New releases

Delayed Gratification? – Choosing When to Donate

Blog post by · Published December 8th, 2011

Most charities spend money at about the rate at which they take it in, while most foundations pay out just five percent of their assets each year, the legal minimum in the US. Which strategy does more good? The answer matters to you as well as to charitable organizations: you can give away your money soon after you earn it, or you can invest it in a donor-advised fund and allow it to grow for an indefinite amount of time before giving it away. (Donor-advised funds offer tax savings and require that the money be contributed to charity.) The question of whether to give now or later is complicated, so I’ll mention just a few of the considerations involved…

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It is Effectiveness, not Overhead that Matters

Blog post by · Published November 24th, 2011

Would you rather help one person or 200 people, if it took the same effort? If you do what most people
do, you’ll be lucky if you help even one.

Let’s say you recognize that giving to charities can make a profound impact in others’ lives and perhaps
you even believe it’s morally the right thing to do. Perhaps you once met someone who was blind and
now you are drawn to helping the blind. You’ve made the choice of a cause, but there are hundreds of
organizations that help the blind and thus seem deserving of your money.

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Today Show

Blog post by · Published November 22nd, 2011

80,000 Hours founder Will Crouch appeared with Private Eye editor Ian Hislop on BBC Radio 4’s The
Today Show. The interview opens with Will explaining the logic behind 80,000 Hours’ “Banker vs. Aid Worker”
campaign: namely, that a professional philanthropist, or someone who enters a lucrative career with
the intention of giving much of it away, can fund the work of several aid workers, and as such can do
several times as much good.

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William MacAskill of 80,000 Hours featured on the Today Programme

Blog post by · Published November 22nd, 2011

Will Crouch
Want to make a difference? Want to make the most different that you can?
Become a banker. An ethical banker.

Not what you expected? Research on professional philanthropy by an Oxford
University ethicist today reveals a new way of looking at ethical careers.
Believe it or not, it is possible to be an ethical banker. William Crouch
today discusses his research at the Uehiro Centre in Oxford University’s
Philosophy Faculty with Ian Hislop on the Today Programme at 8:45am.

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The best causes – updated

Blog post by · Published November 20th, 2011

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?

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High Impact Science

Blog post by · Published November 15th, 2011

Paul Ehrlich began his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, with this statement:

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to
death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a
substantial increase in the world death rate.

Ehrlich predicted the deaths as a consequence of the challenge of feeding a
rapidly growing world population, pointing to recent devastating famines in
South Asia. But even as those words were written, the fields were being planted
with new, higher-yielding semi-dwarf strains of wheat and rice.

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Our Worst Subjects

Blog post by · Published November 14th, 2011

“I prefer to give to local organizations.” I’ve heard this a lot.

Imagine a high school student who sits down to study for exams. Her chemistry
book is lying closest to her on the desk, so she decides to study chemistry.
Her father points out that since she has an A in chemistry and a D in geometry,
studying geometry might help her grades more. “But that book is all the way
over there in my backpack,” the student points out; “I prefer to study
locally.”

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Estimation is the best we have

Blog post by · Published November 9th, 2011

This argument seems common to many debates:

‘Proposal P arrogantly assumes that it is possible to measure X, when really
X is hard to measure and perhaps even changes depending on other factors.
Therefore we shouldn’t do P’.

This could make sense if X wasn’t especially integral to the goal. For
instance if the proposal were to measure short distances by triangulation
with nearby objects, a reasonable criticism would be that the angles are hard
to measure, relative to measuring the distance directly. But this argument is
commonly used in situations where optimizing X is the whole point of the
activity, or a large part of it.

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