The Nonlinear Library EA - Being a young person in EA: my journey into the EA community by ScientificS
May 27, 2024
22:47
Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Being a young person in EA: my journey into the EA community, published by ScientificS on May 27, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum.
Summary
I came across a program for curious young people called Leaf through an online course tailored about how to save and help lives, then attended a residential where I further explored these ideas. Going from being told there is a right or wrong way in my school system, I explored EA through the lens of learning techniques which I may or may not use to try to get closer to my goals- of helping others and saving lives.
Through the adjacent opportunities such as books, talks, the 80k podcast, the network of people and the further online events, I have continued exploring the cause areas and have now changed my career progression plans.
IMPORTANT: this article was written based on my personal views, and with the motivation of documenting my personal journey but without any aim in terms of future involvement. Of course, please comment or contact me if you want to know more, or for clarification, or to ask about anything, but I am a young student, with disabilities, so may not respond very quickly, and may not be able to do something really intensive such as a report or breakdown of a topic...
This article was not proofread, and nothing was ran past any entities mentioned. Everything is my own opinion and I only have positive experiences overall, so honestly, I don't think there is anything negative to say so far, but it is truthful and I am sorry if you disagree and please let me know.
I talk a lot about Leaf, this is a non profit started that helps young people between 16-19 do more good by helping them see how and with what techniques they can do good in the world even at a young age, and the fact that they help with career guidance, university and degree choices, and teaching about techniques was very positive and useful for me, but no one from Leaf approves or pre saw this article (or even knew I was writing it before) and I would be happy to be contacted for views,
opinions or anything else but I am not paid or affiliated to them, just grateful genuinely for their help.
How it started: a chance encounter with Leaf
I had never heard of EA until around February 2023. I had been searching for summer university opportunities and came across Leaf, and at first believed it was simply an Oxford summer school to do with learning and applied on the original form, for the online cohort.
Doing the extended application, I came across questions such as 'Watch this video on what the future might be like, what do you agree with, now what would you disagree with, now how would you critique your disagreements' and I was shocked; we were asked to critique our own critiques and extend our arguments (with a very tight word limit that definitely caused a lot of editing and annoyance at first).
As I went further, questions like 'What is the weirdest opinion you hold' or 'What is the worst injustice in the world, how would you solve it with 1 million pounds' definitely intrigued me... what normal summer program asks us about this?
I explored further and fell more in love, here I was, a 16 year old, used to being taught the 'Right Opinion TM' without ever being asked what I thought or why I might change my mind. I had never been asked what I would do to solve injustices, or to even consider the fact that I myself can do so.
I was invited to a discord server (a very steep learning curve for someone who never had social media before) where at first it was me and 2-3 people and I cautiously tested the water with an introduction mentioning that I enjoy discussing the education system.
What followed was me and the 2 peers amassing over 180 messages within a week, from topics such as quantum computing, navigation, meritocracy, genetic basis of intelligence,...
Summary
I came across a program for curious young people called Leaf through an online course tailored about how to save and help lives, then attended a residential where I further explored these ideas. Going from being told there is a right or wrong way in my school system, I explored EA through the lens of learning techniques which I may or may not use to try to get closer to my goals- of helping others and saving lives.
Through the adjacent opportunities such as books, talks, the 80k podcast, the network of people and the further online events, I have continued exploring the cause areas and have now changed my career progression plans.
IMPORTANT: this article was written based on my personal views, and with the motivation of documenting my personal journey but without any aim in terms of future involvement. Of course, please comment or contact me if you want to know more, or for clarification, or to ask about anything, but I am a young student, with disabilities, so may not respond very quickly, and may not be able to do something really intensive such as a report or breakdown of a topic...
This article was not proofread, and nothing was ran past any entities mentioned. Everything is my own opinion and I only have positive experiences overall, so honestly, I don't think there is anything negative to say so far, but it is truthful and I am sorry if you disagree and please let me know.
I talk a lot about Leaf, this is a non profit started that helps young people between 16-19 do more good by helping them see how and with what techniques they can do good in the world even at a young age, and the fact that they help with career guidance, university and degree choices, and teaching about techniques was very positive and useful for me, but no one from Leaf approves or pre saw this article (or even knew I was writing it before) and I would be happy to be contacted for views,
opinions or anything else but I am not paid or affiliated to them, just grateful genuinely for their help.
How it started: a chance encounter with Leaf
I had never heard of EA until around February 2023. I had been searching for summer university opportunities and came across Leaf, and at first believed it was simply an Oxford summer school to do with learning and applied on the original form, for the online cohort.
Doing the extended application, I came across questions such as 'Watch this video on what the future might be like, what do you agree with, now what would you disagree with, now how would you critique your disagreements' and I was shocked; we were asked to critique our own critiques and extend our arguments (with a very tight word limit that definitely caused a lot of editing and annoyance at first).
As I went further, questions like 'What is the weirdest opinion you hold' or 'What is the worst injustice in the world, how would you solve it with 1 million pounds' definitely intrigued me... what normal summer program asks us about this?
I explored further and fell more in love, here I was, a 16 year old, used to being taught the 'Right Opinion TM' without ever being asked what I thought or why I might change my mind. I had never been asked what I would do to solve injustices, or to even consider the fact that I myself can do so.
I was invited to a discord server (a very steep learning curve for someone who never had social media before) where at first it was me and 2-3 people and I cautiously tested the water with an introduction mentioning that I enjoy discussing the education system.
What followed was me and the 2 peers amassing over 180 messages within a week, from topics such as quantum computing, navigation, meritocracy, genetic basis of intelligence,...