Some of the world’s most important problems are, surprisingly, still neglected. Lots of smart people are trying to cure cancer - it’s been around for a long time, and so has the medical research establishment attacking it.

But far fewer people are working on preventing an outbreak from a novel synthetic biological agent or safely governing advanced AI systems, because those issues are less widely-known.

I prefer something like "Imagine you're one of the first people to discover that cancer is a problem, or one of the first people to work on climate change seriously and sketch out the important problems for others to work on. There are such problems today, that don't have [millions] of smart people already working on them"

[this allows me to point at the value of being early on a neglected problem without presenting new "strange" such problems. moreover, after this part of the pitch, the other person is more welcoming to hear a new strange problem, I think]

HI! I'm a high-schooler (so the target audience) and I've done both the intro/in-depth fellowships. Often the fellowships required me to digest a lot of unfamiliar information and big words which became quite overwhelming for a teenager new to EA. 

However, in my opinion, non trivial is far more accessible and digestible in subtly teaching EA principles to my age group. I also love the UI. I really think the team have done a great job :)

Cool! Some critical feedback:

Having a quick glance at the website and thinking back to when I was a teenager getting into EA / rationality, I get the impression that this might be most appealing to younger teenagers. I think after about the age of 15+ I would have been turned off by something that seems a bit more childish (because of how colourful and cute it is) than reading whatever actual adults were reading.  

I feel like a lot of very talented teenagers actively avoid content that seems directly targeted at people their age (unless it seems very selective or something) because they don't expect that to be as engaging / "on their level" as something targeted at university students. 

I could see this working for 13-14 year olds though if that is your target audience. 

Or maybe I was just a weird teenager. 

TL;DR: I'm a big fan of this project

My friend saw this website for less than 5 minutes and was pretty hooked.

I think this is a promising way to take take EA intros from weeks/months down to hours, while having tons of user feedback and statistics to constantly improve the process in an unusually scalable way.

This looks very cool!

I'm curious about why you need to sign up to view the lessons?

Also, a quibble: some links (like the author's name next to the course) aren't actually HTML <a> elements, which both makes it impossible to e.g. right-click and open in a new tab, and is also bad for accessibility purposes.

For what it's worth, I don't think the design is particularly childish (as some others have opined). I see a similar style all the time in the creative/tech/start-up-ish world, and there it's surely aimed at adults.

I just want to give a huge round of applause to the Non-trivial team! So great to see this resource! I'm very keen to see this reach the next generation of critical thinking do-gooders!

Much excite.

Feedback: I am confused by the logo.

I clicked "submit anonymous feedback" and received this error message:

ERROR: This form is not available for public access. Please login or contact the account owner. (Error ID: 95aa2f1c464f182b4498)

I see on the website (https://www.non-trivial.org/program) that the short course is no longer presented. Now it is all about the fellowship. Is there a reason?

I really like the idea! Maybe that's just me, but I'd much prefer it if the content was visible without an account. (This actually stopped me from engaging with the content)

Very enthusiastic about this project, which I agree can fill an important gap in the learning journey. I will follow with great interest!

I think it would be relatively simple to replicate for languages other than English in the future. (after this passes beta phase, of course!)

So cool!

I am also enrolling in the course for critical feedback. I will err on the side of giving you too much critique in a too blunt way.

You can save lives without medical training:

• The DATA button is not cool for teenagers. The word, the font, the color, the common-for-working-professionals placement, the uninteractivity.
• TL;DR is not cool for teenagers either. It is more like for aspiring PhD students.
• The person on the picture seems too old, almost like a caring mother, rather than a cool teenager. It may be because of the (delighted/entertained/almost saying you should be kind but it does not matter) shape/expression of mouth and the conservative outfit. 
• The font on the news is not official. That can be considered offensive by practically adult persons. They may not want 'kid' material. But, cool adult.
• "You can likely do a heroic amount of good through earning to give in any job." Should not be the first thing that the person reads, even if the next one was '... but it can be equally good if you continue to learn about ways to do good' - even if you think that ETG and donating to GW is your ultimate objective, teenagers may enjoy more directly participatory opportunities for real-world heroism
• The content of the TL;DR is discouraging - these are teenagers not attention-constrained decisionmakers. Possibly, something that would invite the teenagers to explore more, how to be that cool person who is just more cool than the people in the news being interviewed.
• Local hero for me seems for young teenagers or pre-teens, those who like to be taken care of by parents before the stage of rejection of some practices. 'A hero' or some actual meaningful and diversity inclusive name can be more appropriate for older teenagers.

Who saves more lives?

• I argue that there is a limit to ameliorating biases, such as race and gender. There should be some inclusion of traditionally privileged groups, while the identity should be portrayed to not play a role in the area of contest. So, if you have a female or a gender non-conforming person of color on the initial picture, then you could consider including a picture with, for example, a male of color and a white female.
• The citations ([1], [2] in superscript) are again something for PhD and other academic writing enthusiasts. Even privileged teenagers can enjoy whooop scroll up and back.
• QALY/DALY should be explained as something that makes the participants smart! ... Once they understand the definition they can tell their friends - but, how much QALY does it give you... hmm seems cost-ineffective. Hmmm oh, you go by WALY sure, so that's why you enjoy this [unhealthy product]
• I would make the table into a story where one person is trying to look really cool (and attractive due to their impactful benevolence!) but the other is smart - but then, it is complex - you do not know which one is better and maybe an opinion is sought (long response - graded as great opinion in any case)
• A nerdy aside aside - it can be debated whether the marginal cost of distributing drugs donated by non-EA actors, such as pharmaceutical companies should be considered or the total cost (e. g. including the price of R&D and/or manufacturing)
• I chose the first option, Daniela, and it said not quite. But there are no right and wrong answers! ... Unless you are trying to impose an authority to make participants accept something they would otherwise hesitate to, e. g. due to different norms, or generally firmly suggest that it is ok to [follow some type of thinking, such as openmindedness] then I would avoid any wrong answers where the answer is not clear (such as reading comprehension or a math problem)
• It is really focused on ETG. I give you an example: Daniela has been working as a nutritionist. She knows everything about micro and macro nutrients and how to tailor them to people to be healthy. She helped some organization, such as One Acre Fund, to advise people on what crops to grow to prevent adult and child malnutrition. Thus, families thrive. She would not be able to do this were she an engineer. She does not donate anything. Elizabeth knows nothing about nutrition besides that fast food is probably not great for you in excess. But, she's read very convincing evidence on vitamin A supplementation. She donates funding because it is well-known that vitamin A is lacking and not locally available so it needs to be given as a very cheap powder/droplet. Who is saving more lives?
• There are some quite lengthy articles about EA.
• Do you want to just let people opine on the filosofix drowning child though experiment and read the story about the cost-ineffective banker who works at a soup kitchen? (assert understanding of of course one would not let people drown and then when one is rich they will not go to soup kitchen [be cost-effective]

How not to throw away your best shot

• The image may be interpreted as containing historical inaccuracies. In this context, perhaps racial diversity was different. The shape of the mouth is again child-like kind entertained 'does not matter.'
• This course may be actually appropriate for privileged parents of children who are 'too spoiled'? The parent will benefit from the child understanding global need and thus becoming 'less spoiled' while the parent could, if they find it beneficial to them, donate some funding to charity and become interested in impact focus?
• The use of "trash" in the image can be considered offensive to couples in general or the specific one pictured.
• 'How much time you have left' seems appropriate for older privileged parents unless it can be avoided
• I would not include immediately on the same page the Aleya Cotra's career example: the participant should be left thinking about the image: sure, videogames do not pay off ... (maybe include wow, we have more impactful resources for you - which actually resemble videogames as we are impartial - on the next page)
• The takeaways bag is something one would seek to reject. So, include takeaways that one should reject later but are confirming some biases at this point while being vague

I finished my testing here.

• If you want to include additional design, these buttons may be cool for some teenagers

This isn’t the most valuable criticism, but I’m confused why you capitalise the N and not the T in ‘Non-trivial’?