This morning I gave a colloquium to my Psychology Department here at University of New Mexico. Most of the 30+ audience members had never heard of EA, although a few had a vague idea about it.
I analyzed 10 cognitive and emotional barriers that people face in accepting EA approaches to moral activism, from confirmation bias and speciesism to scope-insensitivity and Theory of Mind failures in understanding likely AGI systems.
I also made a pitch for more psychology grad students and faculty to get involved in EA, to share our expertise on human nature, statistics, research design, public outreach, program evaluation, mental health welfare issues, etc.
The powerpoint is here if anyone's interested: https://geoffrey-miller-y5jr.squarespace.com/s/EA-talk-march09-public-shorter-tcdh.pptx
I've proposed to give a similar but shorter talk at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES) conference this June in Amsterdam, which is the main evolutionary psychology research meeting -- so I'd appreciate any feedback on this version.
Thanks. This will be useful for a future presentation. Although, I am going to modify challenges 3-6. Using the word "utilitarian" seems...limiting. EA has utilitarian/consequentialist underpinnings--but not a full blown subscription to only that moral system (i.e., not exclusive). But I'm sure you knew that already. (See Macaskill's comment on 'Effective Altruism' as utilitarian equivocation.)
Off the top of my head, I'm thinking something more along the lines as maximizing impact and the empathy-altruism hypothesis related to meaning well (benevolence) versus actually doing good (beneficence). (Additionally, going to add an outline =)
Also, the slide about Effective Altruism as a movement, founded in 2011? I'm guessing that's for 80k Hours because GWWC has been around since 2009, and the main idea has been around since at least 1972.
When people ask when EA "started" I'm never sure what to say. But I imagine Geoffrey is referring to when we chose the name with "2011" (see http://effective-altruism.com/ea/5w/the_history_of_the_term_effective_altruism/), plus a quick nod to the longer history in Singer's work with "+ Peter Singer".