What are the best (brief) resources to introduce EA & longtermism?

By Akash @ 2021-12-19T21:16 (+5)

Imagine you could get a group of talented university students and high school students. to spend one hour engaging with any readings/videos of your choice. 

These resources are meant to (succinctly) summarize some of the most important arguments around effective altruism & longtermism. By "longtermism," I mean a) the idea that the long-term future is highly important and b) the belief that there are some actions we can take today to improve our odds of having a promising long-term future.

The main objective is to find "insta-EAs"-- people who become highly motivated to learn more about EA/longtermism after a brief exposure to the core ideas. (Note that the main purpose is not to give students a comprehensive understanding of EA/longtermism, as this would be impossible in an hour. The main purpose is simply to motivate talented people to learn more on their own.)

Which resources would you most strongly recommend?

For context, I am most interested in resources that would be valuable in a) intro fellowships, b) retreats/workshops, and c) high school outreach activities.

Pablo @ 2021-12-20T14:37 (+4)

I liked Joe Carlsmith's Orienting toward the long-term future. More generally, the website longtermism.com, which launched recently, is a great introduction to the topic, and includes a 'resources' section which you can check for additional writings/media.

Aaron_Scher @ 2021-12-20T01:03 (+4)

I really like Ajeya Cotra’s Intro EA talk (https://youtu.be/48VAQtGmfWY) (35 mins 1x speed). I also like this article on longtermism (https://80000hours.org/articles/future-generations/) although it took me about 25 mins to read. This is a really important question, I’m glad you’re asking it, and I would really like to see more empirical work on it rather than simply “I like this article” or “a few people I talked to like this video” which seems to be the current state. I’m considering spending the second semester of my undergrad thesis on trying to figure out the best ways to introduce longtermism.

Also worth considering MacAskill’s video What we Owe the Future (https://youtu.be/vCpFsvYI-7Y) 40 mins at 1x speed.

Jeremy @ 2021-12-20T04:19 (+1)

MacAskill’s Ted talk is a good candidate at ~12 minutes long. Doesn’t get too in depth on longtermism. Not sure if that was a requirement.

Akash @ 2021-12-19T21:20 (+2)

As an example, I currently think All Possible Views About Humanity's Future are Wild would be on my list because it is a) thought-provoking and b) short; only takes 10-15 mins to read.

In contrast, The Case for Strong Longtermism is thought-provoking but would likely take >1hr to read, so I probably wouldn't include it on my list. (Though I would certainly recommend it to people who want to learn more.)