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When do people start knowing if they moved on to the next part or when does the judging period end
Students are invited to enter an essay contest on The Precipice! Please spread the word to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students.
The Eon Essay Contest is an essay contest for students with a top prize of 15,000 USD. Students read the book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity by Toby Ord, a philosopher at Oxford University. Students then write an essay of up to 1,200 words. Further details and the essay prompts are available on the contest website.
Students who cannot otherwise access the book can request a free copy.
The Precipice discusses some of the most important issues of our time. It raises awareness about existential risks, which are risks that threaten humanity’s long-term potential. Addressing these risks may be among the most pressing moral issues of our time. This contest raises awareness about the importance of addressing these risks.
For a summary of the ideas in the book, you can watch this twenty minute video.
Students who are curious and have the ability to carefully consider new ideas will be good entrants. Students with a wide range of interests are encouraged to enter. After all, as The Precipice says,
Understanding [existential] risks requires delving into physics, biology, earth science and computer science; situating this in the larger story of humanity requires history and anthropology; discerning just how much is at stake requires moral philosophy and economics; and finding solutions requires international relations and political science.
High school, undergraduate, and graduate students from any country are invited to enter. We expect most entrants who will be able to engage critically with this material will be 16 or older, although younger students may enter.
Please email [email protected] with any questions.
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This contest is funded by a grant from Open Philanthropy.
Neha Singh is responsible for running this contest. Akash Wasil worked with her to draft this announcement. We are grateful to Catherine Low for providing feedback on a draft of this post.
Rules clarification: are current undergraduate students who will be graduating prior to the June 15th deadline eligible, provided that they submit their essay before they graduate?
Yes, they are. Thank you for asking; I've edited the website to try to make this clearer.