Avoid alienating the marginal audience member

I urge everyone reading this to improve their public speaking and presentation skills. If you think your presentations have even a small chance of reducing existential risk, whether directly or indirectly, it is worth it to spend some time thinking about how to engage and retain the marginal audience member.In economics, the price of a good is set by the marginal buyer. The marginal buyer is the buyer who would, if the transaction was even slightly costlier, walk away from the deal.When you present to an audience with the goal of spreading ideas or raising awareness, you would like the audience members to return to future talks and events, or even join your organization. You are growing a following. You are a salesman of ideas.The targets of your sales pitch should be the marginal buyer of your ideas. The person who, if you deliver a good presentation, will stick around, and if you deliver a mediocre presentation, won't return. This is the marginal audience member. Ensuring the marginal audience member returns to future events is how you fill rooms.I have a day job as a data scientist in the private sector. I am moderately concerned about personal and existential AI risk. I go to AI safety events after work on occasion, even though I'm often tired after work. Usually, it is because the topic exceeds a threshold of interest, and there is nothing better to do, as it happens to be a rare day in which I have no volunteer, hobby, social, or personal commitments, of which I have many.There is a competitive market for my time and attention. This means I am sensitive and responsive to presentation quality. A good presentation raises the score of AI safety events compared to other activities and has a direct effect on my turnout and my probability of deepening my involvement in AI safety. A bad presentation lowers the score. I am the marginal audience member. Here are sins I've observed while attending these events:Slides are full of text. Slides are read from as if they wer