“We are always in triage. I fervently hope that one day we will be able to save everyone. In the meantime, it is irresponsible to pretend that we aren’t making life and death decisions with the allocation of our resources. Pretending there is no choice only makes our decisions worse." - Holly Elmore
This Topic investigates what opportunities to do good we have available to us and exposes the tradeoffs we face in our altruistic efforts. This Topic also explores tools that can help us find unusually high impact opportunities.
Key Material
Doing Good Better - Introduction - Chapter 4 (60 mins.) - What is effective altruism, and what tools can we use to evaluate the effectiveness of our actions?
500 Million, But Not a Single One More (5 mins.) - Describes humanity's progress against a major source of suffering.
We are in triage every second of every day (5 mins.) - A personal blogpost about triage mindsets. Explores the idea that we are always making life-or-death decisions, and we should make them consciously.
The world is much better; The world is awful; The world can be much better - Our World in Data (5 mins.) - The world has gotten a lot better over time, but there's still so much room to grow. What do we make of that?
Introduction to EA | Ajeya Cotra | EAGxBerkeley 2016 (Video - 30 mins.) - Introduces the core principals of effective altruism and describes common intellectual/emotional reactions to effective altruism.
No matter your job, here’s 3 evidence-based ways anyone can have a real impact - 80,000 Hours (20 mins.)- Describes effective donations, effective political advocacy, and ways to help others have an impact.
The lack of controversy over well-targeted aid - GiveWell (10 mins.) - Discusses arguments against foreign aid & distinguishes between different types of aid.
Further Reading
The value of a life - Minding Our Own Way - Disentangling the difference between the value of a life and what it costs to save a life in our broken world. (15 mins.)
Tradeoffs - How can we balance our own needs with the needs of others? (5 mins.)
Excited altruism - GiveWell - Where does our own passion and excitement fit into the picture? (10 mins.)
Save a life or receive cash? Which do recipients want? - IDinsight - Explores the preferences and values of individuals and communities in Ghana and Kenya to inform funding allocations. (10 mins.)
Reasoning Transparency - Open Philanthropy Project - A guide on how to write while being more transparent on the reasoning behind your views. (25 mins.)
Criticisms against RCT-based charities
Growth and the case against randomista development - An argument that research on and advocacy for economic growth in low- and middle-income countries is more cost-effective than the things funded by proponents of randomised controlled trials development. (60 mins - if you’re short on time, read Sections 1-3)
Q&A with Elie Hassenfeld - Elie, the CEO and co-founder of GiveWell, discusses his organization’s latest research, his views on economic growth, and what he’s changed his mind on lately (60 mins.)
‘Criticisms of EA’ Section from here: The Lessons of Effective Altruism | Ethics & International Affairs
Next in the Introduction to Effective Altruism Course
Evaluating Differences in Impact
Evaluating Differences in Impact
An introduction to some tools and approaches we can use to quantify and evaluate how much good an intervention achieves
