There are ACX meetup groups in cities around the world. Every fall and spring, I make a Meetups Everywhere post to try to signal-boost and support them. This summer, I want to focus on college effective altruist groups in particular.
Many colleges1 have effective altruist meetup groups or clubs. They range from fun social gatherings of like-minded individuals, to serious organizations working hard to build a better world; most are both at once. They have to replenish their ranks each fall as seniors leave and new freshmen enter.
This year, they’re trying especially hard. The AGI clock is ticking, and the movement wants to build up capacity as quickly as it can. At the same time, it’s flush with new resources as newly-minted AI millionaires and billionaires donate their fortunes. Its big bottleneck is now finding the talented, value-aligned, motivated people who can convert that money into good outcomes. And since those people are probably all busy doing other things, they’ve asked me to recruit you instead.
I’ll give the real pitch (including caveats) on a later thread. This is the Call for Organizers. Many colleges already have an EA group (these people should get in touch with us so we can signal-boost their meetup), but many don’t. We want ACX readers in EA-group-less colleges to volunteer to host meetups. We (ACX and an effective altruist organization called Nest who are sponsoring this) will give you free advertising and cover your costs. Then you can either have a fun one-off social event with other ACX readers, or decide to convert it into something bigger.
So:
Representatives from existing college EA meetup groups: please fill out the organizer form with information on a meetup that we can direct ACX readers at your college to. Please try to make that meetup fun and low-commitment, with at most a five minute recruitment pitch.
Representatives from existing college rationality, AI safety, or ACX groups: you would also be good people to host this if your college doesn’t have an official EA group. You should fill out the organizer form too.
Everyone else: If your college doesn’t already have an EA group (and if there’s any ambiguity, you should assume they don’t and you’re needed), please consider hosting a meetup! The minimum viable effort is to fill out the organizer form with a date, time, and place, then show up there holding a sign.
If you want to know more than the minimum, answers to frequently asked questions below.
1. How do I know if my college already has an effective altruist group or club?
You might be able to find it on this list, or in your college’s group/club directory. If you’re at all uncertain, err on the side of applying anyway. We’ll sort everything out and there’s no risk that you accidentally duplicate meetups at your college.
2. How do I know if I would be a good meetup organizer?
If you can put a name/time/date in a box on Google Forms and show up there, you have the minimum skill necessary to be a meetup organizer for your college, and I recommend you volunteer.
Don’t worry, your volunteering won’t take the job away from someone more deserving. The form will ask people how excited/qualified they are about being an organizer, and if there are many options, then we’ll choose the most excited/qualified among them. But a lot of universities might not have an excited/qualified person, in which case I would rather the unexcited/unqualified people sign up, rather than have nobody available at all.
You don’t have to be a student. If you’re a grad student, a postdoc, faculty, or a townie who lives near a campus with no group, sign up anyway, and say which you are on the form.
3. How will people hear about the meetup?
You give me the information, and sometime around the end of August, I’ll post it on ACX. An event will also be created on LessWrong’s Community page and on the EA Forum.
4. When should I plan the meetup for?
Since I’ll post the list of meetup times and dates at the end of August, please choose sometime after that. Any day September 7th through October 31st is okay. Weekday evenings tend to work better than weekends on campuses, since a lot of students go home or get absorbed by other things on Saturdays.
You’ll probably get more attendance if you schedule for at least one week out, but not so far out that people forget — so mid-September is best, and it has the additional advantage of landing while first-years are still actively looking for things to join. Check your own academic calendar: avoid your school’s orientation-week chaos if it makes rooms impossible to book, and avoid midterms and reading weeks. If your university is on a quarter system or starts in late September, just pick a date that works for you and say so on the form.
5. How many people should I expect?
I don’t have historical data for this one, since it’s the first time. My guess, extrapolating from ACX meetups, is anywhere from zero to fifty, with large English-speaking universities near tech and research hubs at the high end and small schools in non-English-speaking countries at the low end. Plan accordingly. If it looks like your school probably won’t have many attendees, maybe bring a friend or a book so you’ll have a good time even if nobody shows up. Three people who all want to be there is a completely respectable meetup and is how most good groups start.
6. Where should I hold the meetup?
A good venue should be easy for people to get to, not too loud, and have basic things like places to sit, access to toilets, and the option of acquiring food and water. A reserved classroom, a student union room, a library group study space, or a well-known spot on the quad all work well. If you can book a room through your student org system, do that — it’s free and it makes the meetup feel real.
If you want to hold the meetup at your house or apartment, remember that this will involve me posting your address on the Internet, and have a plan for getting people past the building’s card access (if applicable).
If you want to hold it at a pub or bar, remember that a large fraction of undergraduates are not old enough to get in, which mostly defeats the purpose.
7. What would I do at the meetup?
Mostly people just show up and talk. If you’re worried about this not going well, here are some things that can help:
Have people indicate topics they’re interested in by writing something on their nametag.
Write some icebreakers / conversation starters on index cards (e.g. “What have you been excited about recently?” or “What’s your major and what do you actually want to do?” or “How many feet of giraffe neck do you think there are in the world?”) and leave them lying around to start discussions.
Say hello to people as they arrive and introduce yourself.
In general I would warn against trying to impose mandatory activities (e.g. “now we’re all going to sit down and watch a PowerPoint presentation about expected value”), but it’s fine to give people the option to do something other than freeform socializing (e.g. “go over to that table if you want to play a game”). Resist the urge to go too hard on the recruitment pitch.
8. What if I represent an existing group?
If you run an existing university EA/rationalist/ACX group, just choose one of your meetings which you’d like me to advertise on my blog as the official meetup for your school, and be prepared to have a larger-than-normal attendance who might want to do generic-new-people things that day.
If you’re primarily a fellowship or reading group with a set curriculum, please run a separate low-commitment social event for this rather than making strangers join week three of your eight-week syllabus.
If you’re an EA-adjacent group — rationality, animal welfare, AI safety, global health — you can sign up, but say which on the form, and I might still pick an explicitly EA meetup over you if I find one. Roughly, I’m looking for social groups (good for this purpose) rather than groups that are mainly doing activism or object-level work (good for you, but not really what I’m trying to do here).
9. If this works, am I committing to organizing meetups forever?
Yes. Like a knight in Arthurian legend, once you have assumed the position you are subject to a curse that prevents you from ever putting it down. Even the grave will not set you free.
No, sorry, the real answer is that you should just do this fun thing once and then, if you never want to do it again, forget about it.
But like a knight in Arthurian legend, you may feel a calling to do good deeds and aid the realm, and hosting a meetup puts you in a good position to become a regular meetup organizer. EA, rationality, ACX, whatever branding you’re most comfortable with.
If you do want to turn this into a recurring event, offer to collect people’s names and emails if they’re interested in future meetups. You could do this with a pen and paper, or if you’re concerned about reading people’s handwriting, you could use a QR code/bitly link to a Google Form. Use an email address that isn’t tied to your university account, since those get shut off when you leave.
If you do decide to turn this into an official EA or ACX meetup group, there are central organizations that exist to help you, fund you, and give you advice. Contact us via the form and we’ll put you in touch with them.
We may get in touch with you after the meetup and offer encouragement, but we do take no for an answer.
10. Are you (Scott) going to come to some of the meetups?
Probably not.
11. Did you say something about funding and official support?
The Network for EA Support and Training (“Nest”) has a mandate to incubate EA groups at a long list of American colleges. They’ll be able to support anyone in a college on their list, for example by reimbursing the cost of nametags, pizza, drinks, etc, or by providing advice.
If you’re not on their list, Meetup Czar Skyler and I will try to help, although we’re less well-resourced. Or if some other EA organization reads this and wants to chip in, we’ll take your money too.
All you need to do is fill out the form, and Nest and Skyler and I will give you more information about what support is available for your school.
12. What if I have other questions?
Sky, Sarah and Matt from Nest, and I will read the comments and answer any questions you put here.
Thanks - and once again, the form is at this link.
I’m using the US definition of colleges, which includes eg Oxford and Cambridge; your country might use the term “universities”