Effective Altruism: An Introduction – 80,000 Hours (April 2021)

Effective altruism in a nutshell

'Effective Altruism: An Introduction' is a collection of ten top episodes of The 80,000 Hours Podcast specifically selected to help listeners quickly get up to speed on t

One: Holden Karnofsky on times philanthropy transformed the world & Open Phil's plan to do the same

The Green Revolution averted mass famine during the 20th century. The contraceptive pill gave women unprecedented freedom in planning their own lives. Both are widely rec

Two: Dr Toby Ord on why the long-term future matters more than anything else & what to do about it

Of all the people whose well-being we should care about, only a small fraction are alive today. The rest are members of future generations who are yet to exist. Whether t

Three: Alexander Berger on improving global health and wellbeing in clear and direct ways

The effective altruist research community tries to identify the highest impact things people can do to improve the world. Unsurprisingly, given the difficulty of such a m

Four: Spencer Greenberg on the scientific approach to solving difficult everyday questions

Will SpaceX land people on Mars in the next decade? Will North Korea give up their nuclear weapons? Will your friend turn up to dinner? Spencer Greenberg, founder of Cle

Five: Prof Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monster

Immanuel Kant is a profoundly influential figure in modern philosophy, and was one of the earliest proponents for universal democracy and international cooperation. He al

Six: Ajeya Cotra on worldview diversification and how big the future could be

Imagine that humanity has two possible futures ahead of it: Either we’re going to have a huge future like that, in which trillions of people ultimately exist, or we’re go

Seven: Prof Tetlock on why accurate forecasting matters for everything, and how you can do it better

Have you ever been infuriated by a doctor's unwillingness to give you an honest, probabilistic estimate about what to expect? Or a lawyer who won't tell you the chances y

Eight: Prof Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness, population ethics, & harnessing the brainpower of academia to tackle the most important research questions

The barista gives you your coffee and change, and you walk away from the busy line. But you suddenly realise she gave you $1 less than she should have. Do you brush your

Nine: Benjamin Todd on the key ideas of 80,000 Hours

The 80,000 Hours Podcast is about “the world’s most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them”, and in this episode we tackle that question in the m

Ten: Benjamin Todd on the core of effective altruism and how to argue for it

Is effective altruism just about donating money to fight poverty? Does it include a moral obligation to give? How do you talk about it to people who've never heard of it?

What's next

Now you've finished Effective Altruism: An Introduction, here's what we suggest you do next. And if you’ve listened to this series and found the ideas resonated with you