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astclaire

2 karmaJoined Jan 2015

Comments
1

This past summer I was introduced to the Effective Altruism movement via The Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR). I love the CFAR crew and found a few kindred spirits who are also EA's.

I became interested in EA because I'm constantly running into charitable or grassroots organizations that are incredibly ineffective with fighting poverty and misinformation within minority communities, specifically in urban spaces like the Southside of Chicago. I believe that I've found some of the root causes and was hoping to glean some information or techniques for improving the effectiveness of these efforts, bring this information back to our communities and in return, provide value to the EA movement.

Though I'm deeply interested in the core tenants of Effective Altruism, I find the vocabulary, culture, and causes very distant from my own. I'm an African-American grassroots female hacktivist from the Southside of Chicago. I have a Master's and a dual degree in Economics and Urban Planning and 99% of the time have no idea how to decipher what the hell is coming out of these forums.

From reading a few of the comments below, I can tell that you've already run into the diversity issue, so I won't harp on that. Otherwise, here are some other more urgent questions I have and imagine others will have as well.

Other than donating to effective charities,

  • What can I DO to contribute digitally?
  • What can I DO to contribute physically?
  • What can I DO to contribute locally?
  • Give me 5 foundational articles/videos/books, etc. that I should consume to be a beginning EA.
  • Are there any upcoming events that I can attend?

I feel like these are common denominators that may even catalyze a solution for the diversity problem.