effective altruism

37 Pages·2017·3.41 MB·English

EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM
COMBINING THE HEART AND THE HEAD
Peter Brietbart
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Let’s play a game.
You get £100,000.
Rules:
• Money can only be spent on doing good.
• Only one winner: the person who does the most
good.
• You have to be able to bring evidence.
• I decide the winner.
Quality Adjusted Life Years:
QALYs
• 1 QALY represents 1 year
of life in perfect health.
• Illnesses reduce our
QALYs.
• Cures can win us back
QALYs.
Some examples:
0.4 QALYs 0.7 QALYs
Can win back 0.6 Can win back 0.3
Helpful Thing 1
COST EFFECTIVENESS
If you don’t get really good value-for-money on £ to
QALYs, you probably won’t win.
Helpful Thing 2
CAUSE NEUTRALITY
Doesn’t matter what you spend money on, only
how much good it actually does.
Helpful Thing 3
PREVENTION AS GOOD AS CURE
Preventing future loss of QALYs is as valuable as
bringing about gains now.
What do you do?
• £100,000
• Winner is the one who does the most good.
• Good measured in QALYs.
• 1 QALY = 1 year of perfect health.
• Cause neutral: Whatever works.
• Cost effectiveness: Get value for money.
• Yes, it’s supposed to be super hard.
Effective Altruism
• This is a new way to think about doing good.
• We try to find the most cost-effective, high
impact interventions that do the most good on a
societal scale.
(I’ll give you our answers.)