EA Forum Podcast (Curated & popular) “Why You Should Become a University Group Organizer” by Noah Birnbaum
Confidence Level: I’ve been an organizer at UChicago for over a year now with my co-organizer, Avik. I also started the UChicago Rationality Group, co-organized a 50-person Midwest EA Retreat, and have spoken to many EA organizers from other universities. A lot of this post is based on vibes and conversations with other organizers, so while it's grounded in experience, some parts are more speculative than others. I’ll try to flag the more speculative points when I can (the * indicates points that I’m less certain about).
I think it's really important to make sure that EA principles persist in the future. To give one framing for why I believe this: if you think EA is likely to significantly reduce the chances of existential risks, you should think that losing EA is itself a factor significantly contributing to existential risks.
Therefore, I also think one of the [...]
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Outline:
(01:12) Impact Through Force Multiplication
(04:19) Individual Benefits
(04:23) Personal Impact
(06:27) Professional
(07:34) Social
(08:10) Counters
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First published:
July 29th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.