In a couple of weeks, I’m going to give a 10-minute talk (with slides) on effective altruism at the software company I work for (Scribd.com). The audience will be ~40 people, many of whom I am friends with & many of whom are well-compensated and intelligent software engineers/designers/etc. (This is part of a thing Scribd does where employees periodically give talks on random topics that interest them.)
I’d love to hear any suggestions for the content of my talk. I’m curious what evidence we have about the most effective ways to convince people of effective altruism. I’m also curious if anyone has any interesting calls to action for the end of my talk aside from “donate money to Givewell-recommended charities”. It feels like the ideal case would be bringing more people in to the EA community, and I’m not sure what the best first step there is.
Regarding content, I’m open to outlandish suggestions—I’m fairly willing to make a fool of myself (I’m about to quit to work on MealSquares full time) and Scribd has a great sense of humor.
(And, unrelated question: if there are any books that are available on Scribd that you think more people should read, let me know and maybe I can get them featured before I leave. I already got Stuart Armstrong’s book on AI risk featured in our Computers & Technology section. I’m thinking I might try to get this book featured as well because I found it pretty enlightening and spreading the ideas in it seems robustly positive.)
ETA: Here is a follow-up comment discussing the contents and reception of my talk.
In a couple of weeks, I’m going to give a 10-minute talk (with slides) on effective altruism at the software company I work for (Scribd.com). The audience will be ~40 people, many of whom I am friends with & many of whom are well-compensated and intelligent software engineers/designers/etc. (This is part of a thing Scribd does where employees periodically give talks on random topics that interest them.)
I’d love to hear any suggestions for the content of my talk. I’m curious what evidence we have about the most effective ways to convince people of effective altruism. I’m also curious if anyone has any interesting calls to action for the end of my talk aside from “donate money to Givewell-recommended charities”. It feels like the ideal case would be bringing more people in to the EA community, and I’m not sure what the best first step there is.
Regarding content, I’m open to outlandish suggestions—I’m fairly willing to make a fool of myself (I’m about to quit to work on MealSquares full time) and Scribd has a great sense of humor.
(And, unrelated question: if there are any books that are available on Scribd that you think more people should read, let me know and maybe I can get them featured before I leave. I already got Stuart Armstrong’s book on AI risk featured in our Computers & Technology section. I’m thinking I might try to get this book featured as well because I found it pretty enlightening and spreading the ideas in it seems robustly positive.)
ETA: Here is a follow-up comment discussing the contents and reception of my talk.
What about one of Bostrom’s books—either Global Catastropic Risks or Superintelligence? Both are excellent.
Both not available on Scribd :/
Could you try to get them available before you leave?
Probably not :(