Here’s a claim to supplement the replacement effect (RE):
The flat margin effect: If you take a job that seems to have a strong (positive or negative) impact on the economy, the actual difference it makes to social welfare will be minimal.
So who is this relevant to? And why should you believe it?
In his recent talk, Aubrey de Grey argued that the SENS foundation’s life extension research should be the most important project for any effective altruist. I collared him for an interview afterwards…
Treating NTDs is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve people’s lives. So if news stories were ordered by its actual effect on human welfare, this announcement would have adorned the front of all major newspapers.
Sadly not, but it can at least adorn this blog: pharmaceutical titans including GSK and Merck are teaming up with the World Bank and the WHO to try and eliminate some of the worst NTDs. See the full announcement for more info…
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The plan: to conduct a series of interviews with successful workers in various key candidates for high impact careers.
The first person to agree to an interview is Luke Muehlhauser (aka lukeprog of Less Wrong), the executive director of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, whose mission is to influence the development of greater-than-human intelligence to try and ensure that it’s a force for human flourishing rather than extinction.
Givewell and Giving What We Can have both recently updated their charity recommendations.
As a response I’ve updated the ‘Best causes‘ post, with a few extra thoughts thrown into the mix.
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The basic argument for professional philanthropy is that, because giving your money away is so powerful, it’s well worth the slight harm to the economy of some high earning jobs.
But the NYT recently put up an opinion piece by Nicholas D. Kristof arguing that banking isn’t (necessarily) harmful at all…
Just a quick note:
In case you missed it in Sam’s post on Health vs Education, some members of Giving What We Can have put together a charities Wiki.
It goes into a bit more detail than the main GWWC website on various charities and the issues associated with them. It’s still in its infancy, but like any Wiki is both a resource and an opportunity for interested researchers to help out.
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If you’re reading this, I’ll assume you’re convinced by the philosophy of 80,000 Hours – so you won’t find an argument for that philosophy here. This post is just to help you decide where to best give your money right now, based on the combined recommendations of the above organisations allowing for a couple of factors they don’t address.
So… plenty of organisations want your money, but a select few really stand out. What’s the best option?
… wherein we’ll post a variety of pieces new and classic on any topics that
relate to the goals of 80,000 Hours.