New releases

Policy careers

Blog post by · Published January 18th, 2012

The 80,000 Hours ‘Banker vs. Aid Worker’ media campaign has certainly succeeded in causing a stir, but many have been misled about the central message of the organization. We are not based around the single idea that one should pursue a higher-earning career in order to donate the proceeds to charity – much less that bankers are inherently the most ethical career path.

Rather, we wish to reflect seriously and in clear-headed fashion upon the impact our careers can have, and adjust our life plans accordingly. This means looking into the tremendous power our earnings have, but our impact is by no means limited to them…

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WikiCharities, for those who haven’t seen it

Blog post by · Published January 16th, 2012

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.

(no further text)

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    Salary or startup? How do-gooders can gain more from risky careers

    Blog post by · Published January 8th, 2012

    Consider Sam, a software engineer at Google. His employer ranks highly in both quality-of-life and salary rankings. Sam is a great coder, and passionate about his work. But Sam is not satisfied: he is sorely tempted to take his savings and launch his own company. There are costs in taking the plunge: entrepreneurship would mean working harder, and investing time and money into a venture that might easily fail with nothing to show for it. On the other hand, success would mean bringing his vision to life, and potentially a financial payoff far beyond what he could hope for as a salaried employee.

    Considering just these factors, Sam isn’t sure which way to go, like many other talented technologists. But if one of Sam’s goals is making a big impact on the lives of others, that can tip the balance towards entrepreneurship. Here’s how…

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    Health vs education

    Blog post by · Published January 4th, 2012

    If you want to make a difference with your philanthropic donations it is important to donate to a good charity, rather than buying books for a school that has no teachers and so on. But how do we decide? It is all very well to say that a charity that saves 100 lives is better than a charity that saves 10 lives for the same cost, but not all charities are so easily comparable. Here I will try to compare health and education interventions…

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    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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