We have so many great people involved in the EA movement, people who think hard and well about what cause to prioritize and who dedicate a significant portion of their money and time to advancing global flourishing in the most cost-effective manner. However, articles about EA participants typically feature the most dedicated folks, which contributes to those who don't reach such levels reluctant to call themselves EA members.

So to advance the cause of celebrating all in the EA movement and recognizing the value of all movement members appropriately, we at Intentional Insights are launching the "Everyday Heroes of Effective Giving" video series. This series of brief videos, around 10 minutes each, will showcase folks from across the movement, including from around the world, as we do the filming through videoconference (Google hangouts). We ask participants four questions:

1) How would you define effective giving and what makes you passionate about it?
2) What is your story of getting involved in effective giving?
3) What are you doing now in the area of effective giving?
4) What do you plan to do in the future and what do you envision as the mark you want to leave on the world?

Why do we frame the title and questions in terms of "effective giving?" Well, these videos are meant to be available as a resource to be shared with anyone and create a sense of narrative, identification, and emotional appeal, which are part of broader effective outreach strategies. Thus, using the terminology of effective giving decreases the likelihood of non-value aligned people trying to join the EA movement, while encouraging such people to give to more effective charities. Note that participants usually mention the EA movement in their comments, which provides a potential trail to the EA movement for those who would be interested in thinking hard about doing the most good.

We already released three videos. The first features Boris Yakubchik, who was involved in the EA movement before it was a movement as such. The second one is with Scott Weathers, an EA health policy expert who is currently interning at the WHO and is going on for a PhD in public health this Fall. The third features Alfredo Parra, the main organizer of EA Munich. Since the videos are short, I will post future videos on the EA Forum when we have finished doing a set of three.

FYI, the fact that the first three happened to be with men is a fluke. I extended an invitation for videotaping to three men and three women, and the women simply were not available until later. We already did two with the women, and are currently processing them.

For future developments with this series, we are planning to improve the backdrop situation for the interviewer by getting a black screen. We have also secured the domain http://www.givingeffectively.org/, and we plan to put these videos and other content there after we decide how to structure the website - we want to make it a key part of the EA Marketing Resource Bank as a venue for content about effective giving. If anyone wants to support these endeavors (the website or video series) with their programming/visual design/video skills, or with donations, please shoot me an email at gleb@intentionalinsights.org

I welcome your feedback about this project, in private emails to me or in comments here. My hope is that these videos will show the broad range of diversity across the EA movement, and help people understand that, even if they are not the most dedicated EA participants, they are making a welcome and valuable contribution to the cause of doing the most good effectively.

I made a series of game theory videos that carefully go through the mechanics of solving many different types of games.  I optimized the videos for my future Smith College game theory students who will either miss a class, or get lost in class and want more examples.   I emphasize clarity over excitement.   I would be grateful for any feedback.

I took an economics course recently. And by "took a course" I mean followed a series of online lectures. I can strongly recommend doing so, especially if you already think you have an intuitive grasp of economics.

I was in that situation. I knew about incentives, and revealed preferences. I understood that supply and demand curves crossed. I grasped some of the monetarist arguments about the lack of long run tradeoffs between inflation and employment. I could talk about Keynesian stimulus and sticky prices/wages. I understood bank runs. Externalities were obvious, public goods a bit less so. I even knew quite a lot about banks and the money supply.

I had it pretty good, I thought. And yet when I followed basic economics lecture, I learnt a lot. The models and concepts suddenly fit together. I understood concepts that I only thought I had understood before. Economists do know their stuff, their models and concepts are informative - more so than I ever expected.

So, bearing in mind that economics is a social science whose conclusions are not nearly as rigorous as its models, I can recommend to anyone on Less Wrong who's interested to follow a lecture series or take a course.

The Future of Humanity Institute has released video footage of the 2012 Winter Intelligence Conference.  The videos currently available are:

• Stuart Armstrong - Predicting AI... or Failing to
• Miles Brundage - Limitations and Risks of Machine Ethics
• Steve Omohundro - Autonomous Technology and the Greater Human Good
• Anders Sandberg - Ethics and Impact of Brain Emulations
• Carl Shulman - Could We Use Untrustworthy Human Brain Emulations to Make Trustworthy Ones

Most people new to the Less Wrong community start out by reading the Sequences. There are also lists out there of highly recommended text books, pop sci books, and articles.

However these avenues can take a LOT of time, and not everyone learns best by reading. I am interested in putting together a list of introductory videos that cover the same type of materials discussed on Less Wrong, and could be viewed within a single night. 

One purpose of this is for meetup groups that get a large influx of new people all at once. It might take a while to get everybody up to speed by sending them off to all go read Sequence posts on their own, especially if they are generally busy in their daily life. However, it is much easier to turn one of your meetups into a Video Night. The goal is that at the end of the Video Night, everybody is aware of the type of mindset that we want people at meetups to have. 

The list can also be used by people who are brand new to rationality, and want to get the basic information in video form.

I'll get it started by listing 6 videos that are of the sort that I mean for this list to be. Please leave some recommendations! (Also, if there is already a list of good intro videos, let me know. I am currently unaware of any.) 

Note: Although AI/ x-risk videos are NOT what I am looking for, I know people will want to recommend them, so I'm creating a parent comment to place them under. If we get enough of those, we can create a separate list of good Intro to X-Risk and/or AI vids.

Julia Galef- Straw Vulcan, Skepticon 4
-A good first video that dispels some widely-believed myths about "rationality".

Spencer Greenberg- Self Skepticism, Skepticon 4
-Reasoning as to how and why you might be wrong, and what to do about that fact

Julia Galef- Rationality and the Future, Singularity Summit 2012
-Overview of the culture we are trying to develop

Dan Ariely- TED talks (all three)
- Engaging anecdotes and information about specific cognitive biases, and how they affect people

Here.