Doing Good: A Conversation with William MacAskill (Episode #228)

In Sam’s mind, his money wasn’t crypto money. It was effective altruist money that he happened to have obtained through crypto. Along with his brother, Sam had looked at the world and decided that two EA-related causes made more sense to address with his money than any of the others. And that a lot of the money needed to be sneaky. Their first, les

Philosophers have long disagreed about whether it’s acceptable to harm one person in order to help or save several people. Utilitarianism is the philosophical school that says you should always aim to bring about the greatest total good, even if a few people get hurt along the way, so if there’s really no other way to save those five lives, go ahea

Since MacAskill had first sold Sam, back in the fall of 2012, on the idea of earning to give, the EA movement had obviously changed. It had become a lot less interested in saving the lives of existing human beings than future ones. In early 2020, movement cofounder Toby Ord had published a book, The Precipice, which laid out where his thinking (and

Sitting across from Bankman-Fried and listening to him talk about effective altruism, I couldn’t help thinking that pushing people to gamble seemed at odds with his pledge to have a positive impact on the world.

Finally, when young people who “want to help mankind” come to me asking, “What should I do? I want to reduce poverty, save the world,” and similar noble aspirations at the macro-level, my suggestion is: 1) Never engage in virtue signaling; 2) Never engage in rent-seeking; 3) You must start a business. Put yourself on the line, start a business. Yes