I used to be a people manager in a fraud detection team, however I have now returned to fulltime study (psychology) in search of more fulfilling daily work and having more time for EA-related interests.
I am trying to help regrow EA @ Macquarie University. I am volunteering as an analyst at SoGive and facilitator for Virtual Programs.
I’m not focused on any particular area of EA. I would like to help in global poverty, animal welfare, improving our long-term prospects and/or general movement building.
“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.