New releases

Quantification as a Lamppost in the Dark – Quantification – Part 3

Blog post by · Published October 2nd, 2012

Late one evening a police officer comes across a man on the way home from a party. He is quite drunk and looking for something under a lamppost. “What are you looking for?” asks the policeman. “My keys,” the man replies, pointing down the road a little way, “I dropped them over there.” The policeman is baffled, “Then why are you looking for them here?”. “Because there’s no light over there.”

The joke is old but it gets to the heart of the debate over quantification. Is it best to look for keys under lampposts?

Gecko in lamp by night

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    Quantum Quest: Pruning Procrastination

    Blog post by · Published September 23rd, 2012

    In a series of posts, I will offer a perspective on the “quantum quest” – the evolving attempt to make tomorrow better than today. Changing the world is certainly a quest. And while the evolution may appear to be smooth and continuous, it happens in discrete steps – hence the “quantum”.

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      Quantification – Part 2 – The Dangers

      Blog post by · Published September 19th, 2012

      Somalia is in crisis. For decades it has been racked by civil war, famine, and political violence. Members of 80,000 Hours who want to help the people of Somalia will most likely explore various ways they can help and assess them quantitatively. Is it obvious that quantitative methods provide the correct tools to deal with a crisis like this? Or instead can quantification limit the kinds of possible interventions we think about, blinding us to significant long term solutions?

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        Does money make you happy?

        Blog post by · Published September 18th, 2012

        If we’re to believe the Internet, various apologists for materialism have quipped that whoever said money can’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop. Indeed, the happiness of others can be bought at bargain-basement prices with a donation to an effective charity. If you’re thinking of donating a substantial portion of your income, though, it’s natural to wonder how your well-being will be affected. What can research tell us about this..?

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        How much malaria is biodiversity worth?

        Blog post by · Published August 25th, 2012

        Every day, almost everything we do is about prioritisation. Given how important prioritisation is, and how much people seem to care about doing it right, it’s startling that relatively little research is done into how best to prioritise the most important issues facing society.

        What do you think the most important challenges facing humanity are…?

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          Should we sacrifice doing what we love to make a difference? part 1

          Blog post by · Published August 23rd, 2012

          We all want to find a career which makes us happy: but for many there seems to be a conflict between doing what one loves, and making a difference. My initial interest in 80,000 Hours was sparked by a desire to resolve a conflict between wanting to make a difference in my career, and wanting to pursue philosophy research (which I considered fairly low impact.)(1) I recognised that I could potentially make more difference by applying my numerical skills to a high-earning career and donating to greater causes – but the thing is, I just don’t want to do this. And shouldn’t this count for something, even for the aspiring effective altruist? Should we have to give up doing what we love in order to make a difference?

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          Project Launch: Effective Animal Activism

          Blog post by · Published August 17th, 2012

          Among the goals of 80,000 hours is to provide resources to our community on the issues that matter most to us. As a result, we took the initiative to launch a new web-page dedicated to Effective Animal Activism: http://effectiveanimalactivism.org/, as a part of 80,000 hours, for our members to research, share, and act upon the most effective forms of giving our time or money to help animals.

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          How to find a job you’ll love

          Blog post by · Published August 16th, 2012

          If you want to be satisfied at work, what characteristics should you look for? Prestige, money, something you’re passionate about, a corner office? Books on careers guidance often start by asking you to consider your values and desired lifestyle, and then to find a job that matches them. But why expect this approach to work? Research has shown that the only consistently present characteristic of satisfying jobs is that the work itself is mentally challenging (1)(2). This suggests that finding challenging work should be the starting point for a satisfying career.

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          Social interventions gone wrong

          Blog post by · Published August 15th, 2012

          Lots of social interventions end up doing more harm than good. Many more make no difference at, and they’re just a waste of resources. At times, we’ve probably argued with friends about which interventions we’d like to see, and which we wouldn’t. But are we any good at judging what’s likely to work?

          Try and guess which of these eight programs made a difference, which had no effect, and which made things worse…

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          Don’t ‘do what you’re passionate about’ – part 1

          Blog post by · Published August 3rd, 2012

          Common advice in choosing a career is “do what you’re passionate about.” An article on lifehack begins: “If you could do one thing to transform your life, I would highly recommend it be to find something you’re passionate about, and do it for a living.” The first paragraph of the major careers advice book Career Ahead ends “You owe it to yourself to do work that you love. This book will show you how.” But what happens if your passion is for beautifully executed contract killings?

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          Universalisability – Immoral Industries Part 3

          Blog post by · Published July 31st, 2012

          When I tell people that they might want to consider professional philanthropy as a career choice, they react in a lot of different ways. Some people raise an eyebrow. “Seb,” they say as if explaining something very obvious, “if everybody quit their jobs and took a high earning career to give money to charities, then there wouldn’t be anybody to give the money to!”

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