mind. Compared to your reading list, I feel that the content we have planned is more beginner-level. What do you think? What seems to be missing in terms of EA basics?
Hey! Obviously, the list you got is a great place to start and I’m sure your project will be awesome.
One thing that the list kind of lacks is focused discussions on one cause area at a time, which we had for existential risks, animal welfare, and global health and development. If you want to make room for deeper dives into each of these topics, it might be a great idea to do a workshop in the beginning of the stipend where you cover a bunch of the essentials (expected value theory, neglectedness, counterfactual thinking), so you don’t have to spend whole sessions on them.
I would perhaps also recommend picking a different topic than the chapter on conscious consumerism. While I think that MacAskill has a really great point, I think there are more important topics to cover, and you risk turning off people who care deeply about conscious consumerism already.
Effectiveness: Ambitious in their altruism, with a drive to do as much good as they can. Potential to be aligned with the central tenets of EA.
Potential: Excited to dedicate their career to doing good or to donate a significant portion of their income to charity
Open-mindedness: Open-minded and flexible, eager to update their beliefs in response to persuasive evidence
Enthusiasm: Willing and able to commit ~3-4 hours per weekFit: How good a fit are they with the fellowship format? Will they be good in discussions? Will they do good work for the Impact Challenge?”
I appreciate that you explicitly listed all the traits you were looking for in the applicants. We have done that more intuitively, but it’s very useful to make them explicit. These traits align well with my intuitions for what we also look for in applicants.
Thanks so much, Risto_Uuk, I really appreciate it. I agree that admissions are quite difficult and ultimately we relied on intuition to some extent as well, but I do believe that putting the criteria in explicit terms helps structure the process a bit. Another thing that helps is to be multiple people going through the list of candidates together. :)
I agree. Because of this, the 2nd edition of the EA handbook doesn’t seem appealing at all as an EA introduction. I don’t want to hijack this thread, but along these lines, what do you think about the following content as an introduction to effective altruism?:
Week 1:
MacAskill’s intro: “How can you do the most good?” (14 pages)
MacAskill’s 1st chapter: “Just how much can you achieve?” (11 pages)
Addition: “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”: http://personal.lse.ac.uk/ROBERT49/teaching/mm/articles/Singer_1972Famine.pdf (15 pages)
Week 2:
MacAskill’s 2nd chapter: “How many people benefit, and by how much?” (14 pages)
MacAskill’s 3rd chapter: “Is this the most effective thing you can do?” (12 pages)
Addition: “How can we do the most good for the world”: https://www.ted.com/talks/will_macaskill_how_can_we_do_the_most_good_for_the_world (12 min)
Week 3:
MacAskill’s 4th chapter: “Is this area neglected?” (12 pages)
MacAskill’s 5th chapter: “What would have happened otherwise?” (12 pages)
Addition: “Prospecting for Gold”: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/prospecting-for-gold-owen-cotton-barratt/
Week 4:
MacAskill’s 6th chapter: “What are the chances of success and how good would success be?” (21 pages)
Addition: Introductions to expected value theory: https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/expected-value-theory/
Week 5:
MacAskill’s 7th chapter: “What charities make the most difference?” (24 pages)
Addition: Read one review from here: https://animalcharityevaluators.org/charity-reviews/all-charity-reviews/ and skim GiveWell’s methodology: https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work
Week 6:
MacAskill’s 8th chapter: “How can consumers make the most difference?” (19 pages)
Addition: “Conscious consumerism is a lie. Here’s a better way to help save the world”: https://qz.com/920561/conscious-consumerism-is-a-lie-heres-a-better-way-to-help-save-the-world/?fbclid=IwAR0J-ftZl_j9jsRIP6AIOagFovM-jBLFYj80go4L9kAW41IwITMOFeLZLyg
Week 7:
MacAskill’s 9th chapter: “Which careers make the most difference?” (32 pages)
Addition: Explore 80,000 Hours’ career guide: https://80000hours.org/career-guide/
Week 8:
MacAskill’s 10th chapter: “Which causes are most important?” (17 pages)
Addition: Explore the list of the most pressing problems: https://80000hours.org/articles/cause-selection/
Week 9:
MacAskill’s conclusion: “What should you do right now?” and “The five key questions of effective altruism” (8 pages)
Addition: Reflect on the stipend
We are about to run our stipend with this content in mind. Compared to your reading list, I feel that the content we have planned is more beginner-level. What do you think? What seems to be missing in terms of EA basics?
Hey! Obviously, the list you got is a great place to start and I’m sure your project will be awesome.
One thing that the list kind of lacks is focused discussions on one cause area at a time, which we had for existential risks, animal welfare, and global health and development. If you want to make room for deeper dives into each of these topics, it might be a great idea to do a workshop in the beginning of the stipend where you cover a bunch of the essentials (expected value theory, neglectedness, counterfactual thinking), so you don’t have to spend whole sessions on them.
I would perhaps also recommend picking a different topic than the chapter on conscious consumerism. While I think that MacAskill has a really great point, I think there are more important topics to cover, and you risk turning off people who care deeply about conscious consumerism already.
Let me know if you have other questions :)
This is a really great and helpful post. Thanks so much for running it, trying to evaluate its impact, and writing it up!
Thanks for the encouraging words, I really appreciate it!
Thank you for writing this summary!
I appreciate that you explicitly listed all the traits you were looking for in the applicants. We have done that more intuitively, but it’s very useful to make them explicit. These traits align well with my intuitions for what we also look for in applicants.
Thanks so much, Risto_Uuk, I really appreciate it. I agree that admissions are quite difficult and ultimately we relied on intuition to some extent as well, but I do believe that putting the criteria in explicit terms helps structure the process a bit. Another thing that helps is to be multiple people going through the list of candidates together. :)