Effective Altruism Handbook

159 Pages·2015·0.59 MB·English

The Effec(cid:2462)ve Altruism Handbook

The Effec(cid:2462)ve Altruism Handbook
EditedbyRyanCarey
Publishedin2015bythe
CentreForEffectiveAltruism
Oxford,Oxfordshire
UnitedKingdon
centreforeffectivealtruism.org
Newandreprintedessaysinthiscompilation
arethepropertyoftheoriginalauthororpublisher
andarepublishedherewiththeirkindpermission.
ThanksalsotoPeterOrr,whohelpedsubstantiallyby
copyeditingthisbook.
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Contents
Introduction viii
I WHATISEFFECTIVEALTRUISM?
1 TheDrowningChildandtheExpandingCircle
PeterSinger 3
2 WhatisEffectiveAltruism?
WilliamMacAskill 11
3 ScopeNeglect
EliezerYudkowsky 14
4 Tradeoffs
JuliaWise 19
II CHARITYEVALUATION
5 EfficientCharity: DoUntoOthers
ScottAlexander 25
6 “Efficiency”MeasuresMissthePoint
DanPallotta 32
7 HowNottoBea“WhiteinShiningArmor”
HoldenKarnofsky 35
8 EstimationIstheBestWeHave
KatjaGrace 39
9 OurUpdatedTopCharities
ElieHassenfeld 42
III CAREERCHOICE
10 Don’tGetaJobataCharity: WorkonWallStreet
WilliamMacAskill 67
Contents
11 HighImpactScience
CarlShulman 71
12 HowtoAssesstheImpactofaCareer
BenTodd 76
IV CAUSESELECTION
13 YourDollarGoesFurtherOverseas
GiveWell 83
14 TheHasteConsideration
MattWage 85
15 PreventingHumanExtinction
NickBeckstead,PeterSinger&MattWage 88
16 Speciesism
PeterSinger 95
17 FourFocusAreasofEffectiveAltruism
LukeMuehlhauser 99
V ORGANIZATIONS
18 GiveWell
GiveWell 109
19 GivingWhatWeCan
MichelleHutchinson,ExecutiveDirector 114
20 TheLifeYouCanSave
CharlieBresler,ExecutiveDirector 117
21 80,000Hours
BenTodd,Co-founderandExecutiveDirector 120
22 CharityScience
XiomaraKikauka,Co-founder 124
23 EffectiveAltruismFoundation
AdrianoMannino,PresidentandJonasVollmer,Execu-
tiveDirector 127
24 TheMachineIntelligenceResearchInstitute
LukeMuehlhauser,ExecutiveDirector 131
25 AnimalCharityEvaluators
JonBockman,ExecutiveDirector 134
Afterword 139
Introduc(cid:2462)on
PeterSingerandWilliamMacAskill
Welcome to the effective altruism community! You’re about
to find out about what we think is the world’s most exciting
andimportantnewsocialmovement.
What is effec(cid:2462)ve altruism?
Effectivealtruismisagrowingcommunitybasedaroundthe
ideaofaimingtodothemostgoodthatonecan. Itinvolves:
1. Being open to all the possible ways to do good and
pursuingthepathwiththebiggestpositiveimpact;
2. Using evidence to figure out how to do the most good;
and
3. Choosingtomakealtruismasignificantpartofone’slife.
What does that mean?
You have approximately 80,000 working hours in your life.
Whilethismightfeellikealot,it’snotmuchwhencompared
to the scale of the problems in the world, such as extreme
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