New releases

#126 – Bryan Caplan on whether lazy parenting is OK, what really helps workers, and betting on beliefs

Podcast by and · Published April 5th, 2022

Everybody knows that good parenting has a big impact on how kids turn out. Except that maybe they don’t, because it doesn’t.

Incredible though it might seem, according to today’s guest — economist Bryan Caplan, the author of Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids, The Myth of the Rational Voter, and The Case Against Education — the best evidence we have on the question suggests that, within reason, what parents do has little impact on how their children’s lives play out once they’re adults.

Of course, kids do resemble their parents. But just as we probably can’t say it was attentive parenting that gave me my mother’s nose, perhaps we can’t say it was attentive parenting that made me succeed at school. Both the social environment we grow up in and the genes we receive from our parents influence the person we become, and looking at a typical family we can’t really distinguish the impact of one from the other.

But nature does offer us up a random experiment that can let us tell the difference: identical twins share all their genes, while fraternal twins only share half their genes. If you look at how much more similar outcomes are for identical twins than fraternal twins, you see the effect of sharing 100% of your genetic material, rather than the usual 50%. Double that amount, and you’ve got the full effect of genetic inheritance. Whatever unexplained variation remains is still up for grabs — and might be down to different experiences in the home, outside the home, or just random noise.

The crazy thing about this research is that it says for a range of adult outcomes (e.g. years of education, income, health, personality, and happiness), it’s differences in the genes children inherit rather than differences in parental behaviour that are doing most of the work. Other research suggests that differences in “out-of-home environment,” such as the friends one makes at school, take second place. Parenting style does matter for something, but it comes in a clear third.

You might think that these studies are accidentally recruiting parents who are all unusually competent, by including only the kind of people who respond to letters asking them to participate in a university study of twin behaviour. But in fact that effect is small, because many countries and hospitals have enrolled twins in this research almost by default, and academics can check on some kinds of outcomes using tax, death, and court records, which include almost everyone.

Bryan lays out all the above in his book Selfish Reasons To Have More Kids: Why Being a Great Parent Is Less Work And More Fun Than You Think.

He is quick to point out that there are several factors that help reconcile these findings with conventional wisdom about the importance of parenting.

First, for some adult outcomes, parenting was a big deal (i.e. the quality of the parent/child relationship) or at least a moderate deal (i.e. drug use, criminality, and religious/political identity).

Second, these are adult outcomes — parents can and do influence you quite a lot, so long as you’re young and still living with them. But as soon as you move out, the influence of their behaviour begins to wane and eventually becomes hard to spot.

Third, this research only studies variation in parenting behaviour that was common among the families studied. The studies are just mute on anything that wasn’t actually done by many parents in their sample.

And fourth, research on international adoptions shows they can cause massive improvements in health, income and other outcomes. So a large enough change in one’s entire environment, say from Haiti to the United States, does matter, even if moving between families within the United States has modest effects.

Despite all that, the findings are still remarkable, and imply many hyper-diligent parents could live much less stressful lives without doing their kids any harm at all. In this extensive interview host Rob Wiblin interrogates whether Bryan can really be right, or whether the research he’s drawing on has taken a wrong turn somewhere.

And that’s just one topic we cover, some of the others being:

  • People’s biggest misconceptions about the labour market
  • Arguments against high levels of immigration
  • Whether most people actually vote based on self-interest
  • Whether philosophy should stick to common sense or depart from it radically
  • How to weigh personal autonomy against the possible benefits of government regulation
  • Bryan’s track record of winning 23 out of 23 bets about how the future would play out
  • And much more

Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ‘80,000 Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

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#125 – Joan Rohlfing on how to avoid catastrophic nuclear blunders

Podcast by and · Published March 29th, 2022

Since the Soviet Union split into different countries in 1991, the pervasive fear of catastrophe that people lived with for decades has gradually faded from memory, and nuclear warhead stockpiles have declined by 83%. Nuclear brinksmanship, proxy wars, and the game theory of mutually assured destruction (MAD) have come to feel like relics of another era.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed all that.

According to Joan Rohlfing — President of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit focused on reducing threats from nuclear and biological weapons — the annual risk of a ‘global catastrophic nuclear event’‘ never fell as low as people like to think, and for some time has been on its way back up.

At the same time, civil society funding for research and advocacy around nuclear risks is being cut in half over a period of years — despite the fact that at $60 million a year, it was already just a thousandth as much as the US spends maintaining its nuclear deterrent.

If new funding sources are not identified to replace donors that are withdrawing (like the MacArthur Foundation), the existing pool of talent will have to leave for greener pastures, and most of the next generation will see a career in the field as unviable.

While global poverty is on the decline and life expectancy increasing, the chance of a catastrophic nuclear event is probably trending in the wrong direction.

Joan points out that the New START treaty, which dramatically limits the number of warheads the US and Russia can deploy at one time, narrowly survived in 2021 due to the election of Joe Biden. But it will again require renewal in 2026, which may or may not happen, depending on whether the relationship between the two great powers can be repaired over the next four years.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees that turned out not to be worth the paper they were written on. States that have nuclear weapons (such as North Korea), states that are pursuing them (such as Iran), and states that have pursued nuclear weapons but since abandoned them (such as Libya, Syria, and South Africa) may take this as a valuable lesson in the importance of military power over promises.

China has been expanding its arsenal and testing hypersonic glide missiles that can evade missile defences. Japan now toys with the idea of nuclear weapons as a way to ensure its security against its much larger neighbour. India and Pakistan both acquired nuclear weapons in the late 1980s and their relationship continues to oscillate from hostile to civil and back.

At the same time, the risk that nuclear weapons could be interfered with due to weaknesses in computer security is far higher than during the Cold War, when systems were simpler and less networked.

In the interview, Joan discusses several steps that can be taken in the immediate term, such as renewed efforts to extend and expand arms control treaties, changes to nuclear use policy, and the retirement of what they see as vulnerable delivery systems, such as land-based silos.

In the bigger picture, NTI seeks to keep hope alive that a better system than deterrence through mutually assured destruction remains possible. The threat of retaliation does indeed make nuclear wars unlikely, but it necessarily means the system fails in an incredibly destructive way: with the death of hundreds of millions if not billions.

In the long run, even a tiny 1 in 500 risk of a nuclear war each year adds up to around an 18% chance of catastrophe over the century.

Joan concedes that MAD was probably the best available system for preventing the use of nuclear weapons in 1950. But we’ve had 70 years of advances in technology since then that have opened up new possibilities, such as far more reliable surveillance than could have been dreamed up by Truman and Stalin. But MAD has been the conventional wisdom for so long that almost nobody is working on alternative paradigms.

In this conversation we cover all that, as well as:

  • How arms control treaties have evolved over the last few decades
  • Whether lobbying by arms manufacturers is an important factor shaping nuclear strategy
  • Places listeners could work at or donate to
  • The Biden Nuclear Posture Review
  • How easily humanity might recover from a nuclear exchange
  • Implications for the use of nuclear energy

Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ‘80,000 Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

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#124 – Karen Levy on fads and misaligned incentives in global development, and scaling deworming to reach hundreds of millions

Podcast by and · Published March 21st, 2022

If someone said a global health and development programme was sustainable, participatory, and holistic, you’d have to guess that they were saying something positive. But according to today’s guest Karen Levy — deworming pioneer and veteran of Innovations for Poverty Action, Evidence Action, and Y Combinator — each of those three concepts has become so fashionable that they’re at risk of being seriously overrated and applied where they don’t belong.

Such concepts might even cause harm — trying to make a project embody all three is as likely to ruin it as help it flourish.

First, what do people mean by ‘sustainability’? Usually they mean something like the programme will eventually be able to continue without needing further financial support from the donor. But how is that possible? Governments, nonprofits, and aid agencies aim to provide health services, education, infrastructure, financial services, and so on — and all of these require ongoing funding to pay for materials and staff to keep them running.

I buy my groceries from a supermarket, and I’m not under the illusion that one day I’ll be able to stop paying and still get everything I need for free. And there’s nothing wrong with this way of getting life’s necessities being ‘unsustainable’ — so long as I want groceries, I’ll keep paying for them.

Given that someone needs to keep paying, Karen tells us that in practice, ‘sustainability’ is usually a euphemism for the programme at some point being passed on to someone else to fund — usually the national government. And while that can be fine, the national government of Kenya only spends $400 per person to provide each and every government service — just 2% of what the US spends on each resident. Incredibly tight budgets like that are typical of low-income countries. While the concept of ‘sustainability’ sounds great, to say “We’re going to pass the cost of this programme on to a government funded by very poor people’s taxes” sounds at best ambiguous.

‘Participatory’ also sounds nice, and inasmuch as it means leaders are accountable to the people they’re trying to help, it probably is. But Karen tells us that in the field, ‘participatory’ usually means that recipients are expected to be involved in planning and delivering services themselves.

While that might be suitable in some situations, it’s hardly something people in rich countries always want for themselves. Ideally we want government healthcare and education to be high quality without us having to attend meetings to keep it on track — and people in poor countries have as many or more pressures on their time. While accountability is desirable, an expectation of participation can be as much a burden as a blessing.

Finally, making a programme ‘holistic’ could be smart, but as Karen lays out, it also has some major downsides. For one, it means you’re doing lots of things at once, which makes it hard to tell which parts of the project are making the biggest difference relative to their cost. For another, when you have a lot of goals at once, it’s hard to tell whether you’re making progress, or really put your mind to focusing on making one thing go extremely well. And finally, holistic programmes can be impractically expensive — Karen tells the story of a wonderful ‘holistic school health’ programme that, if continued, was going to cost 3.5 times the entire school’s budget.

Smallpox elimination was one of humanity’s greatest health achievements and its focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else made it the complete opposite of a holistic program.

In today’s in-depth conversation, Karen Levy and I chat about the above, as well as:

  • Why it pays to figure out how you’ll interpret the results of an experiment ahead of time
  • The trouble with misaligned incentives within the development industry
  • Projects that don’t deliver value for money and should be scaled down
  • Whether governments typically pay for a project once outside funding is withdrawn
  • How Karen accidentally became a leading figure in the push to deworm tens of millions of schoolchildren
  • Logistical challenges in reaching huge numbers of people with essential services
  • How Karen has enjoyed living in Kenya for several decades
  • Lessons from Karen’s many-decades career
  • The goals of Karen’s new project: Fit for Purpose

Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type “80,000 Hours” into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell and Ryan Kessler
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

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#123 – Samuel Charap on why Putin invaded Ukraine, the risk of escalation, and how to prevent disaster

Podcast by and · Published March 14th, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is devastating the lives of Ukrainians, and so long as it continues there’s a risk that the conflict could escalate to include other countries or the use of nuclear weapons. It’s essential that NATO, the US, and the EU play their cards right to ideally end the violence, maintain Ukrainian sovereignty, and discourage any similar invasions in the future.

But how? To pull together the most valuable information on how to react to this crisis, we spoke with Samuel Charap — a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, one of the US’s foremost experts on Russia’s relationship with former Soviet states, and co-author of Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia.

Samuel believes that Putin views the alignment of Ukraine with NATO as an existential threat to Russia — a perhaps unreasonable view, but a sincere one nevertheless. Ukraine has been drifting further into Western Europe’s orbit and improving its defensive military capabilities, so Putin has concluded that if Russia wants to put a stop to that, there will never be a better time to act in the future.

Despite early successes holding off the Russian military, Samuel is sceptical that time is on the Ukrainian side. Though it won’t be able to create a puppet government Ukrainians view as legitimate, if committed to the task, Russia will likely gradually grind down Ukrainian resistance and take formal control of the country. If the war is to end before much of Ukraine is reduced to rubble, it will likely have to be through negotiation, rather than Russian defeat.

Many hope for Putin to be ousted from office, but Samuel cautions that he has enormous control of the Russian government and the media Russians consume, making that very unlikely in the near term. Furthermore, someone who successfully booted Putin from office is just as likely to be even more of an intransigent hardliner as they are to be a dove. In the meantime, loose talk of assassinating Putin could drive him to further reckless aggression.

The US policy response has so far been largely good, successfully balancing the need to punish Russia to dissuade large nations from bullying small ones in the future, while preventing NATO from being drawn into the war directly — which would pose a horrifying risk of escalation to a full nuclear exchange. The pressure from the general public to ‘do something’ might eventually cause national leaders to confront Russia more directly, but so far they are sensibly showing no interest in doing so.

However, use of nuclear weapons remains a low but worrying possibility. That could happen in various ways, such as:

  1. NATO shoots down Russian planes to enforce a no-fly zone — a problematic idea in Samuel’s opinion.
  2. An unintentional cycle of mutual escalation between Russia and NATO, perhaps starting with cyber attacks, or Russian bombs accidentally landing in NATO countries that neighbour Ukraine.
  3. Putin ends up with his back against the wall and believes he can no longer win the war or defend Russia without using tactical nuclear weapons.
  4. Putin decides to invade a country other than Ukraine.

Samuel is also worried that Russia may deploy chemical and biological weapons and blame it on the Ukrainians.

In Samuel’s opinion, the recent focus on the delivery of fighter jets to Ukraine is risky and not the key defence priority in any case. Instead, Ukraine could use more ground-to-air missiles to shoot Russian planes out of the sky.

Before war broke out, it’s possible Russia could have been satisfied if Ukraine followed through on the Minsk agreements and committed not to join NATO. Or it might not have, if Putin was committed to war, come what may. In any case, most Ukrainians found those terms intolerable.

At this point, the situation is even worse, and it’s hard to see how an enduring ceasefire could be agreed upon. On top of the above, Russia is also demanding recognition that Crimea is part of Russia, and acceptance of the independence of the so-calked Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. These conditions — especially the second — are entirely unacceptable to the Ukrainians. Hence the war continues, and could grind on for months until one side is sufficiently beaten down to compromise on their core demands.

Rob and Samuel discuss all of the above and also:

  • What are the implications if Sweden and/or Finland decide to join NATO?
  • What should NATO do now, and did it make any mistakes in the past?
  • What’s the most likely situation for us to be looking at in three months’ time?
  • Can Ukraine effectively win the war?

Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ‘80,000 Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

Producer: Keiran Harris
Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
Transcriptions: Katy Moore

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Open position: Operations specialist

Blog post by and · Published March 11th, 2022

80,000 Hours

80,000 Hours provides research and support to help students and graduates switch into careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems.

Over one million people visit our website each year, and more than 3,000 people have told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. We’re also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.

The Internal Systems team

The Internal Systems team is here to build the organisation and systems that support 80,000 Hours to achieve its mission.

We oversee 80,000 Hours’ office, finances, and impact evaluation, as well as much of our fundraising, org-wide metrics, tech systems, HR, and recruiting.

Currently, we have two full-time staff (Brenton Mayer and Sashika Coxhead), some part-time staff, and receive support from CEA (our fiscal sponsor).

Role

This role would be excellent experience for someone who wants to build career capital in operations, especially if you could one day see yourself in a more senior operations role (e.g. taking on more management, and perhaps eventually being a Head of Operations or COO).

Your responsibilities will likely include:

  • Creating an outstanding office environment. You’ll hire and manage the team that oversees our beautiful central London office. Your team will be responsible for all the systems that keep the office running smoothly,

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    Michelle and Habiba on what they’d tell their younger selves, and the impact of the 1-1 team

    Podcast (80k After Hours) by , , and · Published March 2022

    In this episode of 80k After Hours, Rob continues to interview his 80,000 Hours colleagues Michelle Hutchinson and Habiba Islam about the 1-1 team.

    This is the second of a two-part interview. You can find the first part on the original 80,000 Hours Podcast feed.

    In this part, they cover:

    • Whether just encouraging someone young to aspire to more than they currently are is one of the most impactful ways to spend half an hour
    • How much impact the one-on-one team has, the biggest challenges they face as a group, and different paths they could have gone down
    • Whether giving general advice is a doomed enterprise
    • And more

    Who this episode is for:

    • Young people interested in 80,000 Hours
    • People curious about the inner workings of the 1-1 team
    • People who left the first part wanting more

    Who this episode isn’t for:

    • People who left the first part wanting less
    • People who like up-to-date movie recommendations

    Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ’80k After Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

    Producer: Keiran Harris
    Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
    Transcriptions: Katy Moore

    “Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue, original 1924 version” by Jason Weinberger is licensed under creative commons

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    #122 – Michelle Hutchinson & Habiba Islam on balancing competing priorities and other themes from our 1-on-1 careers advising

    Podcast by , , and · Published March 9th, 2022

    One of 80,000 Hours’ main services is our free one-on-one careers advising, which we provide to around 1,000 people a year. Today we speak to two of our advisors, who have each spoken to hundreds of people — including many regular listeners to this show — about how they might be able to do more good while also having a highly motivating career.

    Before joining 80,000 Hours, Michelle Hutchinson completed a PhD in Philosophy at Oxford University and helped launch Oxford’s Global Priorities Institute, while Habiba Islam studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford University and qualified as a barrister.

    Want to get free one-on-one advice from our team? We’re here to help.

    We’ve helped thousands of people formulate their plans and put them in touch with mentors.

    We’ve expanded our ability to deliver one-on-one meetings so are keen to help more people than ever before.

    If you’re a regular listener to the show we’re particularly likely to want to speak with you, either now or in the future.

    Learn about and apply for advising

    In this conversation, they cover many topics that recur in their advising calls, and what they’ve learned from watching advisees’ careers play out:

    • What they say when advisees want to help solve overpopulation
    • How to balance doing good against other priorities that people have for their lives
    • Why it’s challenging to motivate yourself to focus on the long-term future of humanity, and how Michelle and Habiba do so nonetheless
    • How they use our latest guide to planning your career
    • Why you can specialise and take more risk if you’re in a group
    • Gaps in the effective altruism community it would be really useful for people to fill
    • Stories of people who have spoken to 80,000 Hours and changed their career — and whether it went well or not
    • Why trying to have impact in multiple different ways can be a mistake

    The episode is split into two parts: the first section on The 80,000 Hours Podcast, and the second on our new 80k After Hours. This is a shameless attempt to encourage listeners to our first show to subscribe to our second feed.

    That second part covers:

    • Whether just encouraging someone young to aspire to more than they currently are is one of the most impactful ways to spend half an hour
    • How much impact the one-on-one team has, the biggest challenges they face as a group, and different paths they could have gone down
    • Whether giving general advice is a doomed enterprise

    Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ‘80,000 Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

    Producer: Keiran Harris
    Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
    Transcriptions: Katy Moore

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    Expression of interest: writer

    Blog post by · Published March 9th, 2022

    Why 80,000 Hours?

    80,000 Hours’ mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. The effective altruism community, of which we are a part, is growing in reach and now includes funding bodies with over $40 billion to allocate in total. But how do we make sure people are pursuing the right kinds of work in order to turn all those resources into long-term impact? This is the problem 80,000 Hours is trying to solve.

    We’ve had over eight million visitors to our website (with over 100,000 hours of reading time per year), and more than 3,000 people have now told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. 80,000 Hours is also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.

    If you join us as a writer, you’d likely be one of the most widely read writers in effective altruism.

    The role

    As a writer at 80,000 Hours, your work would involve:

    • Framing, researching, outlining, and writing articles
    • Generating ideas for additional articles
    • Helping with others’ writing by providing comments
    • Generally helping grow the impact of the site

    Some of the types of pieces you’d help work on include:

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      23 career choice heuristics

      Blog post · Published March 7th, 2022

      We decided to make a list of all of the career choice heuristics we could think of — see below. Many of these are stated as if completely true, even though we think they aren’t. We invite you to add any additional heuristics you have in the comments of the original post.

      • Scale, number helped — do something that impacts many people positively
      • Scale, degree helped — do something that impacts people to a great positive degree
      • Neglectedness — do something that few others are doing or that won’t be done counterfactually
      • Tractability — do something that makes significant progress on a problem
      • Moments of progress — notice where progress happens in your life and find a career path that integrates those
      • Strong team — if you haven’t worked well alone, join an excellent team
      • Likable people — join a team of people that you like
      • Mental well-being — do something that is optimized for being good for your mental health
      • Team smarter than you — join a team where most people are smarter than you
      • Be a thought or org leader — roughly, there are two types of leaders – thought leaders and org leaders; figure out which type you are more likely to be and optimize for succeeding at that type
      • Learn from leaders — learn from the leaders who you most want to be like
      • Maximize learning/skills,

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      Alex Lawsen on his advice for students

      Podcast (80k After Hours) by and · Published February 2022

      In this episode of 80k After Hours, Keiran Harris interviews 80,000 Hours advisor (and former high school teacher) Alex Lawsen about his advice for students.

      We cover:

      • When half-assing something is a good idea
      • When you should actually learn things vs just try to seem smart
      • Why you should shift your focus over the academic year
      • Novel tips for preparing for exams
      • What to do if you struggle with motivation
      • What to do when you have bad teachers
      • How students should think about exploring and experimenting
      • Bad approaches to learning
      • How to think about personal goals
      • When to start thinking about your career seriously
      • And more

      Who this episode is for:

      • Students, parents, and teachers
      • People who know a student, parent, or teacher
      • People with an interest in improving education

      Who this episode isn’t for:

      • People who never interact with students, parents, or teachers
      • People who get mad when an 80,000 Hours podcast doesn’t feature Rob Wiblin

      Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ’80k After Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

      Producer: Keiran Harris
      Audio mastering: Ryan Kessler
      Transcriptions: Katy Moore

      “Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue, original 1924 version” by Jason Weinberger is licensed under creative commons

      Continue reading →

      Rob and Keiran on the philosophy of The 80,000 Hours Podcast

      Podcast (80k After Hours) by and · Published February 2022

      In this episode of 80k After Hours, Rob Wiblin and Keiran Harris are interviewed by Kearney Capuano and Aaron Bergman of the new podcast All Good about what goes on behind the scenes at The 80,000 Hours Podcast.

      We cover:

      • The history and philosophy of The 80,000 Hours Podcast
      • The nuts and bolts of how we make the show
      • Rob’s bad habits as an interviewer
      • Topics we try to avoid
      • Critiques of the show
      • The pros and cons of podcasting vs other media
      • Our position in the effective altruism community
      • Whether there’s an optimism bias in the EA community
      • Unifying themes of Rob’s and Keiran’s careers
      • Advice for other podcasters
      • And more

      Who this episode is for:

      • Fans of The 80,000 Hours Podcast
      • New podcasters
      • Two 80,000 Hours employees who love the sound of their own voice

      Who this episode isn’t for:

      • People who’ve never heard of The 80,000 Hours Podcast
      • People who only want to learn about more important topics
      • People who hate podcasts

      Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type ’80k After Hours’ into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

      Producer: Keiran Harris
      Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
      Transcriptions: Katy Moore

      “Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue, original 1924 version” by Jason Weinberger is licensed under creative commons

      Continue reading →

      Introducing 80k After Hours

      Blog post by · Published February 28th, 2022

      As The 80,000 Hours Podcast has developed over the last few years, we’ve found ourselves experimenting more with different types of content.

      Things like audio versions of some of our best articles, or less formal chats between team members, or novel topics (like our episode on having a successful career with depression, anxiety, and imposter syndrome).

      But different types of content have different audiences, and some people who love classic episodes with Rob will understandably have no interest in experimental episodes with other folks on the team (or vice versa: maybe some people love everyone else on the team but can’t stand Rob!)

      That’s why we’ve created 80k After Hours.

      It’s a new podcast that includes a much wider variety of content than you’ve come to expect from the original feed.

      It’ll mostly still explore the best ways to do good — and some episodes will be much more laser-focused on careers than most original episodes — but we’re going to feel more comfortable with throwing things up there just because they’re fun or entertaining too.

      We’ll also feel fine with producing some content for much narrower audiences.

      One of our inaugural episodes with Alex Lawsen — on his advice to students — won’t be for everyone. But if you’re a student, a teacher, or a parent,

      Continue reading →

        #121 – Matthew Yglesias on avoiding the pundit's fallacy and how much military intervention can be used for good

        Podcast by and · Published February 16th, 2022

        If you read polls saying that the public supports a carbon tax, should you believe them? According to today’s guest — journalist and blogger Matthew Yglesias — it’s complicated, but probably not.

        Interpreting opinion polls about specific policies can be a challenge, and it’s easy to trick yourself into believing what you want to believe. Matthew invented a term for a particular type of self-delusion called the ‘pundit’s fallacy’: “the belief that what a politician needs to do to improve his or her political standing is do what the pundit wants substantively.”

        If we want to advocate not just for ideas that would be good if implemented, but ideas that have a real shot at getting implemented, we should do our best to understand public opinion as it really is.

        The least trustworthy polls are published by think tanks and advocacy campaigns that would love to make their preferred policy seem popular. These surveys can be designed to nudge respondents toward the desired result — for example, by tinkering with question wording and order or shifting how participants are sampled. And if a poll produces the ‘wrong answer’, there’s no need to publish it at all, so the ‘publication bias’ with these sorts of surveys is large.

        Matthew says polling run by firms or researchers without any particular desired outcome can be taken more seriously. But the results that we ought to give by far the most weight are those from professional political campaigns trying to win votes and get their candidate elected because they have both the expertise to do polling properly, and a very strong incentive to understand what the public really thinks.

        First and foremost, that means representing issues as they would be in a hotly contested campaign. If someone says that they sure like the idea of taxing carbon, how much do they still like it when they find out it means their electricity bills would be $100 higher, and gas will cost 20 cents more a gallon? And do they still like it when they know one of the candidates is against it and says it will cost local jobs? This sort of progressive ‘stress testing’ is more work, but can lead researchers to very different conclusions than just asking people favour ‘policy X’.

        The problem is, campaigns run these expensive surveys because they think that having exclusive access to reliable information will give them a competitive advantage. As a result, they often don’t publish the findings, and instead use them to shape what their candidate says and does.

        Journalists like Matthew can call up their contacts within campaigns and get a summary from people they trust. But being unable to publish the polling itself, they’re unlikely to be able to persuade sceptics.

        That’s a pain and a legitimately hard problem to get around. But when assessing what ideas are winners, one thing Matthew would like everyone to keep in mind is that politics is competitive, and politicians aren’t (all) stupid. If advocating for your pet idea were a great way to win elections, someone would try it and win, and others would copy. If none of the pros are talking about your hobby horse, it might be because they know something you don’t.

        One other thing to check that’s more reliable than polling is real-world experience. For example, voters may say they like a carbon tax on the phone — but the very liberal Washington State roundly rejected one in ballot initiatives in 2016 and 2018.

        Of course you may want to advocate for what you think is best, even if it wouldn’t pass a popular vote in the face of organised opposition. The public’s ideas can shift, sometimes dramatically and unexpectedly. But at least you’ll be going into the debate with your eyes wide open.

        In this extensive conversation, host Rob Wiblin and Matthew also cover:

        • How should a humanitarian think about US military interventions overseas?
        • From an ‘effective altruist’ perspective, was the US wrong to withdraw from Afghanistan?
        • Has NATO ultimately screwed over Ukrainians by misrepresenting the extent of its commitment to their independence?
        • What philosopher does Matthew think is underrated?
        • How big a risk is ubiquitous surveillance?
        • What does Matthew think about wild animal suffering, anti-ageing research, and autonomous weapons?
        • And much more

        Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

        Producer: Keiran Harris
        Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
        Transcriptions: Katy Moore

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        Space governance

        Problem profile by · Published February 2022

        Humanity’s long-run future could be vast in scale and duration, because almost all of it could lie beyond Earth. As private interest in space increases, early work on space governance could positively shape that spacefaring future, and make it less likely that a future in space goes irreversibly wrong. Of course, it also matters that humanity avoids catastrophe in the meantime, and space governance focused on arms control and diplomacy can help here too — mostly by reducing the risk of great power conflict. However, the path to making a really important difference on these issues looks much less clear and robust than in some of our other top recommended areas.

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        China-related AI safety and governance paths

        Career review · Published February 2022

        Expertise in China and its relations with the world might be critical in tackling some of the world’s most pressing problems. In particular, China’s relationship with the US is arguably the most important bilateral relationship in the world, with these two countries collectively accounting for over 40% of global GDP. These considerations led us to publish a guide to improving China–Western coordination on global catastrophic risks and other key problems in 2018. Since then, we have seen an increase in the number of people exploring this area.

        China is one of the most important countries developing and shaping advanced artificial intelligence (AI). The Chinese government’s spending on AI research and development is estimated to be on the same order of magnitude as that of the US government, and China’s AI research is prominent on the world stage and growing.

        Because of the importance of AI from the perspective of improving the long-run trajectory of the world, we think relations between China and the US on AI could be among the most important aspects of their relationship. Insofar as the EU and/or UK influence advanced AI development through labs based in their countries or through their influence on global regulation, the state of understanding and coordination between European and Chinese actors on AI safety and governance could also be significant.

        That, in short, is why we think working on AI safety and governance in China and/or building mutual understanding between Chinese and Western actors in these areas is likely to be one of the most promising China-related career paths.

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        Expression of interest: popular writing consultant

        Blog post by · Published February 7th, 2022

        Why 80,000 Hours?

        80,000 Hours’ mission is to get talented people working on the world’s most pressing problems. The effective altruism community, of which we are a part, is growing in reach and now includes funding bodies with over $40 billion to allocate in total. But how do we turn all those resources into long-term impact? This is the problem 80,000 Hours is trying to solve.

        We’ve had over 8 million visitors to our website (with over 100,000 hours of reading time per year), and more than 3,000 people have now told us that they’ve significantly changed their career plans due to our work. 80,000 Hours is also the largest single source of people getting involved in the effective altruism community, according to the most recent EA Survey.

        The role

        We’re looking for a contractor to give our research and writing team regular advice and feedback on their blog posts, articles, and newsletters — helping them produce pieces that are as compelling and engaging as possible. This would mean giving advice about the structure and content of new pieces, and editing drafts to make them punchier and more grabbing.

        Some examples of the types of pieces you’d help work on:

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          Software engineering

          Career review by · Published February 2022

          On December 31, 2021, the most valuable company on Earth was Apple, worth around $3 trillion. After that came Microsoft, at $2.5 trillion, then Google (officially Alphabet) at $1.9 trillion, then Amazon at $1.5 trillion.

          On December 31, 2020, the four most valuable companies were: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google.

          On December 31, 2019, the four most valuable companies were: Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

          And on December 31, 2018, the four most valuable companies were: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, and Google.

          If you’re anything like me, you’re starting to spot a pattern here.

          Revenue in software has grown from $400 billion in 2016 to $500 billion in 2021, and is projected to reach $800 billion by 2026.

          Software has an increasing and overwhelming importance in our economy — and everything else in our society. High demand and low supply makes software engineering well-paid, and often enjoyable.

          But we also think that, if you’re trying to make the world a better place, software engineering could be a particularly good way to help.

          This review owes a lot to helpful discussions with (and comments from) Andy Jones, Ozzie Gooen, Jeff Kaufman, Sasha Cooper, Ben Kuhn, Nova DasSarma, Kamal Ndousse, Ethan Alley, Ben West, Ben Mann, Tom Conerly, Zac Hatfield-Dodds, and George McGowan. Special thanks go to Roman Duda for our previous review of software engineering, on which this was based.

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          #120 – Audrey Tang on what we can learn from Taiwan's experiments with how to do democracy

          Podcast by and · Published February 2nd, 2022

          In 2014 Taiwan was rocked by mass protests against a proposed trade agreement with China that was about to be agreed to without the usual Parliamentary hearings. Students invaded and took over the Parliament. But rather than chant slogans, instead they livestreamed their own parliamentary debate over the trade deal, allowing volunteers to speak both in favour and against.

          Instead of polarising the country more, this so-called Sunflower Student Movement ultimately led to a bipartisan consensus that Taiwan should open up its government. That process has gradually made it one of the most communicative and interactive administrations anywhere in the world.

          Today’s guest — programming prodigy Audrey Tang — initially joined the student protests to help get their streaming infrastructure online. After the students got the official hearings they wanted and went home, she was invited to consult for the government. And when the government later changed hands, she was invited to work in the ministry herself.

          During six years as the country’s ‘Digital Minister’ she has been helping Taiwan increase the flow of information between institutions and civil society and launched original experiments trying to make democracy itself work better.

          That includes developing new tools to identify points of consensus between groups that mostly disagree, building social media platforms optimised for discussing policy issues, helping volunteers fight disinformation by making their own memes, and allowing the public to build their own alternatives to government websites whenever they don’t like how they currently work.

          As part of her ministerial role, Audrey also sets aside time each week to help online volunteers working on government-related tech projects get the help they need. How does she decide who to help? She doesn’t — that decision is made by members of an online community who upvote the projects they think are best.

          According to Audrey, a more collaborative mentality among the country’s leaders has helped increase public trust in government, and taught bureaucrats that they can (usually) trust the public in return.

          Innovations in Taiwan may offer useful lessons to people who want to improve humanity’s ability to make decisions and get along in large groups anywhere in the world. We cover:

          • Why it makes sense to treat Facebook as a nightclub
          • The value of having no reply button, and of getting more specific when you disagree
          • Quadratic voting and funding
          • Audrey’s experiences with the Sunflower Student Movement
          • Technologies Audrey is most excited about
          • Conservative anarchism
          • What Audrey’s day-to-day work looks like
          • Whether it’s ethical to eat oysters
          • And much more

          Get this episode by subscribing to our podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80,000 Hours into your podcasting app. Or read the transcript below.

          Producer: Keiran Harris
          Audio mastering: Ben Cordell
          Transcriptions: Katy Moore

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          Open position: Head of Job Board

          Blog post by and · Published January 27th, 2022

          80,000 Hours is hiring a Head of Job Board to lead the job board. They will be responsible for setting and executing strategy to grow the job board’s impact, as well as managing and hiring the job board team.

          More than 180,000 users visited the job board in 2021. Over the next few years, we hope to grow the job board to the point where millions of people per year use it to find out about impactful jobs.

          This role is based in London, UK. The salary will vary based on your skills and experience, but the starting salary for someone with five years of relevant experience would be approximately £72,000 per year.

          To apply for this role, please complete this application form by 11pm GMT on Sunday, 27 February 2022.

          We are offering a £1000 referral bonus to anyone outside the Centre for Effective Altruism who suggests a successful candidate we didn’t otherwise have on our radar. Please email [email protected] with your referrals.

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            Our advisors want to talk with more people than ever before

            Blog post by and · Published January 25th, 2022

            Last year, 80,000 Hours’ advisors spoke to more people than ever before — and we are hoping to help even more people this year! If 80,000 Hours’ content resonates with you, and you want to get help applying the ideas to your career, then apply to speak with our team.

            What we did in 2021

            2021 was a landmark year for the 80,000 Hours one-on-one team:

            • We had over 800 advising calls. That’s the most calls per year in our 10-year history!
            • We hired two new advisors, Alex Lawsen and Matt Reardon, to join Habiba Islam on the team. That means we now have more people focused on helping people one-on-one than ever before.
            • We spoke to about 50% of people who applied — and when we didn’t speak to people ourselves, we often connected them with someone else, or sent them resources to help with their career planning.

            We plan to continue to expand our service and help more people to find high-impact careers in 2022. So if it sounds like we can help you, apply now!

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