New releases

The most important unsolved problems in ethics

Blog post by · Published October 14th, 2012

In 1900 the mathematician David Hilbert published a list of 23 of the most important unsolved problems in mathematics. This list heavily influenced mathematical research over the 20th century: if you worked on one of Hilbert’s problems, then you were doing respectable mathematics.

There is no such list within moral philosophy. That’s a shame. Not all problems that are discussed in ethics are equally important. And often early graduate students have no idea what to write their thesis on – and so just pick something they’ve written on for coursework previously, or pick something that’s ‘hot’ at the time. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine the same is true of many other academic disciplines.

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How to do one year of work in four hours

Blog post by · Published October 11th, 2012

The author, Tim Ferriss, promises to teach you how to cut your working week down to just four hours, using a careful combination of Indian virtual assistants, the 80/20 principle and automatic email responders. But Ferriss has nothing on us. If your goal is to help others, then you can cut your entire working year down to just four hours.

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Why don’t charities spend more on fundraising?

Blog post by · Published October 9th, 2012

People often think it’s bad for their charity of choice to spend money fundraising. This has always been a mystery to me. If a charity can use your money to go out and raise even more money, that’s great! They’ve just multiplied the impact of your donation. It turns out that charities are being pretty rational after all.

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When should I quantify? – Quantification – Part 4

Blog post by · Published October 8th, 2012

Every 48 seconds someone dies of malaria. Every one of those deaths is a human being with passions and loves and feelings. When we talk about quantifying our impact on the world it is important not to forget what those numbers mean. They mean people. Every single year of happy life we can give, is a joyful thing to the person living it. This is ultimately why we what to have as much impact as possible. Because more people living happy joyful lives is better than fewer.

Mosquito Netting

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    How to do important research

    Blog post by · Published October 4th, 2012

    Many academics want to do important research that makes the world a better place. Unfortunately, there’s virtually no guidance out there.

    We’re aiming to build a resource of strategies and ideas for finding high impact research questions, as well as practical information about how to get involved with them.

    In this post, we take a first step and explore how to find research questions that need your talent.

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    Let’s stop building schools

    Blog post by · Published October 3rd, 2012

    I recently came accross Taylor Conroy, who’s using an innovative fundraising technique to let ordinary people to raise $8,500 to build a school with just an evening’s work. The method has since been expanded to include water pumps and libraries. The fundraising is amazing, but I can’t help slightly regretting the goal towards which Taylor has directed his considerable talents. Building a school is a motivating, tangible project, which seems to obviously be a good thing. They can send you pictures of it after it’s built. But is this really where we should be directing our efforts?

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    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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