Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here,
Speaker 1: so that appropriately makes this stuff you should know. That's right.
Speaker 1: Before we get going, we want to give a little
Speaker 1: special plug to our good friend John Hodgeman and our
Speaker 1: buddy David Reese because they got a season two of
Speaker 1: their awesome animated show dick Town. Yeah as in Private
Speaker 1: Detective dick By. Yeah. I mean, it's cool enough to
Speaker 1: get one season of the show, but if you've gotten
Speaker 1: a second season and they're tossing you on f X
Speaker 1: these days, you've made it. So their show is finally
Speaker 1: made it and it's well deserved too, because it's a
Speaker 1: pretty awesome cartoon. It is, it's very funny. It is
Speaker 1: actually live now. It premiered on March three at ten
Speaker 1: pm on f x X. You can watch it on
Speaker 1: Who Lou and the whole jam here is that John
Speaker 1: and I watched the whole first season, the whole their
Speaker 1: short episodes. The whole first season was less than two
Speaker 1: hours long, which really like makes a great case. We're
Speaker 1: just streaming the whole thing and laughing a lot in
Speaker 1: one night. But it's uh, it's about two detectives, John Hunchman,
Speaker 1: John Hodgeman and David Purefoy David Reese, and uh, Hodgeman
Speaker 1: is a is a private detective. He was a former
Speaker 1: boy detective like Encyclopedia Brown type and and Dave was his,
Speaker 1: uh sort of his bugs, meaning his nemesis in high
Speaker 1: school and now is now his buddy and his sort
Speaker 1: of muscle and his driver and his and they solve
Speaker 1: cases together. And uh A season two I think is
Speaker 1: even bigger and weirder, and it's sort of Scooby Doo.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot of fun, really really fun show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first season they did nothing but solve children's um,
Speaker 1: which is his, and they were humiliated by that. So
Speaker 1: they they've kind of expanded now to be grown ups.
Speaker 1: They've resolved to be grown ups and they're solving grown
Speaker 1: up mysteries for grown ups now, which is really something else.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like you said, you can stream the whole
Speaker 1: first season on Hulu, and you can catch this second
Speaker 1: season on f x X. I wasn't aware of the
Speaker 1: extra X. I don't take back what I originally said.
Speaker 1: It's still big time but f x X that's right. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it is rated PG thirteen, so if you're thirteen
Speaker 1: and up you should enjoy. It's got a few swear words,
Speaker 1: adult themes here and there, but it's it's great. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Happy for Hodgman in Reese. Happy
Speaker 1: Happy Hodgeman, Happy, happy Reese. And I just like saying
Speaker 1: dick Town. Sure, it's a great name for a great show.
Speaker 1: It is. Should we talk about effective altruism? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, we're we're talking about that today and
Speaker 1: this one kind of I don't know if you noticed
Speaker 1: a similarity, but this one really kind of ties into
Speaker 1: that short stuff that we uh we released before the
Speaker 1: end of the year about riable giving. Did you notice
Speaker 1: I did? Although in that episode it was like we're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, find a charity that speaks to you and
Speaker 1: maybe something it's local, or if you have animals, or
Speaker 1: if you had you know, a family member with cancer,
Speaker 1: and this basically says don't do any of that, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: the only way you should give is by just kind
Speaker 1: of coldly calculating what would help a human the most
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. Yes, so effective altruism is one of
Speaker 1: those movements. It's a pretty new movement. I think it
Speaker 1: really started in earnest around two thousand ten UM. And
Speaker 1: it's one of those movements that like elicits passion one
Speaker 1: way or another. It's a very polarizing idea if you
Speaker 1: just take it at its bare bones, which people love
Speaker 1: to do. And the reason why people love to take
Speaker 1: it at its bare bones, at its extremes extremes is
Speaker 1: because it is at heart of philosophical movement. Its rooted
Speaker 1: in utilitarianism, and utilitarianism is even more polarizing it has
Speaker 1: been for centuries than effective altruism is. And I think
Speaker 1: if everybody would just move past the most extreme parts
Speaker 1: of it and just kind of took effective altruism and
Speaker 1: it's at its most middle ground, where most of it
Speaker 1: seems to have accumulated and settled and where most of
Speaker 1: the work is being done, it would be really difficult
Speaker 1: to disagree with the ideas behind it. It's when you
Speaker 1: trot out Peter Singer and some of his most extreme views,
Speaker 1: or when you say, oh, it's all Silicon Valley billionaires,
Speaker 1: you know, um, when you when you just look at
Speaker 1: it like that, that's when people get all riled up
Speaker 1: and they're like, I hate it infactive altruism. If you
Speaker 1: really just kind of take it in a much more
Speaker 1: level headed way, it's actually pretty sensible and pretty great
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, you're saving people's
Speaker 1: lives and you're figuring out how to save the most
Speaker 1: lives possible. Yeah. I think anything that has some of
Speaker 1: its roots and philosophical movements of tech bros. It's it's
Speaker 1: a hard sell for a lot of people. Uh, but
Speaker 1: let's talk about a few things that it is, which
Speaker 1: is the idea that, uh, there's a lot of good
Speaker 1: that can be done with money, and if you can
Speaker 1: provide for yourself and your own basic needs, um, you
Speaker 1: should be probably giving to charity. Uh. You can take
Speaker 1: a cold hard look at your finances by literal, strict
Speaker 1: calculations financial calculations. If you make if you were a
Speaker 1: person without kids making forty dollar a year, you are
Speaker 1: in the ninety seven point four percentile on planet Earth
Speaker 1: as far as your wealth goes. And that you might
Speaker 1: not think if make forty dollars a year and then
Speaker 1: I have taxes, and I really like people with a
Speaker 1: lot of money should give to charities. I really don't
Speaker 1: have enough to spare. The idea is that, no, you
Speaker 1: have some to spare. You can give a little bit,
Speaker 1: uh like ten of your money and still be in
Speaker 1: the top ninety six percentile and you can literally save
Speaker 1: human lives on plans. That's the big thing that they're
Speaker 1: trying to get across here, that like, the money that
Speaker 1: you're giving is saving lives that otherwise would be crippled
Speaker 1: with disease or just not around, like they would die
Speaker 1: if you didn't give this money. And the fact that
Speaker 1: you are giving this money, those people are now living
Speaker 1: what are called quality adjusted life years, where they're living
Speaker 1: in additional healthy year or more because of that intervention
Speaker 1: that you gave your money for. And that yes, it's
Speaker 1: based on the premise that basically everyone living in the
Speaker 1: United States is rich compared to entire swaths of the
Speaker 1: rest of the world, and that basically anyone living in
Speaker 1: the United States can afford to give temper scent of
Speaker 1: their income and forego some clothes or some cars or
Speaker 1: something like that to help other people literally survive. And
Speaker 1: so right off the bat, we've reached levels of discomfort
Speaker 1: for the average person, especially the average American that like
Speaker 1: that are really tough to deal with. And so that's
Speaker 1: the first challenge that effective ultrasts have to do is
Speaker 1: kind kind of tamped down that overwhelming sense of guilt
Speaker 1: and responsibility and shame at not doing that that that
Speaker 1: people immediately kind of that crops up and people when
Speaker 1: they hear about this. Yeah, So I think maybe let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the history and some of
Speaker 1: the main organizations that are tackling this and maybe through
Speaker 1: that what some of the founders describe as the core commitments.
Speaker 1: Like you said, it took hold in about two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten UH, and there's a group of organizations under
Speaker 1: what is now an umbrella organization called the Center for
Speaker 1: Effective Altruism c e A. And UH started off with
Speaker 1: philosopher's Toby Ord and Will mccaskell founding a group called
Speaker 1: Giving What we Can UH self defined as an international
Speaker 1: community of people committed to giving more and giving more effectively.
Speaker 1: A couple of years later, mccaskell and a man named
Speaker 1: Benjamin Todd founded something called eighty thousand Hours, the ideas
Speaker 1: that you might devote eighty thousand hours to a career,
Speaker 1: so when choosing a career be very thoughtful on the
Speaker 1: impact that career has for both good and evil. We'll
Speaker 1: get way more into all this, uh, and then um,
Speaker 1: there's other you know, sort of nut fringes and weird
Speaker 1: groups but just on the outskirts called The Life You
Speaker 1: Can Save and then animal charity evaluators, which we'll get
Speaker 1: into how animals figure in. Um, but let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit. I guess about Will mccaskell and what he
Speaker 1: sees as the core what he calls the core commitments
Speaker 1: of e A. So yeah, and Will McCaskill, he's A.
Speaker 1: He's out of Oxford, and so is Toby Ord. And
Speaker 1: I first came across this chuck when I was researching
Speaker 1: the End of the World podcast, and like, I deeply
Speaker 1: admire Toby Ord on like a personal level. He actually
Speaker 1: walks the walkkey and his whole family does, like they
Speaker 1: donate a significant portion of their family income to charity
Speaker 1: and like forego all sorts of stuff, and like he's
Speaker 1: literally trying to save the world. So um, and that
Speaker 1: since I'm I'm like really kind of open to the
Speaker 1: ideas that come out of that guy's mouth. Um, and
Speaker 1: you mentioned the End of the World with Josh Clark
Speaker 1: available wherever you can find your podcast. Yes, you're wonderful heady,
Speaker 1: highly produced in part series. Thank you very much. That
Speaker 1: was nice of you. Where is the new tackle the
Speaker 1: existing existential risks of the of the universe? Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: that's I just want to make sure the right chich
Speaker 1: one and the same. And I was not doing that
Speaker 1: to set you up for a plug. I was doing
Speaker 1: it and like kind of full disclosure that I'm a
Speaker 1: little I'm probably a little less than objective at this one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, that's a great show and it's still
Speaker 1: out there just because it is, you know, a few
Speaker 1: years old now, it's very evergreen. I think it's at
Speaker 1: least in these times. Yeah, the world hasn't ended yet,
Speaker 1: so it's still ever exactly good point. So, um, but
Speaker 1: I mentioned that in part is kind of fully disclosed.
Speaker 1: Um that I think Toby we're just one of the
Speaker 1: greatest people walk in the earth right now. But also
Speaker 1: Will mccaskell, who I don't know, seems to be in
Speaker 1: lock step with Toby too, and so he's kind of
Speaker 1: one of the one of the founders of this movement.
Speaker 1: And he said that that there's um four tenants he
Speaker 1: wrote a two thousand eighteen paper. And so there's basically
Speaker 1: four tenants that formed the core of effective altruism. One
Speaker 1: is maximizing the good, which we can all pretty much
Speaker 1: get on board with, like you want to make as
Speaker 1: much good as possible for as many people as possible.
Speaker 1: The second is aligning your aligning your your ideas, your
Speaker 1: your contributions with science using like evidence based um uh
Speaker 1: well evian to to to create where you're going to
Speaker 1: put your donations to use that to guide you rather
Speaker 1: than your heart. It's a big one, so it's a
Speaker 1: tough one for people's swallow. Another one's welfare is m
Speaker 1: where by maximizing the good, you're you're improving the welfare
Speaker 1: of others. That's the definition of good in that sense
Speaker 1: of maximizing the good. And then last one is impartiality.
Speaker 1: That's as hard for for people this swallow. That's harder
Speaker 1: I think for people swallow than science alignment, um, because
Speaker 1: what you're saying, then, Chuck, is that every single person
Speaker 1: out there in the world equally deserves um your charitable contribution. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's a big one because I'm trying to find
Speaker 1: the number here of how much Americans give abroad. Where
Speaker 1: is that? Okay, here we go out of the um.
Speaker 1: What is it four hundred and seventy billion dollars that
Speaker 1: Americans donate? Yeah, I think, yeah, one billion dollars twenty
Speaker 1: five point nine billion of that went to went outside
Speaker 1: of America to international affairs. So it's a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but it's not a lot of money in the total
Speaker 1: pot in the The idea for e A is is
Speaker 1: to sort of shatter your way of thinking about, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to help the your the people in your city,
Speaker 1: or the people in your state or your country, and
Speaker 1: to look at every human life is having equal value. Yes,
Speaker 1: and not even human life, but every life. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: include animals too, like you mentioned before, and we'll get
Speaker 1: into a little more um. But the key is that
Speaker 1: if every single person living on earth is equally important,
Speaker 1: then and you're trying to maximize the help you can
Speaker 1: you can do if from a from a strict e
Speaker 1: A perspective, you're wasting your money if you're donating that money,
Speaker 1: if you're an American, if you're donating it in America,
Speaker 1: because just by virtue of the value of a dollar,
Speaker 1: it can do exponentially more good. One dollar can in
Speaker 1: other like developing poverty stricken areas of the world, then
Speaker 1: it can here in the United States. So that right
Speaker 1: there sets up for critics of that of a like
Speaker 1: to point out that, well, wait a minute, wait amut,
Speaker 1: are you saying that we shouldn't donate locally here at home,
Speaker 1: That we shouldn't save the animals and the animal shelter,
Speaker 1: That we shouldn't donate to your local food pantry, That
Speaker 1: you shouldn't donate to your church. And if you really
Speaker 1: back at effective altruists into a corner, they would say, look,
Speaker 1: just speaking of maximizing your impact and everybody around the
Speaker 1: world is equally important. No, you shouldn't be doing any
Speaker 1: of those things, and you certainly shouldn't be donating any
Speaker 1: money to your local museum or symphony or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And they say that with their their head down and
Speaker 1: they're kind of drawing on the floor with your foot.
Speaker 1: They're saying like, yeah, that's kind of what we're saying.
Speaker 1: That's right, yes, And that's really tough for people swallow.
Speaker 1: There's like it's just this huge jagged pill that they're
Speaker 1: asking people swallow. But if you can step back from it,
Speaker 1: What they're ultimately saying is, look, man, you want to
Speaker 1: do the most good with your charitable donations, here's how
Speaker 1: to do it. You want to sit aside, you want
Speaker 1: to feel good about it, or really do the good exactly.
Speaker 1: And that's what they're doing. That's the whole basis of
Speaker 1: effective altruism. Is they're saying, set like you're all of
Speaker 1: your charitable giving is for you. You're doing it for yourself,
Speaker 1: that's why you give. This takes that out of the
Speaker 1: equation and says, now you're giving to genuinely help somebody else.
Speaker 1: All right, I think that's a great beginning. Maybe let's
Speaker 1: take a break now that everyone knows what this is
Speaker 1: and everyone is is choking on their coffee because they
Speaker 1: just donated to their local neighbor organization. Uh. And we'll
Speaker 1: come back and talk about some of the other uh
Speaker 1: philosophical founders right after this. George So a couple of
Speaker 1: people we should mention really quickly because they're gonna come
Speaker 1: up as far as organizations we did not mention GiveWell yet. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were founded in two thousand seven. They're a big
Speaker 1: part of the e a movement by Facebook co founder
Speaker 1: Dustin Moskovitz and his wife. Is it carry or Carrie Tuna.
Speaker 1: I'm going with Cary. I think so it's c A
Speaker 1: r I. Uh So they have partnered up UM to
Speaker 1: create open philanthropy, UM phil and philanthropy. It sounds weird.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say philanthropy LOO too early in the
Speaker 1: episode for that. Uh So they're they're big donors and
Speaker 1: big believers in the cause UM. And then another person
Speaker 1: you mentioned is well, first of all, you mentioned utilitarians, uh,
Speaker 1: in this philosophical movement UM, they were developed by and
Speaker 1: then we've talked about Jeremy Jeremy Bentham before and John
Speaker 1: Stewart Mill. But the idea that people should do what
Speaker 1: causes the most happiness and relieves the most suffering. And
Speaker 1: the other guy you mentioned that uh sort of controversial,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say is Peter Singer. Uh. He
Speaker 1: is an author and a philosopher and a and a
Speaker 1: ted talker who who kind of UM became I don't
Speaker 1: know about famous, because a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: any modern philosophers, but in these circles became famous from
Speaker 1: an idea thought experiment in V two from his essay Famine,
Speaker 1: Affluence and morality, which is, you're going to work. You
Speaker 1: just bought some really expensive, great new shoes. You see
Speaker 1: a kid drowning in a shallow pond. Do you wait
Speaker 1: in there and ruin those new shoes and rescue the
Speaker 1: kid and make you late for work? And you know, people,
Speaker 1: if asked would say, well, of course you do. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna let that kid drown. So that the flip
Speaker 1: to that is, well, that's happening every day all over
Speaker 1: the world, and you're essentially saving your new shoes by
Speaker 1: letting these kids die. Yeah, you're you're you're buying those
Speaker 1: new shoes rather than donating that money to save a
Speaker 1: child's life. It's morally speaking, it's the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: And in the in the essay I wrote it last night,
Speaker 1: it's really good. Do you want to feel like a
Speaker 1: total piece of garbage for not doing enough in the world. Um.
Speaker 1: He basically goes on to destroy any argument about, well,
Speaker 1: that's a kid that you see in a pond. You're
Speaker 1: you're actually physically saving that kid. He's like, well, it's
Speaker 1: so easy to donate to help a child on the
Speaker 1: other side of the world, right now, that for all
Speaker 1: intents and purposes, it's as easy as going into a
Speaker 1: pond to say. These days it is easier. You don't
Speaker 1: even have to get wet. You're just calling your credit
Speaker 1: card basically, you know. Um, So, so he just destroys
Speaker 1: like any argument you could possibly have. And he is
Speaker 1: an extremist utilitarian philosopher, and that he's basically saying, not
Speaker 1: just that giving money to the point where you are
Speaker 1: just above the level of poverty the as the people
Speaker 1: you're giving, like really cutting into your your luxuries to
Speaker 1: help other people. Not only is that a good thing
Speaker 1: if you do that, it's actually not doing that is
Speaker 1: a morally bad thing. It's morally wrong to not do that.
Speaker 1: So he will really turn like the the hot plate
Speaker 1: up under you. Um, and it just really make you
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable. But he's saying like like, this is my
Speaker 1: philosophical argument, and it's pretty sound if you hear me out,
Speaker 1: and if you hear him out, it is pretty sound. Um.
Speaker 1: The problem is he's a utilitarian philosopher and a very
Speaker 1: strict one too, And so um, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: like you can take that stuff to the nth degree,
Speaker 1: to some really terrible extremes, um to where it's it
Speaker 1: becomes so anti sentimental that, um, it actually can be
Speaker 1: nauseating sometimes, Like, strictly speaking, under your utilitarian view, this
Speaker 1: one's often trotted out. It is morally good to murder
Speaker 1: one person to harvest their organs to save the lives
Speaker 1: of five other people with the the murdered person's organs.
Speaker 1: Technically speaking in the utilitarian lens, that's that's maximizing the
Speaker 1: good in the world. The thing is is, like, if
Speaker 1: that's what you're focusing on, and you're equating effective altruisms
Speaker 1: desire to get the most bang for your donation buck
Speaker 1: to murdering somebody to harvest their organs to save five people,
Speaker 1: you've just completely lost your way. Sure you can, you
Speaker 1: can win an argument against utilitarianism in that respect, but
Speaker 1: the fact that it's leveled and trained on on these
Speaker 1: on this movement, this charitable philanthropy movement, is totally unfair,
Speaker 1: even though yes, it is pretty much part and parcel
Speaker 1: with utilitarianism. Yeah, the singer is a guy who I
Speaker 1: think is one of his philosophies is the journey of life,
Speaker 1: and that interrupting a life before it has goals or
Speaker 1: after it's accomplished goals is Okay. Uh so he you know,
Speaker 1: if you mentioned his name, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people will will point to this idea that he says
Speaker 1: things like it's okay to kill a disabled baby right
Speaker 1: after they're born in some cases, especially if it will
Speaker 1: lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects
Speaker 1: of a happy and productive life, or an older person
Speaker 1: who has already accomplished those goals, and the idea being
Speaker 1: that the disabled baby doesn't have goals yet. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that's obviously some controversial stuff. Then he's a hard liner
Speaker 1: and doubles down on this, but it again to to
Speaker 1: sort of throw that in that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with effective altruism. No, he wrote that paper Famine, Affluence
Speaker 1: and Morality, which basically provides the general contours of the
Speaker 1: effective altruist movement. But it's not like he's just the
Speaker 1: leading heartbeat of the movement or anything like that. That's
Speaker 1: not their bible or anything like that. No, And unfortunately
Speaker 1: he's an easy target that people can like point to
Speaker 1: because the effective altruist movement has kind of taken some
Speaker 1: of his ideas and they're like, oh, yeah, you like singer, Well,
Speaker 1: what about singers arguing about this. It's like that has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with effect of altruism. He makes a
Speaker 1: really good, easy, easily obtained straw man that people like
Speaker 1: to pick on. That's right. Uh. Let's talk about numbers
Speaker 1: a little bit. We mentioned that in the United States, uh,
Speaker 1: four seventy one billion dollars was donated in UM. About
Speaker 1: three and twenty four of that came from individuals, which
Speaker 1: is amazing. You know, those corporate guys are really pulling
Speaker 1: their way. Yeah, no kidding, Uh, individuals, and that boils
Speaker 1: down to about a thousand dollars per person uh in
Speaker 1: the USA, which is not that much money if you
Speaker 1: think about it. And out of that, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of UM pledges that e A endorses. One called
Speaker 1: Giving what we Can, which is promising to give away
Speaker 1: ten percent of your lifetime income, and then another one
Speaker 1: called the Founder's Pledge, where if you're a startup founder,
Speaker 1: you promised to give away a percentage of your eventual proceeds. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there's also try Giving, which is a temporary
Speaker 1: pledge to donate. And you know, it's only about twelve
Speaker 1: years old. Only about eight to ten people have taken
Speaker 1: these pledges so far, right, UM, which is still I mean,
Speaker 1: that's a decent amount of people, especially considering that most
Speaker 1: of the people involved in this movement are UM high earning,
Speaker 1: UM extremely educated people who are probably like ten percent
Speaker 1: of their income is going to add up to quite
Speaker 1: a bit over the course of their careers. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing they're saying, I'm going to give this ten
Speaker 1: percent a year for my career. And the reason why
Speaker 1: they really kind of targeted careers. Um, that's part of
Speaker 1: eighty thousand hours. Eighty thousand hours is this idea that
Speaker 1: we spent about eighty thousand hours working. So if you
Speaker 1: took that eighty thousand hours and figured out how to
Speaker 1: direct your energy the most effectively towards saving the world, um,
Speaker 1: you can really do some good just by the virtue
Speaker 1: of having to have this career to support yourself. And
Speaker 1: so there's a couple of ways to do it. One
Speaker 1: is to have a job that you make as much
Speaker 1: money as you possibly can at and then you donate
Speaker 1: as much as you comfortably can, and then maybe even
Speaker 1: then some say ten percent or some people donate. There's
Speaker 1: a NASA engineer named Brian Ottens who is profiled in
Speaker 1: The Washington Post who said he specifically got the most stressful,
Speaker 1: high earning job he could handle. Um in order to
Speaker 1: give away. I think a quarter of is of his income, right,
Speaker 1: And that's great. That's one way to do it. But
Speaker 1: another way to do it is to say, Okay, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to figure out something that I really love,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to adjust it so that it's going
Speaker 1: to have the most impact possible. Yeah. I think it's interesting,
Speaker 1: Like there are two ways to think about it. The
Speaker 1: first one that you were talking about, they call it
Speaker 1: earning to give. And you know, the idea that you
Speaker 1: if you are capable of getting like a really high
Speaker 1: paying job in like the oil industry, with the idea
Speaker 1: that you're going to give most that a way in
Speaker 1: the earning to give philosophy side of things, they're saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: go do that. It doesn't have to be a socially
Speaker 1: beneficial job. Make the most money you can and give
Speaker 1: it away. Uh, don't go get the job of the
Speaker 1: nonprofit because there are tons of people that will go
Speaker 1: and get that job at the nonprofit like that that
Speaker 1: someone will fill that position. UM eights doesn't. Uh, they
Speaker 1: say that that's not the best way. There's is more.
Speaker 1: The second when you mentioned, which is don't take a
Speaker 1: job that causes a lot of harm. Being happy is
Speaker 1: part of being productive, and you don't have to go
Speaker 1: grind it out at a job you hate just because
Speaker 1: you make a lot of money, so you can give
Speaker 1: it away, like make yourself happy. Don't take a job
Speaker 1: that causes harm. Do a job where you have uh
Speaker 1: a talent. Um policy making is one field media. I
Speaker 1: would argue that we have a job where you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't know, but it turns out we have a
Speaker 1: talent for doing this, and we can leverage our voice. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we occasionally do to point out things that we
Speaker 1: think make a difference in the world and to mobilize people. Um,
Speaker 1: that's not the goal of our show, but we can
Speaker 1: dabble in that, which is which is great. Uh. That's
Speaker 1: not what we intended going into it. But I think
Speaker 1: we woke up one day and found that we had
Speaker 1: a lot of years, so we could we could throw
Speaker 1: in episodes. I think that lead to good Yeah, I agreed,
Speaker 1: which means we can shave a little off of that
Speaker 1: ten percent we're morally obligated to donate every year, right,
Speaker 1: so um, A good example of that of like figuring
Speaker 1: out how to direct your career path more toward improving
Speaker 1: the world. UM. On the I guess the eighty thousand
Speaker 1: hours site, they profile the woman who wanted to become
Speaker 1: a doctor, and she did some research and said, um,
Speaker 1: well this is cool, but most doctors in Australia treat
Speaker 1: Australians who are you know, relatively very well off and
Speaker 1: very healthy. And so instead she decided that she wanted
Speaker 1: to go into a different field of medicine. I think
Speaker 1: she went into like epidemiology and figured out how to
Speaker 1: get how to direct her her interest in medicine towards
Speaker 1: getting vaccines out to market faster to get them through
Speaker 1: the clinical trial process. And so she's not going to
Speaker 1: get to be a doctor, but she's gonna get to
Speaker 1: focus on medicine and she's going to get to have
Speaker 1: the satisfaction that she's improving the world demonstrably through her job.
Speaker 1: And she might not donate a die with that. I
Speaker 1: suspect she's probably going to, because she's on the eighty
Speaker 1: thou hours website. UM. But even if she didn't, she's
Speaker 1: still figuring out how to use evidence UM to make
Speaker 1: evidence based decisions to maximize the eights she's going to
Speaker 1: spend in her career to make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: Right because one of the ideas of e A and
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, the the charity Navigator and
Speaker 1: charity watched like good websites that we endorsed, uh that
Speaker 1: we're not poopooing at all. But um, they tend to
Speaker 1: focus a lot on you know, how much goes to overhead,
Speaker 1: how much goes to the programs, which is which is good.
Speaker 1: But e A is like, now, what we want to
Speaker 1: see our data and literal scientific data measurables on how
Speaker 1: much return you're getting for that dollar. And some charities
Speaker 1: do this and are a little more open about it,
Speaker 1: but they basically say, you know, every charity should say
Speaker 1: here's how much your dollar, uh, here's how far your
Speaker 1: dollar goes and exactly what it does. And the charities
Speaker 1: of the West said, come on really nervously when they're
Speaker 1: asked that, when they're told that they should be doing that,
Speaker 1: because they just don't. Part of the reason why this
Speaker 1: is very expensive to run. Um, what if effective altruists
Speaker 1: like to use is the gold standard random control trials
Speaker 1: where basically, um, you know what UX testing is user
Speaker 1: experience testing for like a website. So there's a B
Speaker 1: testing where you've got some people who are using your
Speaker 1: website and they're getting one banner AD and the B
Speaker 1: testers are getting a totally different banner AD, and you
Speaker 1: just see which gets the most clicks. It's basically that,
Speaker 1: but for a charity, for the work that the charity
Speaker 1: is carrying out, some group gets malaria nets, another group doesn't,
Speaker 1: and then you study which group had the best outcome,
Speaker 1: and then you could say, oh, well, these malaria nets
Speaker 1: increased these um these uh life adjusted years by you know,
Speaker 1: thirty percent, which means that it comes out to um,
Speaker 1: you know, point five life adjusted years UM per dollar
Speaker 1: compared to you know, point to life adjusted years for
Speaker 1: the control group. Ergo, we want to put our money
Speaker 1: into these groups that distribute malaria nets in Africa because
Speaker 1: they are demonstrably saving more lives than groups that don't.
Speaker 1: Like they want data like that, and you just don't
Speaker 1: get that with most charities. The good thing is that
Speaker 1: they're pushing charities to do that, because if you do
Speaker 1: care about that kind of thing, then then if you
Speaker 1: can come up with that kind of evidence, you can
Speaker 1: get these effective ultrus dollars and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: dollars coming from that group, even though it is relatively small. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is interesting because you know, in that example, if
Speaker 1: you were to just say on your website, uh, people
Speaker 1: with with malaria nets fair better dot dot dot duh, right,
Speaker 1: Like everyone knows that, but they really want to have
Speaker 1: that to drill down and have that measurable where they
Speaker 1: can point to a number and say that, you know this,
Speaker 1: this is the actual result. We all know malaria nets help.
Speaker 1: But maybe if people I mean maybe they think it
Speaker 1: speaks to people more. Um, it certainly speaks to them,
Speaker 1: but I guess they think it would speak to the
Speaker 1: masses if if because these things cost money. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's one of the criticisms of these randomized controlled trials.
Speaker 1: It is that there is sort of expensive and like
Speaker 1: maybe that money should be used to do to actually
Speaker 1: donate instead of doing these trials. But they must think
Speaker 1: it speaks to people to have actual data like that. Well,
Speaker 1: it speaks to them because the way that you figure
Speaker 1: out how to maximize your money is to have data
Speaker 1: to look at to decide rather than your heart. It
Speaker 1: makes sense these are techies because they're all about that
Speaker 1: data very much so, and there's some problems with that,
Speaker 1: with relying on that. There's some criticisms, I should say,
Speaker 1: but it's problems to One is that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff that you can't quite quantify in terms like that.
Speaker 1: Like if you're saying, like, no, I want to see
Speaker 1: how many lives saved your your work is doing per dollar, um, well,
Speaker 1: then the you know, the High Museum is going to
Speaker 1: be like, um, zero, we're saving zero lives. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're not enriching or improving lives through
Speaker 1: through the donations that they're receiving this art museum, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Um. Livia, who helps us with
Speaker 1: this article, gives an example. She's saying, like, you couldn't
Speaker 1: really do a randomized controlled trial for the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: three March on Washington that helps solidify the civil rights movement, um,
Speaker 1: and yet it'd be really hard to argue that that
Speaker 1: didn't have any major like effects on the world. So
Speaker 1: that's a that's a big that's a big argument. Then
Speaker 1: the other thing is that sometimes these randomized controlled trials,
Speaker 1: like you can hold it one year and then in
Speaker 1: one part of the world and go to another part
Speaker 1: of the world the next year. And it's what should
Speaker 1: be the same is just not the same. And so
Speaker 1: if you're basing all of your charitable giving on these things,
Speaker 1: they better be um, reproducible or else what are you doing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this. You get why this is such a
Speaker 1: divisive thing and why it's such a hard sell to
Speaker 1: people because people give with their hearts generally, Uh, they
Speaker 1: give to causes they find personal to them, Like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, a family member with cancer, or a family
Speaker 1: member with m S or just you know, name anything.
Speaker 1: Generally people like have a personal connection somehow which makes
Speaker 1: them want to give. And that's sort of the heart
Speaker 1: of philanthropy has always been the heart. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: a it's a tough sell for e A to say,
Speaker 1: is I'm sorry, you have to cut that, cut that
Speaker 1: out of there. Um. You know, it's a very subjective
Speaker 1: thing to what constitutes a problem, even um when it
Speaker 1: comes to the animal thing, like when when people give
Speaker 1: for animal charities, they're generally giving to you know, dogs
Speaker 1: and cats and stuff like that. Um. These these great
Speaker 1: organizations that do great work here in America. But the
Speaker 1: concentration if from the e A. Perspective are factory farmed animals,
Speaker 1: and that one percent of charitable spending in the US
Speaker 1: goes to the suffering of farmed animals, and that's what
Speaker 1: we should be concentrating on because of the massive, massive scale. Again,
Speaker 1: to try and do the most good, you would look
Speaker 1: at like where the most animals, and sadly they're on farms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean just from sheer numbers. Um, you can make
Speaker 1: a you can make a case utilitarian speaking that your
Speaker 1: money would be better off spent improving the lives of
Speaker 1: cows that we're going to be slaughtered for beef, that
Speaker 1: will still eventually be slaughtered for beef, but you can
Speaker 1: improve their welfare during their lifetimes and that technically is maximizing, um,
Speaker 1: the impact of your dollar by reducing suffering just because
Speaker 1: there's so many cows awaiting slaughter in the world, humans
Speaker 1: that are dying in Africa back. Yeah, that's a tough sell.
Speaker 1: And I think this is where like, this is where
Speaker 1: it makes sense to just kind of like maintain a
Speaker 1: certain amount of common sense where it's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: like if you really want to maximize your money, go
Speaker 1: look at the e A sites. Go check out eighty
Speaker 1: thousand hours, um, like like get into this and actually
Speaker 1: do that. But there's no one who's saying, like, but
Speaker 1: if you give one dollar to that, to that local
Speaker 1: symphony that you love, you're a sucker, you're a chump,
Speaker 1: you're an idiot. Nobody's saying that. And so maybe it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be all or nothing one way or
Speaker 1: the other, which seems to be the push in the poll,
Speaker 1: and I think the issue here, Yeah, we should read
Speaker 1: directly from Will mccaskell um. He defends uh e A
Speaker 1: and he says this effective altruism makes no claims about
Speaker 1: what obligations of benevolence one has. Uh nor does e
Speaker 1: A claim that all ways of helping others are morally
Speaker 1: permissible as long as they help others the most. Indeed,
Speaker 1: there's a strong community norm against promoting or engaging in
Speaker 1: activities that cause harm. So they flat out say, like
Speaker 1: the whole murder someone to harvest their organs, like, we're
Speaker 1: not down with that, that's not what we're about. Please
Speaker 1: stop mentioning Peter Singer, right, yeah, and he says it
Speaker 1: doesn't require that I always sacrifice my own interest for
Speaker 1: the good of others, And that's actually very contradictory of
Speaker 1: Peter Singers. Um. Essay, he says, no, you're morally obligated
Speaker 1: to do that, and if you don't, it's morally bad.
Speaker 1: They're saying like, no, let's let's all just be reasonable.
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, we're philosophers, but you know we can
Speaker 1: also like think like normal human beings too, And that's
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do. We're trying to take this
Speaker 1: kind of philosophical view um, based in science, based in evidence,
Speaker 1: and try to direct money to get the biggest impact. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, can we stop? Can we stop bringing
Speaker 1: up Peter Singer place? How about we take another break
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll talk a little bit about geez, what
Speaker 1: else long termism and e A s impact right after
Speaker 1: the case. So, long termism is part of the e
Speaker 1: A movement, and this is the idea of hey, let's
Speaker 1: not just think about helping people now. If we really
Speaker 1: want to maximize impact to help the most people, which
Speaker 1: is at the core of our mission statement, we need
Speaker 1: to think about the future because there will be a
Speaker 1: lot more people in the future to save and uh,
Speaker 1: and so long termism is really where your dollar is
Speaker 1: going to go the most if you think about like
Speaker 1: deep into the future even yeah, um, like if if
Speaker 1: humanity just kind of hangs around planet Earth for another
Speaker 1: billion or so years, which is entirely possible, if we
Speaker 1: can make it through the great filter, uh um uh,
Speaker 1: there will be like quadrillions of human lives left to come.
Speaker 1: And a lot of philosophers who think about this kind
Speaker 1: of thing kind of make the make the case, or
Speaker 1: can make the case if they want to, that their
Speaker 1: lives are probably going to be vastly more um enjoyable
Speaker 1: than ours, just from the technology available and not having
Speaker 1: to work, and all sorts of great stuff that's going
Speaker 1: to come along, and so technically, just by virtue of
Speaker 1: the fact that there's so many more of them, we
Speaker 1: should technically be sacrificing our own stuff now for the
Speaker 1: benefit of these generations and generations and generations of humans
Speaker 1: become that vastly out number the total number of humans
Speaker 1: who have ever lived, like a hundred eight billion humans
Speaker 1: have ever lived. We're talking quadrillions of humans left to come.
Speaker 1: That very much devetails with the um the kind of
Speaker 1: discomfort you can elicit from somebody who says that your
Speaker 1: money is better spent relieving the suffering of cattle awaiting
Speaker 1: slaughter than it is saving children's lives in Africa, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Yeah, And they're not just talking
Speaker 1: about climate change and like obviously that kind of existential risk.
Speaker 1: They dabble in AI and stuff like that. And I
Speaker 1: know that we don't need to go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: You should listen to the End of the World with
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, the AI episode. But I mean, it's all
Speaker 1: about that, but it does have to do with that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's not just like we need to
Speaker 1: save the planet so it's around in a billion years. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they tackle like all kinds of existential risk basically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they dedicate like a lot of these guys are
Speaker 1: dedicating their careers to figuring out how to avoid existential
Speaker 1: risk because they've decided that that is the greatest threat
Speaker 1: to the future that would cut out any possibility of
Speaker 1: those quadrillions of lives. So that's what the that's literally
Speaker 1: why they have dedicated themselves to thinking about and alleviating
Speaker 1: these risks, because they're trying to save the future of
Speaker 1: the human race. Because they've decided that that is the
Speaker 1: best way to maximize their careers for the most good,
Speaker 1: which is just astounding if you stop and think about
Speaker 1: what they're actually doing in real life. Uh, we mentioned
Speaker 1: the kind of money that's even though it's a UM,
Speaker 1: not a huge movement so far. I think we said
Speaker 1: like somewhereround eight thousand people of maybe these pledges, I
Speaker 1: think overall. Uh. The co founder of eighty thousand Hours,
Speaker 1: Benjamin Todd says about forty six billion dollars is committed
Speaker 1: to e a going forward UM. Like you said, a lot.
Speaker 1: You know, it's because of there are a lot of
Speaker 1: rich people and tech people that are backing this thing.
Speaker 1: So a lot of that money comes from people like
Speaker 1: Duskin Moskovitz and uh, Cary Tuna and Sam bankman Fried
Speaker 1: of he's a cryptocurrency guy, so a lot of that
Speaker 1: money comes from them. But they're they're trying to just
Speaker 1: raise awareness to get more and more regular people on
Speaker 1: board that you know, if they have you know, two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or three thousand dollars to give a year,
Speaker 1: they're saying, I think they estimate that three to four
Speaker 1: five bucks is like the amount of money it takes
Speaker 1: to save a human life and to give them additional
Speaker 1: quality years. Yeah, so if you cough up that much
Speaker 1: and you directed toward one of the charities that they've
Speaker 1: identified is the most effective. UM through their sites through
Speaker 1: like give well is a place to go look for
Speaker 1: for charities like that that have been vetted by effective ultras.
Speaker 1: You're literally saving the life of a child every year.
Speaker 1: It's like you're saving a child from drowning in a
Speaker 1: pond every single year, just and all you're doing is
Speaker 1: ruining your new shoes or you know, it's interesting new shoes,
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're you're ruining you're really nice vacation that year,
Speaker 1: right because you you know, you sent this one thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know where it came from, but the the
Speaker 1: idea of someone running into a burning building and pulling
Speaker 1: a child out or a kid out of a pond,
Speaker 1: they're they're written in the newspaper as a hero. But
Speaker 1: you can you can do that. You can save a
Speaker 1: kid a year or more every year for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. Um, it's a little less dramatic. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna have a newspaper, You're not gonna be above
Speaker 1: the fold. It's you know what I'm saying, But uh,
Speaker 1: that's I mean that has the a is like all
Speaker 1: about it is the antithesis of that antithesis. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, it's it's no frills
Speaker 1: version of antithesis. The thing is too is also I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still very relative. Likes is is relatively a very
Speaker 1: large amount or so so size amount or not much amount,
Speaker 1: depending on how much you you make. And again, nobody
Speaker 1: in the effective ultraist movement is saying that you should
Speaker 1: personally sacrifice unless you really want to, unless you're driven to.
Speaker 1: But you're not morally required to personally sacrifice to cough
Speaker 1: up that fort when it means you're you're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to eat for a week, or you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to have a place to live. Like,
Speaker 1: nobody's saying that, and nobody's being flipping about the the
Speaker 1: idea that isn't that much. What they're saying is can
Speaker 1: literally save a child's life. And if you stop and
Speaker 1: look at your life and think that you could come
Speaker 1: up with that, you could donate it to a certain
Speaker 1: place that will go save a child's life in real life.
Speaker 1: That's that's what they're saying. Yeah, this, uh, this, this
Speaker 1: would be a hard sell to Emily, what I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about our our charity conversation we have every year, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to imagine myself saying, what if we don't
Speaker 1: give to the local animal shelter and neighbor in need
Speaker 1: like we usually do, and instead we do this. She
Speaker 1: would just be like, uh, I see what you're saying,
Speaker 1: but but no, get get out of my face with that.
Speaker 1: But I mean you could be like, well, how about
Speaker 1: we do both? You know exactly? So I think I
Speaker 1: think that's the thing. That's my take on it, Like
Speaker 1: we support co ED, and like that's I have no
Speaker 1: qualms about supporting COD even after doing all this research
Speaker 1: and understanding effective altruism even more, no qualms whatsoever. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that that money could be directed better to help
Speaker 1: other people in other parts of the world. I still
Speaker 1: think it's money well spent and it's helping people, and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very happy with that. I think that's great.
Speaker 1: And then I don't have any guilt or shame about
Speaker 1: that at all. And because what you're saying at that point,
Speaker 1: like with co ED, it is an organization dedicated to
Speaker 1: helping children in a in a not very well off
Speaker 1: country live better and longer live, so like it essentially
Speaker 1: is effective altruism in a way, except effective altruism is
Speaker 1: like no, no, no no, no no. The data says that
Speaker 1: this one is look at the numbers. It's point this, this,
Speaker 1: this better, and goes further like they really it's a
Speaker 1: it's a numbers in a data game that makes it
Speaker 1: tough for a lot of people to swallow. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's anti sentimentalism basically in the service of saving the
Speaker 1: most lives possible. I know, it's it's it's interesting, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't surprise me that it has its roots in
Speaker 1: and philosophy because it is really a philosophical sort of
Speaker 1: uh head scratcher at the end of the day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, it's pretty interesting stuff and it really is.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's fascinating. Yeah. So there's
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot more to read, both criticisms
Speaker 1: and um, you know, pro e a stuff, And seriously,
Speaker 1: you could do worse than than reading um, Peter Singer's
Speaker 1: essay what is it called Famine Affluence, Famine Affluence and Morality.
Speaker 1: It's like sixteen pages. It's a really quick read. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really good, So read that too, and just see
Speaker 1: what you think, see what you think about yourself too,
Speaker 1: and maybe take some time and examine you know, um,
Speaker 1: if you could give to some of these charities, or
Speaker 1: if you're not giving to charity at all, seriously, do
Speaker 1: spend some time and see where you could make that change. Uh.
Speaker 1: And since I said make that change and Chuck said yeah,
Speaker 1: that means, of course it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1: This is follow up to albinism. I knew we would
Speaker 1: have someone who has albinism to write in. I'm glad
Speaker 1: we did. And then we had listeners out there. And
Speaker 1: this is from Brett. Hey, guys, a longtime listener. I
Speaker 1: have albinism, so I thought i'd throw in my perspective.
Speaker 1: First off, I know you were struggling to decide how
Speaker 1: to describe it albino or albinism. My preference is using
Speaker 1: the term albinism like you guys did, as to me,
Speaker 1: it denotes a condition while saying if someone or something
Speaker 1: is albino, it feels like you're delegating them to a
Speaker 1: different species. Being called albino always used to bug me
Speaker 1: growing up, and that was usually because they were kids
Speaker 1: were trying to get a rise out of me. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I was a big kid, so it never really escalated
Speaker 1: to physical bullying. Like I like this idea. Uh, like
Speaker 1: the kid with albinism who's like huge and someone says something,
Speaker 1: They're like, excuse me, what did you just say? I
Speaker 1: didn't say anything. Being a child of the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: like you're like you guys, it was pretty rough at times.
Speaker 1: On the physical side, my eyes are very light sensitive. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're blue. Where Again, while growing up, some of the
Speaker 1: kids would keep asking me why my eyes were closed
Speaker 1: it was bright. Uh. And of course the low vision
Speaker 1: comes into play as well. I'm considered legally blind, as
Speaker 1: pretty much every other person with albinism I have met
Speaker 1: has the same issue. There were ways to adjust in school,
Speaker 1: and ways they could assist me with large print books, magnifiers, binoculars,
Speaker 1: or the teachers simply letting me look at their slides
Speaker 1: afterward and have more time with them. Uh. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: As for how people with albinism are portrayed in TV
Speaker 1: and movies, I don't think being portrayed as a hitman
Speaker 1: or even someone with magical powers bug me as much
Speaker 1: as the fact that I know that it was fake
Speaker 1: because it would be really hard to be a hitman
Speaker 1: with a kind of eyesight that we have. I love
Speaker 1: that so practical. Uh And Brett had a lot of
Speaker 1: other great things to say, but that is from Brett
Speaker 1: and a long time listener. Thanks a lot, Brett, that
Speaker 1: was great. Glad you rode in, And uh, yeah, thanks
Speaker 1: a lot. If you want to be like Brett and
Speaker 1: get in touch with us and say, hey, you guys
Speaker 1: are pretty good, or hey you guys could have done
Speaker 1: a lot better, or hey I'm mad at you guys,
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to say, we would love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. We can take it all and you
Speaker 1: can address it all to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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