former ea teens have Thoughts about plans to recruit high schoolers
plus: how did high school kids even get into ea 5+ years ago??
I dropped a bunch of people who were EAs in high school into a group chat and asked them about how they got into EA, whether it’s been good for them, and what they think of plans1234 to introduce EA to a larger number of high school kids.
how did high school kids even get into ea?
I first heard about EA ideas when I found Rationally Speaking at age 16. … EA provided that moral structure for me, as I struggled to figure out what and who I wanted to be. I would debate myself whether, as an adult, I should set up recurring payments or invest my money and wait to donate until I retired. - Laura
I first encountered EA-ish ideas via a philosophy textbook that I bought (well, my mom bought for me) at a lawn sale when I was in grade 8 or 9, maybe it was the summer between these two? A few things stuck with me from it, but Singer’s pond was the largest. This would have been in 1997 or 98. something like that. The Singer thing influenced my education/career, and so I’ve been associated with the international development part of EA since well before EA was a thing. - anonymous professor
I stumbled across some Eliezer Yudkowsky blog posts in a pretty random way - Juan
I first heard of EA ideas in HPMOR when I 13 - Arun Jose
I got into EA when I was 17 in 2018 and I was proto EA before that. I'd been convinced to be vegetarian when I was 14/15 by some combination of watching a crashcourse philosophy video about Peter Singer's arguments against eating meat. Before EA I wanted to do dev econ to for global poverty reducution. … The other part that I already had was the like "aiming to do good part." I'd decided that the point of my life was to help people. I decided this pretty explictly when I was 15/16 when I was explicitly thinking about what I wanted to do with my life. - Nathan
i originally got into ea via the rationalist sphere when i was ~15; i think i read gwern before anything else. -Celeste
did hearing about ea in high school make your life better?
I'm of the opinion that my life would've been a *lot* worse if I hadn't been introduced to those ideas as a kid, both because of what I understood about myself in the process that I wouldn't have otherwise, and because, well, these are _important things to think about_. - Arun Jose
almost all of the people i'm friends with now are eas and this is just great for me because for most of my life i haven't had very many friedns and this has made me sad and now i have loads of friends and find it easy to make freinds. - Nathan
i moved out from my family at 17, and near a lot of ea/rat-adj people around when i turned 18. my life immediately improved a lot - Celeste
should orgs actively recruit teens to ea?
morally serious teens will find something to motivate them—climate activism, socialism, etc. So if EA can offer an alternative/supplementary message, I think this is positive and moreover necessary for teens who are smart and looking to help the world - Laura
I worry at least a little about pushing EA to high schoolers. People under say 25 are trying to find themselves and already prone to fairly wild extremism (flip view: people over 25 are conservative) and so I think it’s possible to make people pretty unhappy if they take on too much of the “maximizing” lesson from EA. I think my fear is more about preserving fidelity in information transmission than it is squarely about EA, but I do still worry a touch. - anonymous professor
i think it's good to get embedded in the ea community early. i think it's also near-universally bad to be solely embedded in one community. or at least worse than being in multiple - Celeste
Inspire Altruism: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/S2C2SM5ZHw3AFJqAp/introducing-inspire-altruism-empowering-the-next-generation
Non-Trivial e-learning platform for teens: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ZBuNBAjwLFhfpGgzj/announcing-non-trivial-an-ea-learning-platform-for-teenagers
Giving What We Can charity elections: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ga2vZgCETMEpLB6xk/high-schoolers-were-given-over-usd8-000-to-donate-to-charity
Open Philanthropy solicited applications for programs that engage with young people: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/EEtTQkFKRwLniXkQm/open-philanthropy-is-seeking-proposals-for-outreach-projects
I find it interesting that your questions and the answers focus on what is good for the teen joining EA, given that what is good for an EA is, very clearly and explicitly, NOT WHAT EA IS GOING FOR. EA sells itself as being good for strangers, not its members. If we think anyone joining EA is good, presumably we think it is good because of the effect on strangers, not EAs. Why should we think differently about teens compared to adults? The prof points at something, but I don't buy it. I used to work with teens professionally. For the most part, they are quite capable of making rational decisions, pursuing their own goals, and responding to incentives. I think we should mostly be treating them like adults.