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That fits with what we're seeing at Effective Altruism New Zealand. The Sam Harris/Will MacAskill podcast is still a common referral source for new donors, and for people requesting copies of Doing Good Better via our book giveaway. So +1 piece of supporting anecdata
Yeah, I can see how that would be helpful-- I'm thinking of having a go at it as a decision-making tool myself.
The approach kind of reminds me of internal family systems therapy, actually: trying to reconcile different parts of yourself by imagining them as different people. The main difference being that there's no trauma in this kind of scenario (hopefully, anyway!), and a lot less psychotherapy jargon :)
I don't have any answers for you, I'm afraid- but I wanted to say that I really like the way you wrote this up. Framing your inner conflict as a debate between Andy and Drew made it very clear and engaging to read.
...the next step should probably be establishing this person's moral beliefs/what they want to see in the world (i.e. if they will find meaning in contributing to the problem of global health, animals, long termism etc). What does the person value now, and how is this understanding tied to their sense of identity?
This actually reminds me of a technique that's used in political campaigning.
Back in my pre-EA days, my husband and I were involved with a local political party. People making campaign calls etc. were trained to find something the person they were speaking to valued, and then tie that to one of the party policies. E.g. "oh, you care about child poverty? Our MPs are passionate about that too! We're working on this policy/proposal etc."
The idea was to frame voting for the party as a natural extension of the person's own values: as something they might want to do, rather than as something we were trying to persuade them to do. It can come across a bit scungy/manipulative if the tone isn't just right, but it seemed to be pretty effective overall.
I don't know how common the approach is outside of that particular political party, but it seems likely to be a more widespread campaign technique. There's definitely some precedent for the approach, in any case.
One thing that might be helpful is to set aside specific times to work on job hunting, and to only check job boards, work on applications etc. during those hours. The rest of the time, try to forget about it altogether.
Most tasks are much less overwhelming when you know you only have to work on them for a set amount of time. (Rather than constantly feeling like you should be doing something).
Echoing some of the other answers here, I’m grateful for the EA community itself. I find it very comforting to know that although the world’s problems are too big to be solved alone— and although all my efforts may well come to nothing— there are others out there trying to do as much good as they can.
Specific people I’m particularly grateful for are:
- My husband, who has been so supportive of my involvement in EA, and has largely gotten onboard himself, though it wouldn’t necessarily have been his thing otherwise
- Catherine (cafelow), who is in many ways the lifeblood of the EA community in NZ. It's been amazing working with her- she always has things for me to do, and never fails to make me feel like my work is valued and appreciated
- Dewi, who did a fantastic job managing my cohort in the EA Oxford fellowship, and has gone above and beyond in maintaining contact with us after the fellowship ended
A big thank you to all of you.
Thanks for sharing these- I've added some of them to my playlist.
There's a somewhat related discussion, including people's recommendations, over on LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jyDTh9vnmczuNNxgt/rational-humanist-music
Also worth mentioning here, especially with the holidays coming up- Raymond Arnold's 'Secular Solstice' album. I particularly like 'Brighter than Today' and 'Five Billion Years'
Great work everyone! Very interesting