Effective Altruism

Added 17 Jan 2018: See also my summary and book review of "Doing Good Better" by William MacAskill here.

Added 28 Jan 2018: See my summary and book review of "80,000 Hours" by Benjamin Todd here.

I originally composed this document while serving in a local (informal) effective altruism committee. I have slightly adapted the preface to reproduce it here. It is a general-purpose introduction to the main concepts and principles of the effective altruism movement.

The PDF version can be found at this link. The HTML version is below the line.

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A Concise Introduction to Effective Altruism

What you need to know

By Quaerendo

Table of Contents

Preface.. 1

1  Introduction. 2

  1.1 Helping others. 2

  1.2 How effective altruism is different 2

  1.3 Biased brains. 2

  1.4 Inevitable tradeoffs. 3

  1.5 Joining the movement 3

2  Charity Evaluation. 4

  2.1 Why efficient charity?. 4

  2.2 Whites in shining armor 4

  2.3 Measuring efficiency and benefits. 5

  2.4 Top charities. 5

3  Cause Selection. 6

  3.1 Global poverty. 6

  3.2 Meta effective altruism... 6

  3.3 Existential risk. 6

  3.4 Animal suffering.. 7

  3.5 Choosing a cause.. 7

4  Career Choice.. 8

  4.1 Earning to give.. 8

  4.2 High-impact science.. 8

  4.3 Assessing career impact 9

  4.4 Organization: 80,000 Hours. 9

5  Resources. 10

  5.1 Books. 10

  5.2 Organizations & Websites. 10

  5.3 TED Talks. 11

  5.4 More.. 11

References. 12

Preface

Most of you will agree that helping others is good. You will probably also agree that the more you help, the better. You may have heard about Effective Altruism, and wondered what all the fuss is about. Fear not, for we will explain exactly that in this document. We shall show how you can make altruism a big part of your life. We’ll see how effective altruism is at its core just about doing what has the biggest positive impact, and using evidence to figure out what that is [1]. Effective altruism combines the empathy we feel in our hearts with the rational thinking of our heads. How should you prioritize your time and money? Over the last few years, a number of organizations have done enough research to be able to give preliminary answers. Moreover, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been raised for the world’s most pressing causes [1]. The community is growing fast, and we hope you’ll share our enthusiasm.

This short book was inspired by The Effective Altruism Handbook (edited by Ryan Carey and published by the Centre for Effective Altruism), which is a compendium of essays and articles available online for free. However, as it may be too long for some readers, this document aims to condense the core material into a more concise version. We therefore hope that this can serve as an effective introduction for new members to the Effective Altruism community, or simply as a brochure.

Yours truly,

Michael (alias Quaerendo)
November, 2016

1 | Introduction

We begin by looking at the key ideas behind effective altruism. To what extent are we obliged to help others? How does effective altruism differ from traditional ways of helping others? How should we go about making optimal altruistic decisions? These questions are explored in this first chapter.

1.1 Helping others

Ancient wisdom warns us that the pursuit of individualistic hedonism as an explicit goal is often self-defeating. Indeed, in today’s materialistic consumer culture, many people find their lives lacking in meaning. Science has even given us evidence that more wealth does not equate to more happiness once our basic needs are met [2]. For Holden Karnofsky, altruism itself can be a great source of joy. He says:

“It makes my life feel more meaningful and more important. It’s a way of trying to have an impact and significance beyond my daily experience. In other words, it meets the sort of non-material needs that many people have.” [3]

This does not mean you cannot have fun or enjoy little pleasures like good food, but it means shifting your perspective, and becoming more empathetic. It means expanding your circle of concern to a global level, and realizing that you can save the lives of strangers on a different continent at a relatively small cost to yourself – so why not do it? [2]

1.2 How effective altruism is different

The foundational principle of effective altruism is that we want the world to be as good as it can possibly be. Instead of picking what activities we want to do and taking the why for granted, effective altruism starts from the why (to make the most difference we can) and then figures out how to do that (use robust evidence and careful reasoning) before determining what to do [4]. Thus, effective altruists seek ways of doing the most good with their time or money by using empirical evidence, clear arguments, and rational reflection. So what do we actually do? The current best guess is that the issues with the highest stakes and most potential for progress are global poverty, factory farming, and the long-term future of life on Earth [4]. Organizations like Giving What We Can and The Life You Can Save focus on fundraising for the world’s most effective charities; Animal Charity Evaluators attempts to find ways of improving animal welfare; and 80,000 Hours gives advice on how to achieve the greatest positive impact through your career [4].

1.3 Biased brains 

The importance of being rational can be illustrated by a cognitive bias called scope neglect or scope insensitivity. Numerous studies have found that the scope of an altruistic action has little effect on our willingness to take action. For example, one experiment asked three groups of subjects how much they would be willing to pay to save a number of birds from dying in oil ponds – either 2000, 20000 or 200000 birds. The average answer was $80 for the first group, and $78 and $88 for the second and third groups respectively [5]. The image of a suffering bird triggers an emotional response, and we experience a “warm glow” by doing some amount of good, but our brains simply cannot multiply that emotion and determination by a factor of a hundred or a thousand. However, as effective altruists we must remind ourselves that yes, the number of zeroes on paper does indeed matter more than how we feel, if we want to do as much good as we can [5].

1.4 Inevitable tradeoffs

Another failure of rationality is not to think in terms of opportunity costs or tradeoffs. The opportunity cost of spending €2 on a bottle of cola is that you can no longer spend that €2 on anything else, like a milkshake or bus ticket or pen or whatever. According to economic theory, this implies that you value the cola more than those other things [6]. In reality, we can’t be bothered to think about all the infinite alternatives every time we make a choice. However, if you care about helping others, you need to be especially aware of the tradeoffs involved in buying that expensive new TV or pair of leather shoes: how much could that money help someone in the developing world with their groceries, school fees, vaccinations, or mosquito nets? Do you value the TV more than that? Thinking like this every time you buy something can make you feel awful. Julia Wise recommends the easier approach of setting a budget and donating a part to the best charities [6]. In the end, you’ll be happier while still doing the most good you can. Effective altruism is not about living like an ascetic monk, but “being excited about making the world a better place, and inspiring others to do the same.” [1]

1.5 Joining the movement

You too can get involved in the effective altruism movement; for example, you can join the various Facebook groups, get career coaching from 80,000 Hours, or just read more about effective altruism. If you’re up for it, you can even donate to GiveWell’s top recommended charities or take Giving What We Can’s pledge to give 10% of your income [1]. We hope you’ll agree with us that this community and social movement makes a lot of sense! Welcome aboard.

2 | Charity Evaluation

One of the most powerful ways of making a difference is by spending your money the right way. In this chapter, we show you how to do the most good with the euros in your pocket, by looking at efficient charities. We begin by noting that not all charities are created equal – some are better than others.     

2.1 Why efficient charity?

We all have to make ends meet, but with a limited amount of money we cannot afford everything we want. Therefore, we prioritize the most important things, like food and rent. If you’re a student, you would rather buy a €500 laptop than a €2000 laptop, because that extra €1500 is money that could have been better spent elsewhere. In economics this concept is called opportunity cost [7]. The same reasoning should apply to philanthropy and charity: if you care about helping people, then you should allocate your resources in the way that helps the most people. According to GiveWell, antimalarial drugs cost ten times as much as insecticide-treated bed nets per each child saved from malaria [7]. Thus if you want to save children, donate bed nets, not antimalarial drugs.

It's not always that easy to say which charity is best. For example, is it better to fund bed nets than novel research, or new supercomputers that could accelerate research? You might compare overhead costs, but that is often insufficient. A charity that can save a life for €500 with 50% overhead is still better than one that can save a life for €5000 with 0% overhead. Likewise with spending your time: you might look good to others and feel good by volunteering to clean up trash on a beach, but if you are a superstar corporate attorney who charges €1000 per hour, you could have spent an extra hour working to donate €1000 to the Against Malaria Foundation. There may not be an easy answer to which charity is best, but the question needs to be asked, otherwise we end up giving £550,000 to preserve a famous painting rather than improving sanitation systems in African villages, as 11000 British donors did in 2007 [7].

2.2 Whites in shining armor 

Some people might wonder why they should donate only to fight malaria or other specific parasites, rather than addressing other important needs like economic growth, education or gender equality. The answer, according to Holden Karnofsky, is that we in the developed world are not the only ones capable of improving things; most progress can in fact be locally driven [8]. Outsiders often understand complex local problems poorly, so despite good intentions they can make things worse. So how can we empower locally-driven progress? Firstly, we can take a “bottom-up” approach to philanthropic projects, driven by local needs. Secondly, we can focus on doing what we’re good at: health and nutrition appear to be areas where developed-world charities have most expertise in. Finally, we can give money directly to locals through unconditional cash transfers. One organization involved in this is GiveDirectly [8].

2.3 Measuring efficiency and benefits

Common measures of “efficiency” can be misleading. A lot of people look at the overhead (admin) to program ratio, and they assume that a charity where 90% of donations go to the cause is better or more efficient than one where 70% of donations go to the cause. But Dan Pallotta says this misses the point of an organization: actually making an impact [9]. A soup kitchen with a higher overhead may serve better soup in cleaner facilities with friendlier staff and longer opening hours. And spending more money on fundraising in the short-term may lead to greater impact in the long-run because the charity is more likely to achieve its goal, e.g. a vaccine. Sadly, people still donate to charities with low overhead ratios because they are seen as “efficient”, despite the ratio telling us nothing about how good the charity is at what it does [9].

Measuring things quantitatively can often be difficult, and this applies to impact too. How can we tell whether we are actually increasing net welfare, or by how much? Some people take this as a criticism of cost-benefit approaches to charity (and utilitarianism in general), and conclude that therefore we need a different strategy [10]. However, that is the wrong conclusion to draw. If the whole point is to do good by increasing welfare (or reducing extreme suffering) then the difficulty of doing quantitative assessments is not a reason to ditch that goal. If we want to be as cost-effective as possible, then trying to increase the accuracy of our estimates is a much better strategy than throwing them away altogether. You cannot be better at optimizing welfare by refusing to estimate levels of welfare. As Katja Grace tells us: “estimation is the best we have.” [10]  

2.4 Top charities

So, taking all of that into account, what are the current top charities? GiveWell is an organization that evaluates charities for effectiveness, and they recommend Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), Deworm the World Initiative (DtWI), GiveDirectly, and Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) [11]. Additionally, organizations with good potential for becoming top-tier charities, and may be worth donating to, include Development Media International (DMI), The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s Universal Salt Iodization program (GAIN-USI), International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders Global Network (ICCIDD), and Living Goods [11]. As of May 2015, the “ideal allocation” of donations would be 67% to AMF, 13% to SCI, 13% to GiveDirectly, and 7% to DtWI [11]. Check out the website at GiveWell.org for more details on their recommended charities.

3 | Cause Selection

In this chapter, we explore the world’s most important causes – which areas should you focus on if you want to do the most good you can? To start, let us look at poverty alleviation, probably the largest and most visible cause [12]. We then look at meta EA, the long-term future, and animal suffering.

3.1 Global poverty

People with good intentions want to help out those in their local communities. In terms of overall impact, however, it is more effective to donate your money to charities operating in the world’s poorest countries. To assess impact, we need not stories but evidence. Data from GiveWell indicates that it costs on average $3300 per life saved from malaria by the Against Malaria Foundation. By comparison, some of the best programs in the U.S. (like the Nurse-Family Partnership or KIPP, which both aim to improve academic performance) cost over $10,000 per child served [13]. Of course, whether in the U.S. or in developing countries, some charities are more cost-effective than others. Some organizations involved in working with effective charities include GiveWell, The Life You Can Save, and Giving What We Can [12]. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has also funded cost-effective interventions like vaccines. While it is easier to evaluate the effectiveness of direct interventions, there is also potential to make a difference indirectly through e.g. economic or political reforms [12].

3.2 Meta effective altruism

What if you could convince more people to become effective altruists? That would in itself be a way of improving the world, even if you could convince only one person to accomplish as much good as you would have done. Indeed, if we assume that this person is just as effective in improving the world, then influencing them would do just as much good as if you did the work yourself. And you could realistically do this in less than two years [14]. This means that one way of measuring the marginal impact of an activity is to compare it to how much you could have improved the world by influencing others. Another implication is that spending the next few years influencing people could potentially be more valuable than the rest of your life after that. You could apply this lesson to the early stages of your career as well, to aid in career choice [14]. Organizations involved with “meta” activities include 80,000 Hours (career counseling), the Center for Applied Rationality (promoting rational thinking), and Leverage Research (growing the EA movement) [12].

3.3 Existential risk

One very important cause is reducing the risk of human extinction. There are many threats to life on Earth, including asteroid collisions, nuclear war, bioengineered diseases, dangerous future technologies, and extreme climate change [15]. Human extinction would be bad for two reasons: firstly, billions of people would be killed; and secondly, there would be no future generations – no future full of happy and fulfilling lives, no more progress, and a wasted potential for intelligent civilization. The philosophical assumption here is that future generations matter just as much as this one, therefore ensuring their existence is a good thing. If you accept this, then you should also accept that even a tiny reduction in existential risk can be very good [15].

How can we reduce the risk of human extinction? We can take action by tracking asteroids, building underground bunkers, tracking the spread of diseases more effectively, developing better plans for responding to climate change (e.g. reducing greenhouse gas emissions), reducing stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and strengthening institutions’ abilities to respond to catastrophe. Furthermore, we can systematically improve our understanding of existential risks and study the most effective ways of reducing them, or support others who do the research [15]. Organizations in this area include the Future of Humanity Institute, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, the Future of Life Institute, the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (researching artificial intelligence risk), and the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute [12].

3.4 Animal suffering

Perhaps we should look not only at humans, but also at the lives of nonhuman animals. Most of us would agree that racism and sexism are wrong, because all human beings should be treated equally. But why? According to Peter Singer, equality has nothing to do with the fact that we are physically similar or different (in terms of intelligence, emotion or strength). Rather, equality is a moral principle that prescribes how we should consider others’ needs and interests [16]. Since animals are beings too, the principle of equality should be extended to them. Just because we are more intelligent does not entitle us to exploit them, for the same reason that human slavery would not be justified even if genetic differences between races were real. We can avoid huge amounts of animal suffering by altering our diets, farming methods, science experiments, practices of hunting and wearing furs, and places of entertainment like circuses and zoos [16]. Animals vastly outnumber humans, so this is an important cause. Organization in this area include Animal Charity Evaluators, which recommends The Humane League, Mercy for Animals, and Animal Equality International [12].  

3.5 Choosing a cause

So these then are the major focus areas of the effective altruism movement: poverty reduction, meta EA, the far future, and animal suffering. Other focus areas, including environmentalism, could become popular in the future [12]. Which cause you ultimately decide to prioritize will depend on numerous factors, including your personal values. We recommend you check out the Cause Prioritization Tool on the website effectivealtruism.org. Note that you can work in multiple areas at the same time, or switch between them. Whichever cause you choose to work on, remember that cooperating with other effective altruists helps you learn and helps grow the movement. Godspeed!

4 | Career Choice

Everybody wants to be a hero. However, heroism is not just about what you are, but what you do. The average person has about 80 000 working hours in their life – what will you choose to do during yours? [1] If you are a university student, chances are that you are currently contemplating all the various career options in front of you, and you might feel stuck. In this chapter, we introduce you to ways in which you can significantly improve the lives of people throughout the world through your career. We look at the idea of earning to give, the potential of scientific research, and ways of assessing the impact of different careers. In the end, we hope that you will feel less stuck!

4.1 Earning to give

If you want to make a difference in the world, how should you spend your time? William MacAskill recommends a strategy called “earning to give”: find a high paying job, for example in finance, and then donate 50% of your lifetime earnings to effective charities. This way you’ll make a bigger difference than working directly in the charitable sector, for three reasons. Firstly, as a banker or trader you can make enough to pay for not just one, but two or three charity workers in your place. Secondly, it is likely that these charity workers will do the same job anyway, but less likely that another Wall Street broker would donate as much to charity as you. Finally, by donating you have the choice of funding the most cost-effective charities: $40000 can service one blind person with a guide dog, or alternatively save 1600 people from blinding trachoma in developing counties [17]. It turns out, going for the money need not make you a selfish villain! Other options for earning to give include engineering, dentistry, consulting, actuarial work, law, or tech entrepreneurship [18]. 

4.2 High-impact science

There are also high-impact opportunities within scientific research, in fields like medicine, physics, mathematics, computer science, economics and others [19]. More specifically, some of the most important research topics include risks from artificial intelligence, biosecurity, developing meat substitutes, researching global priorities, biomedical research, tail risks from climate change, and development economics [20]. Norman Borlaug has contributed to saving a billion lives as a result of the new strains of wheat he developed, which fueled the “Green Revolution” during which wheat production in South Asia nearly doubled between 1965 and 1970 [19]. These technological achievements might have occurred anyway, but people like Borlaug make them happen much sooner. If malaria kills 781000 people every year, then speeding up progress towards eradication by only one day can save 2139 lives [19]. The question to ask yourself is: how much can you advance your field? If research is not your thing, you can also make a direct impact through party politics, creating an effective non-profit, or working inside governments, foundations or international organizations [18]. 

4.3 Assessing career impact

If you are still unsure, consider the following framework from Ben Todd in order to assess the impact of different career options [18]. The first factor to consider is how much immediate influence your role will give you (either through direct impact, donating earnings, or advocating for important causes). Second, how much career capital will this job or role allow you to build? Career capital includes skills, qualifications and connections that give you long-run flexibility. This is important with regards to your long-term potential to enter positions of impact. Third, you’re likely to have a bigger impact if the role is a personal fit, because you also need to be able to take advantage of all the opportunities presented to you. Personal fit also relates to job satisfaction, which is important to avoid burnout. Finally, the fourth factor is the extent to which an option will allow you to explore and learn more about your future career options; this “exploration value” can be useful especially when you are still young (which you probably are).

Fig. 1 Career framework. Source: [22]

The best career for you ultimately depends on your own circumstances, but some of the most promising careers include the ones mentioned earlier, as well as journalism, policy-oriented civil service, software engineering and data science [18].

4.4 Organization: 80,000 Hours

These career paths are recommended by 80,000 Hours – an organization whose vision is “for as many people as possible to take high impact careers” [21]. Their activities include researching the best strategies for making a difference in one’s career and publishing this research online, giving one-on-one coaching to students and graduates, and building an online community of aspiring effective altruists. 80,000 Hours fulfills a valuable function by providing flexible and evidence-based career advice to help young people solve the world’s most pressing problems [21]. Check out their website at 80000hours.org. There are tons of great resources and articles, which go much more in depth.

5 | Resources

Here are some places to start if you are looking for more information on effective altruism. While effective altruism is a collection of good ideas, it won’t improve the world unless we take action. You can take action in many ways, for example: changing your career plans; taking a giving pledge to donate 10% of your income; finding and joining a local effective altruism meet-up group; or attending an effective altruism conference. You might even consider working for some of the organizations listed below.  

5.1 Books

Doing Good Better William MacAskill

The Most Good You Can Do Peter Singer

5.2 Organizations & Websites

GiveWell: Evaluates which charities do the most good per unit of currency received.
[ www.givewell.org ]

Giving What We Can: Community where you can pledge to donate a fraction of your income.
[ www.givingwhatwecan.org ]

The Life You Can Save: Similar to Giving What We Can.
[ www.thelifeyoucansave.org ]

The Poverty Action Lab: Does scientific research on development interventions.
[ www.povertyactionlab.org ]

Charity Science: Makes scientific evidence on charity work accessible to the public.
[ www.charityscience.com ]

Animal Charity Evaluators: Evaluates charities that aim to reduce animal suffering.
[ www.animalcharityevaluators.org ]

The Copenhagen Consensus Centre: Assesses which activities have the best cost-benefit ratio.
[ www.copenhagenconsensus.com ]

The Global Priorities Project: Does foundational research into comparing different causes.
[ globalprioritiesproject.org ] 

80,000 Hours: Provides advice and does research into high-impact careers.
[ 80000hours.org ]

Effective Altruism Foundation: An umbrella organization operating in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; focuses on meta-charity and outreach.
[ ea-foundation.org ]

The Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI): Does research into friendly artificial intelligence in order to avoid existential catastrophe.
[ intelligence.org ]

5.3 TED Talks

• Peter Singer: “The why and how of effective altruism”
• Beth Barnes: “Effective Altruism”
• Joy Sun: “Should you donate differently?”
• Dan Pallotta: “The way we think about charity is dead wrong”

Find them on Ted.com or YouTube.

5.4 More

For more resources, check out www.effectivealtruism.org and effective-altruism.com

References

[1] Singer, P. & MacAskill, W. (2015). Introduction. In R. Carey (Ed.), The Effective Altruism Handbook (pp. viii – xvii). Oxford: Centre for Effective Altruism.

[2] Singer, P. (2015). The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle. In R. Carey (Ed.), The Effective Altruism Handbook (pp. 3-10). Oxford: Centre for Effective Altruism.

[3] Karnofsky, H. (2013, August 20). Excited altruism. GiveWell [blog]. Available at http://blog.givewell.org/2013/08/20/excited-altruism/

[4] MacAskill, W. (2013, May 13). What is Effective Altruism?. Message posted to http://effective-altruism.com/ea/45/what_is_effective_altruism/

[5] Yudkowsky, E. (2007, May 14). Scope Insensitivity. LessWrong [blog]. Available at http://lesswrong.com/lw/hw/scope_insensitivity/

[6] Wise, J. (2012, March 23). Tradeoffs [Web log comment]. Available at http://www.givinggladly.com/2012/03/tradeoffs.html

[7] Alexander, S. (2010, December 24). Efficient Charity: Do Unto Others. LessWrong [blog]. Available at http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gj/efficient_charity_do_unto_others/

[8] Karnofsky, H. (2012, April 12). How not to be a “white in shining armor”. GiveWell [blog]. Available at http://blog.givewell.org/2012/04/12/how-not-to-be-a-white-in-shining-armor/

[9] Pallotta, D. (2009, June 22). “Efficiency” Measures Miss the Point. Harvard Business Review [blog]. Available at https://hbr.org/2009/06/efficiency-measures-miss-the-p

[10] Grace, K. (2010, December 20). Estimation is the best we have [Web log comment]. Available at https://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/estimation-is-the-best-we-have/

[11] Hassenfeld, E. (2014, December 1). Our updated top charities. GiveWell [blog]. Available at http://blog.givewell.org/2014/12/01/our-updated-top-charities/

[12] Muehlhauser, L. (2013, July 9). Four Focus Areas of Effective Altruism. LessWrong [blog]. Available at http://lesswrong.com/lw/hx4/four_focus_areas_of_effective_altruism/

[13] GiveWell (2011). Your Dollar Goes Further Overseas. Available at http://www.givewell.org/giving101/Your-dollar-goes-further-overseas

[14] Wage, M. (2012, April 16). The Haste Consideration. 80,000 Hours [blog]. Available at https://80000hours.org/2012/04/the-haste-consideration/

[15] Beckstead, N., Singer, P., & Wage, M. (2013, August 19). Preventing Human Extinction. Message posted to http://effective-altruism.com/ea/50/preventing_human_extinction/

[16] Singer, P. (2015). Speciesism. In R. Carey (Ed.), The Effective Altruism Handbook (pp. 95-98). Oxford: Centre for Effective Altruism.

[17] MacAskill, W. (2013, February 27). To save the world, don’t get a job at a charity; go work on Wall Street. Quartz. Available at http://qz.com/57254/to-save-the-world-dont-get-a-job-at-a-charity-go-work-on-wall-street/

[18] Todd, B. (2014, February 5). In which career can you make the most difference? 80,000 Hours [blog]. Available at https://80000hours.org/2014/02/in-which-career-can-you-make-the-most-difference/

[19] Shulman, C. (2011, November 15). High Impact Science. 80,000 Hours [blog]. Available at https://80000hours.org/2011/11/high-impact-science/

[20] 80,000 Hours (2016). How to do high impact research. Available at https://80000hours.org/articles/research-2/

[21] Todd, B. (2015). 80,000 Hours. In R. Carey (Ed.), The Effective Altruism Handbook (pp. 120-123). Oxford: Centre for Effective Altruism. 

[22] 80,000 Hours (2016). What should you look for in a job? Introducing our framework. Available at https://80000hours.org/articles/framework/