List of Introductory EA Presentations

By Peter Wildeford @ 2014-12-29T06:22 (+14)

The following is a list of all EA Presentations aimed primarily at spreading effective altruism to new audiences (that I know of).

TED and TEDx


Other Video Presentations


Powerpoint Slides

Prabhat Soni @ 2021-02-27T18:47 (+9)

Hey I know this post is very old. But in case someone stumbles across this post, the best presentation for introducing EA in my opinion is:

undefined @ 2014-12-29T21:27 (+3)

Thanks for compiling this list. I just created a YouTube playlist with all these videos, plus several others. You'll find it here.

undefined @ 2015-11-04T14:42 (+2)

We should definitely add Beth Barnes' talk, it seems to currently be the best first general intro talk.

undefined @ 2015-11-05T06:37 (+1)

Added. Thanks! It was a really good talk.

undefined @ 2015-11-04T23:43 (+1)

Peter and I try to share most of these lists that we/others working through .impact write on the EA Wiki, so you can edit it directly there!

undefined @ 2014-12-29T22:41 (+2)

If I had to make a list of the very best videos, it would be:

Here are some extra introductory materials for a longer list:

undefined @ 2014-12-29T22:32 (+2)

Great work, Peter.

My criticism is - consider including more long-run impact stuff; less animals stuff.

I'm not sold on the relevance of Animal Factories and the Abuse of Power for the stated goal of spreading effective altruism to new audiences. Prima facie, talks about animal welfare will make people care about animals more than effectiveness, and will bore some people who don't care about animals. I'd be willing to pay that price if I was fairly sure that animal charities were at least among the most effective but that seems like an unsupportable epistemic position.

On the other hand, there are good arguments for caring about longer-run impact, so I would favour giving risks/deep time/tech a bigger mention.

undefined @ 2014-12-30T00:56 (+1)

I agree with this assessment. My impression is that concern for animals is much more likely to mind-kill people than concern for either world poverty or the far-future. I find this very sad, because human-caused animal suffering is a very important, tractable and uncrowded cause. It might be worth doing further research on ways to spread concern for sentience in ways that raise, rather than lower, the sanity waterline.

undefined @ 2015-01-05T01:33 (+1)

I readjusted the presentations based on people's suggestions:

"Animal Factories and the Abuse of Power" by Wayne Pacelle (TEDxManhattan) is out.

Can we prevent the end of the world? by Martin Rees (TED) is in.

"Earth in its final century?", "Think Rationally Via Bayes Rule", "The Future of Life, a Cosmic Perspective", "Effective altruism to warm our hearts", and "Choosing for effective altruism" are in.

Rob's slides for "What is effective altruism?" and "Effective Altruism and Classical Liberalism" are in.

undefined @ 2014-12-30T14:11 (+1)

Other presentations I have up

What is effective altruism?: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8_48dde-9C3WUVkTGdoUEliQ0E&authuser=0

Effective Altruism and Classical Liberalism: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8_48dde-9C3aDJpT1djaTNvMW8&authuser=0

Not an introduction really, but 'How might we best help animals': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_x-vkG_qJU