EA - Why You Should Give a TEDX Talk by Kearney Capuano

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Why You Should Give a TEDX Talk, published by Kearney Capuano on August 3, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. For helpful comments I thank Emma Williamson and Chloe Shrager TLDR: It’s easy to give a TEDx Talk at your university, yet I think very few university students do. I think this talk has a unique opportunity to frame EA from a personal perspective, in a way that makes it more palatable to your average audience. I would advise against giving a “This is what Effective Altruism is” talk for various reasons (PR risks most notably). Instead, I would encourage people specifically interested in communications to deliver a talk to their university on something like “I care about the world. Here are some tools I learned from EA on how I can do my best to help,” or “I want to do good. EA principles helped me do that.” After doing my talk, my university EA group gained much more traction, many students reached out wanting to learn more about EA, audience members donated to AMF, hundreds of people received a Doing Good Better book, and a handful of students told me they are considering changing their career path. Watch Ted Talk Here In this post I will go over Who should give a TED Talk? Lessons learned from giving a TEDx Talk Why I might be wrong Part 1: Who should give a TED talk I don’t encourage all people to give a Ted or Tedx talk. If you are thinking about giving a talk about EA, definitely consult others before doing so. I want to specify that this post is directed at people interested in communications. Specifically, I think giving a university Tedx talk on EA requires the ability to digest EA ideas and frame them in an appealing way for a “normal” college audience. If you are well versed in public speaking (or feel like you have the potential to be), are more eloquent than I am, and feel like your university may be a target audience for these ideas, I would encourage you to consider giving a Tedx Talk. Part 2: Lessons learned from giving a TED Talk Pros: “Weird EA ideas” can be communicated in a non-weird way. We should probably do this more often. There are many university students out there who are already thinking about these ideas but don’t know EA exists. Ted and TedX talks are a great way of reaching these audiences. Talking to an audience about how much you care about these principles may inspire others to care. After the talk, three parents independently came up to me and said “This inspired me to donate to the Against Malaria Foundation. Being a student that takes these ideas seriously may rub off on other students to take these ideas seriously. So far, over twenty students at Georgetown have reached out to me after seeing the talk (either from being in the audience or watching the youtube clip) with various requests such as “Can we meet to talk through plans to shift my area of study towards one that better helps the world?” or “I’ve had thoughts like these before and can very much relate to the talk but I had no idea something like EA existed, can you teach me more?” or my favorite “Because of this talk I am changing my career plans” (three students told me this.) b. After the talk, students reached out about getting involved with the Georgetown EA group, and our website had substantially more views. Tedx Talks are a great way to encourage people to read books. I (well actually EA Books Direct) provided everyone in the audience with a copy of Doing Good Better. Days after the talk I walked around campus and saw a few people reading it on the lawn together. Seeing this made me smile. Ted talks reach a large audience. They’re also a well-trusted brand. EA ideas may be taken more seriously when communicated through a credible, known source. Cons: This isn’t the best information I could have provided for an Intro to EA talk. As I was preparing, I felt ...