I chose to watch the Ted Talk by the conductor Benjamin Zander. As a musician, I agree with and appreciate many points he made during the talk. At the beginning of his talk, Zander imitated children of different ages playing the same piece of music. He then went on to play a famous piano piece by Chopin to introduce his point that it’s the musician’s fault that the audiences are “falling asleep” during classical music. He asked the audience to think of someone they love who has passed away; he requested that they think of their loved ones while he played the Chopin piece again and said “you will hear everything Chopin had to say.” He then gave multiple examples of how people have been moved by him playing classical music; for example, when the “street child” in Ireland was finally able to cry for his brother who had been shot. He then went on to talk about his realization that conductors don’t make any sound, and have no power, and how they depend on their orchestras to make the sounds and express their power for them. He said that as a conductor, when your player’s eyes are shining, you know you’ve done your job. His last point started when he told a story of an Auschwitz survivor who said “I will never say anything that couldn’t stand as the last thing I ever say” and how that is a possibility to live into.

In “Is Art a Waste of Time?”, author Rhys Southan immediately said that he was a writer. He then started describing Effective Altruism and their opinions on how art is a waste of time, money and resources. When describing the core ideas of EA, he wrote “working hard to earn money and then giving as much of it as you can to the needy.” This is an accurate depiction of EA’s views that only giving money will help the needy, and not “smaller” acts of kindness. Southan then introduced the idea of replaceability, which essentially said that only huge donations will help the needy, and any other acts are worthless. On that note, he wrote about how EA members think artists are self-centered and that art does not help improve lives or the world at all, while bringing up his writing and how he is an artist himself. On the next couple pages, he interviewed several filmmakers-turned-EA and how their former professions didn’t do anything to help the world. He gave multiple examples of how EA believes that giving money is the only way to improve the world, including giving a “baseline” of 10% of your income to the needy. At the end of the passage, after pages of negatively portraying art and artists, Southan stated that he wasn’t “ready to take up some high-paid job that I’d hate in order to reduce the world’s suffering.”

When I did the brainstorming session, it reinforced how Effective Altruism always comes back to money and how that’s the only way to reduce suffering in the world. However, I noticed how most of Zander’s points came back to making a difference and empowering others, like his recurring “shining eyes” point. The two pieces had very different views about how to make the world a better place, and I definitely agree more with Zander’s ideas. As the first chair oboist in an orchestra back home, I can relate to the shining eyes idea and how much of an impact a few notes can have. If I performed my solos well enough, I could see the audience’s emotions and how moved they were. I always left good performances feeling elated because I could tell that I had affected others in a positive way. While I think that donating to charities is a good use of money, I think there are other ways to make the world a better place, and I absolutely believe that music is one of them.