Effective altruism is great. It’s prevented about 300,000 deaths, kept about a hundred million chickens annually from cages, and been responsible for a giant chunk of global efforts to prevent extinction. It’s done all of this despite there being relatively few EAs—just over 10,000 people have taken the Giving What We Can pledge.
Having highly motivated EAs is even more important now. Transformative AI is around the corner and we need brilliant people tackling the range of problems it will raise. I want to emphasize this: each new person getting involved in the EA movement saves many lives in expectation, even given very conservative assumptions about how much good the movement will do. If you contribute to growing the movement, there will be children who will not die because of you.
For this reason, I encourage you to host an EA meeting at your college. It is a very easy way to meet amazing people. Some of the best people I met in college were people I met through my university’s EA group. It is also pretty easy to host. You can read more details about how to host a meeting here. The sign up form for this meeting can be found here. All costs will be paid for by ACX and an organization sponsoring this called NEST.
If you’re going to sign up to host, fill out the form before 8/28. Don’t overthink time and location. Your meetup will also be mentioned on Scott Alexander’s blog, so you can have your efforts advertised by one of the coolest people on the internet who is helping facilitate these events. If you host one meeting, you’re free to host more, but you don’t have to. You might also be able to find someone else to host.
Hosting a meeting is pretty easy. It will give fledgling EAs an opportunity to get more exposed to the crucial ideas, leading to a much higher probability of them getting actively involved in making the world a better place. You will also meet cool people who may become your friends. If the only way to save a child from a pond was by hosting a ridiculously amazing social event where you’d meet some of the most interesting people at your university, doing so would be a no-brainer. This is as well.
