Original post:  http://bearlamp.com.au/the-call-of-the-void

L'appel du vide - The call of the void.

When you are standing on the balcony of a tall building, looking down at the ground and on some track your brain says "what would it feel like to jump".  When you are holding a kitchen knife thinking, "I wonder if this is sharp enough to cut myself with".  When you are waiting for a train and your brain asks, "what would it be like to step in front of that train?".  Maybe it's happened with rope around your neck, or power tools, or what if I take all the pills in the bottle.  Or touch these wires together, or crash the plane, crash the car, just veer off.  Lean over the cliff...  Try to anger the snake, stick my fingers in the moving fan...  Or the acid.  Or the fire.

There's a strange phenomenon where our brains seem to do this, "I wonder what the consequences of this dangerous thing are".  And we don't know why it happens.  There has only been one paper (sorry it's behind a paywall) on the concept.  Where all they really did is identify it.  I quite like the paper for quoting both (“You know that feeling you get when you're standing in a high place… sudden urge to jump?… I don't have it” (Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, 2011). And (a drive to return to an inanimate state of existence; Freud, 1922).

Taking a look at their method; they surveyed 431 undergraduates for their experiences of what they coined HPP (High Place Phenomenon).  They found that 30% of their constituents have experienced HPP, and tried to measure if it was related to anxiety or suicide.  They also proposed a theory. 

...we propose that at its core, the experience of the high place phenomenon stems from the misinterpretation of a safety or survival signal. (e.g., “back up, you might fall”)

I want to believe it, but today there are Literally no other papers on the topic.  And no evidence either way.  So all I can say is - We don't really know.  s'weird.  Dunno.

This week I met someone who uncomfortably described their experience of toying with L'appel du vide.  I explained to them how this is a common and confusing phenomenon, and to their relief said, "it's not like I want to jump!".   Around 5 years ago (before I knew it's name) an old friend recounting the experience of living and wondering what it was like to step in front of moving busses (with discomfort), any time she was near a bus.  I have coaxed a friend out of the middle of a road (they weren't drunk and weren't on drugs at the time).  And dragged friends out of the ocean.  I have it with knives, in a way that borderlines OCD behaviour.  The desire to look at and examine the sharp edges.

What I do know is this.  It's normal.  Very normal.  Even if it's not 30% of the population, it could easily be 10 or 20%.  Everyone has a right to know that it happens, and it's normal and you're not broken if you experience it.  Just as common a shared human experience as common dreams like your teeth falling out, or of flying, running away from groups of people, or being underwater.  Or the experience of rehearsing what you want to say before making a phone call.  Or walking into a room for a reason and forgetting what it was.

Next time you are struck with the L'appel du vide, don't get uncomfortable.  Accept that it's a neat thing that brains do, and it's harmless.  Experience it.  And together with me - wonder why.  Wonder what evolutionary benefit has given so many of us the L'appel du vide.  

And be careful.

Meta: this took one hour to write.

UPDATE 3/16/16: I decided to go to public school, because I was tired of all the little annoying stuff at my current school--especially the entitled kids and the entitled attitude in general. Everybody acts like they deserve something. It's very irritating.

The other reason I came to that decision was "exploration value". By moving to a new situation I learn whether I really am better off in the kind of environment offered by the public high school; even if it ends up being worse for me, at least I know what to avoid. If it's good, I know it's good; and if it makes no difference, I know that, too.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I attended public middle school with the same group of kids, so I won't have to worry too much about getting to know new people. I am still in occasional contact with my old friends. I talked to one of them for several hours just yesterday.

(I'm new here, though I've lurked, so if I break any rules or otherwise do something detrimental, please let me know and I will try to correct my mistake)

I currently go to a rather nice independent high school. I'm on significant financial aid, so I can afford it. The academics there are outstanding. However, being a boarding school (I go as a day student) it requests a lot of our free time. We are required to participate in adult-sanctioned activities at least six or seven hours a week, in addition to normal classes. This means that 1. I get home from school around 6pm and 2. (more importantly) it's very hard to socialize when you don't board at the school, and there's really very little besides drama or sports (neither of which I like very much) that people do after school and actually enjoy/make friends in.

I'm strongly considering transferring to my public school, which is unusually good for a public school, as a junior next year. The academics are not as great (classes are less discussion-based and there are not as many APs offered) but there is a strong amount of participation in stuff I might actually enjoy after school (math team, etc.) because we're not required to do anything after school. I've noticed that when people tell me I have to do things, I enjoy them much, much less. Also, I won't have a commute, which would be nice.

Everything else about the schools is more or less comparable.

I'm sure when I think about this decision I am biased in some way. I'm probably succumbing to the sunk cost fallacy (sometimes I think if I'd been at the public school the last two years, I'd rather be at the private school) or something like that. If not, I'm facing the problem of Buridan's Ass.

My question to you: should I transfer or not? I have thought very hard and consulted several intelligent people, and have not been able to come to any sort of conclusion.

The cluster of ideas underlying effective altruism is an important part of my worldview, and I believe it would be valuable for many people to be broadly familiar with these ideas. As I mentioned in an earlier LessWrong post, I was pleasantly surprised that many advisees for Cognito Mentoring (including some who are still in high school) were familiar with and interested in effective altruism. Further, our page on effective altruism learning resources has been one of our more viewed pages in recent times, with people spending about eight minutes on average on the page according to Google Analytics.

In this post, I consider the two questions:

1. Are people in high school ready to understand the ideas of effective altruism?
2. Are there benefits from exposing people to effective altruist ideas when they are still in high school?

1. Are people in high school ready to understand the ideas of effective altruism?

I think that the typical LessWrong reader would have been able to grasp key ideas of effective altruism (such as room for more funding and earning to give) back in ninth or tenth grade from the existing standard expositions. Roughly, I expect that people who are 2 or more standard deviations above the mean in IQ can understand the ideas when they begin high school, and those who are 1.5 standard deviations above the mean in IQ can understand the ideas by the time they end high school. Certainly, some aspects of the discussion, such as the one charity argument, benefit from knowledge of calculus. Both the one charity argument and the closely related concept of room for more funding are linked with the idea of marginalism in economics. But it's not a dealbreaker: people can understand the argument better with calculus or economics, but they can understand it reasonably well even without. And it might also work in reverse: seeing these applications before studying the formal mathematics or economics may make people more interested in mastering the mathematics or economics.

Of course, just because people can understand effective altruist ideas if they really want to, doesn't mean they will do so. It may be necessary to simplify the explanations and improve the exposition so as to make it more attractive to younger people. An alternative route would be to sneak the explanations into things young people are already engaging with. This could be an academic curriculum or a story. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is arguably an example of the latter, though it is focused more on rationality than on effective altruism.

However, I'm highly uncertain of my guesstimates, partly because I'm not very actively in touch with a representative cross-section of typical, or even of intellectually gifted, high school students. The subset of people I know is generally mediated by several levels of selection bias. I'm therefore quite eager to hear thoughts, particularly from people who are themselves high school students or have tried to discuss effective altruist ideas with high school students.

2. Are there benefits from exposing people to effective altruist ideas when they are still in high school?

Effective altruism as it was originally conceived has been highly focused on the question of where to donate money for the most impact (this is the focus of organizations such as GiveWell and Giving What We Can). This makes it of less direct relevance to people still in high school, because they don't have much disposable income. But there are arguably other benefits. Some examples:

• In recent times, there has been more discussion in the effective altruist community about smart career choice. This seems to have begun with discussion of earning to give. 80,000 Hours has played an important role in shaping the conversation on altruistic career choice. Since people start thinking about careers while in high school, effective altruism is potentially relevant. (This page compiles some links to discussions of altruistic career choice -- we'll be adding more to that as we learn more).
• Lifestyle choices and habits can have an effect on the world both directly (for instance, being vegetarian, or recycling) and indirectly (good habits promote better earning or higher savings that can then be redirected to altruistic causes, or people can become more productive and generate more social value through their jobs). For the lifestyle choices that have a direct effect, it's never too early to start.  For instance, if being vegetarian is the right thing, one might as well switch as a teenager. For the indirect effects, starting earlier gives one more lead time to develop skills and habits. If frugal living habits and greater stamina at work promote earning to give, then these habits may be better to set while still a teenager than when one is 25. The Effective Altruists Facebook page includes discussions of many questions of this sort in addition to discussions about where to donate.
• A number of people in high school and college are attracted to activities that ostensibly generate social value. Learning effective altruist ideas may make students more skeptical of many such activities and approach the decision of whether to participate in them more critically. For instance, a stalwart of effective altruism may not see much point (from the social value perspective) in going on a school-sponsored trip to lay bricks for a schoolhouse in Africa. The person may still engage in it as a fun activity, but will not have illusions about it being an activity of high social value. Similarly, people may be more skeptical of the social value of activities that involve volunteering in one's community for tasks where they are easily replaceable by others.
• The effective altruist movement could itself benefit from a greater diversity of people contributing and participating. High school students may have insights that adults overlook.

Did I miss other points? Counterpoints? Do you have relevant experience that can shed light on the discussion? I'm eager to hear thoughts.

Some ideas in the post were based on discussion with my Cognito Mentoring collaborator Jonah Sinick.

UPDATE: The post provoked some discussion in a thread on the Effective Altruists Facebook group.

This post is a followup report to this.

On Friday's lecture, I was able to briefly cover several topics as an introduction. They centred around rationality (what it is), truth (what it is and why we should pursue it), and Newcomb's Paradox.

The turnout was as expected (6 out of a total 7 group members, with 1 having other obligations that day). Throughout the talk I would ask for some proposed definitions before giving them. It is unfortunate when I asked what "truth" is, mysterious answers such as "truth is the meaning of life", and "truth is the pursuit of truth". When asked what they meant by their answers, they either rephrased what they said with the same vagueness or were unable to give an answer. One member, however, did say that "Truth is what is real", only to have other members ask what he meant by "real". It offered a rather nice opportunity for a map-and-territory tangent before giving some version of "The Simple Truth".

I used the definitions given in 'What Do We Mean By "Rationality"?' to describe epistemic and instrumental rationality, and gave several examples as to what rationality is not (Dr. Spock, logic/reason, etc). As a practice, I introduced Newcomb's Paradox. There was ample debate with an even split between one-box and two-boxers. Due to time constraints, we weren't able to come to a conclusion (although the one-boxing side was making a stronger argument). By the end of lunch period, everyone seemed to have a good grasp that rationality is simply making the best decision to achieve one's goals, whatever they may be.

Overall, I'd say it was successful. My next turn is on October 3rd, and apart from a little review, I'm going to go over the 5-second level, and use of words. Saying what they mean is something we as a group need to work on.

Just recently at my high school, a group of classmates and I started a science club. A major component of this is listening and giving peer lectures on topics of physics, math, computer science, etc. I picked a topic a bit off to the side: philosophy and decision making. Naturally, this includes rationality. My plan is to start with something based off the sequences, specifically "How to Actually Change Your Mind" and "A Human's Guide to Words".

I was hoping the Less Wrong community could give me some suggestions, tips, or even alternative ways to approach this. There is no end goal, we just want to learn more and think better. All our members are among the top 5% academically of their own grade. Most of us are seniors and have finished high school math, taking AP Calculus this year. We have covered basic statistics and Bayes' Theorem, but only applied it to the Disease Problem.

Any help or ideas are appreciated.

Update: Thank you for all these suggestions! They are incredibly helpful for me. I will attempt to make a recording of the lecture period if possible. I will make another discussion post sometime next weekend (the first lecture is next Friday) to report how it went.

Update 2: Report here.