Comments
More EA undergrads should do political volunteering. It's impactful AND fun.
Choose an election that's impactful (e.g. AI safety candidate) and neglected (e.g. primaries in always-blue/red places), couch-crash the weekend there, and volunteer with the campaign.
I say this after doing 15 hours of street canvassing myself. I was surprised by how anecdotally impactful and fun it was. If you like people-watching, talking to strangers, and/or joining passionate projects for a weekend, I think you'll also love this.
I wish I thought of this earlier.
Literature on the impact (Claude-generated): Kalla & Broockman's meta-analysis of 49 field experiments finds zero average persuasive effect in general elections, but effects do show up when voters lack a partisan cue (i.e. primaries and ballot measures). Mann & Haenschen (2024) find mobilization effects (e.g. canvassing) are 33-76% larger in low-attention races than in high-attention ones. Your marginal volunteer hour goes much further in a primary.
I think EAG/EAGx conferences should try (if possible) to avoid venues under active corporate campaign targeting for animal welfare failures.
I recently went to a protest against Marriott over their unfulfilled cage-free egg commitment and couldn't help but think back to EAGxDC which was held at one of their hotels in May.
I don't think the EAGxDC organizers intentionally ignored this; they probably didn't know, or the venue was just very logistically convenient (which I think outweighs this concern).
But I wonder whether organizers generally consider this when choosing venues. I feel like they should, assuming there are other options not under campaign targeting.
My understanding is appropriate venues are hard to come by, expensive, and have to be booked nearly a year in advance, so they may not have had a choice.
Thanks, I didn't know that, esp. the booking timeline. The campaign over Marriott's noncompliance apparently started in late 2025, so it makes sense.
I think this is a great point. Thanks for raising it.