What's the effect of installing PlayPumps compared to funding hand pumps?

PlayPumps International

Good intentions aren’t enough

Imagine you’re in charge of a hospital…

Causes don't deserve support. People do.

How much should the government pay to save 200,000 birds?

How to avoid scope neglect

Which strategy do you think brings the greatest reduction in CO2e emissions per $100 of US government spending?

How many more lives does the most effective global health charity save per $100 spent than additional UK public health spending?

How much more can be accomplished per $100 implementing the most effective solution for Problem B than Problem A?

What is the best way for you to help?

We are in triage every second of every day

Why the problem you work on is the biggest driver of your impact

How to achieve hundreds of times more

Have more people died from causes directly related to terrorism or COVID-19 over the last 50 years globally? How much more?

Factor 1: Importance

How much does the US government spend on terrorism vs. pandemics?

Factor 2: Neglectedness

Do preventative-care home visits to elderly patients by healthcare professionals improve life expectancy?

Do drug substitution programs reduce criminal offending among drug addicts?

Does formally processing crimes committed by juveniles reduce criminal re-offending?

Factor 3: Tractability

The ITN framework

Which of the following problems is higher impact to work on according to the ITN framework?

The ITN framework, cost-effectiveness, and cause prioritisation

Introduction to EA – Why & How to Prioritize Problems to Work On

Global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals

We can use science to end poverty faster. But how much do governments listen to it?

Choosing the most critical problem

What happened to GDP per capita in England after 1825?

Our wealth across the ages

The industrial revolution changed everything

Comparing wealth across countries and time

We’ve seen progress across most areas of our lives

Billions now live free from extreme poverty

We’ve become vastly better educated

In what period did global life expectancy grow the most?

Our growing life expectancy

We could make the future radically better

Takeaways

The world is much better; The world is awful; The world can be much better

We radically improved the world, and could again

Know whether you’re actually helping

What impact did your colleague have from pushing the doctor out of the way to do CPR?

The real impact of saving a life

What was your true counterfactual impact?

Real positive change wouldn't have happened without you

Does Scared Straight help difficult kids commit less crime?

Scared straight?

You can accomplish more in hard-to-replace jobs

'Replaceability' isn't as important as you might think (or we've suggested)

Shapley values: Better than counterfactuals

How to be irreplaceable

Who deserves our concern?

Should you report the kidnapping to the police?

Kidnapper conundrum

We should care for moral patients

A golden rule

The all-knowing dictator

The blind dictator

We’re making moral progress

Same-sex relationships are now legal in the majority of countries

Approval of marriage between Black people and White people flipped from 4% to 94%

Many more women now enter the workforce than a century ago

We’re not done yet

Being a moral entrepreneur

Our descendants will probably see us as moral monsters

Identifying and tackling prejudice

Every answer has an element of uncertainty

Expected value is a tool for handling uncertainty

Assuming you could afford to lose, should you take this bet?

Let’s make a bet

Averting a nuclear disaster

What is the expected value, in additional years of healthy life, of a dose of Paxlovid?

Paxlovid

Expected value is used by leaders across industries

Which of your options has the highest expected value?

Sink or swim

Probabilities can be subjective and made up

If we accept GiveWell’s analysis, what increase should we expect for receiving deworming treatment?

Deworm The World

Expected value doesn’t handle extremes gracefully

The Fox And The Hedgehog: A Story of Triumphs and Tragedy

Moral cluelessness, population ethics, and probability within a multiverse

How to manage uncertainty in impact

Which problem should you work on?

Your career is loooooong…

You could change the course of history

There’s never been a better time to change the world

Which option would have a bigger direct impact on CO2 emissions?

Which of these factors has the strongest relationship with happiness on average?

Which graph best describes the relationship between income and happiness?

You can be financially secure and impactful

Take action

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)

80,000 Hours: Find a fulfilling career that does good

Making the most of your career

At what age is the average American’s salary the highest?

Build career capital to set yourself up for success

How often do we change our minds about our values, relative to what we expect?

Conduct quick tests to find your best long-term option

To get the best score you can, how many hours should you research before you start writing?

How much should you research?

What percent of technology startups fail to return a positive investment?

Reach high, with a backup

Score your options

Career exploration: when should you settle?

What to do when you’re uncertain

How many citations do the top 20% of scientists account for?

1_How many citations do the top 20% of scientists account for

You won’t know if something’s a good fit for you until you’ve tried it

What percent of American undergraduate students change degrees?

Take small steps to become more confident in a degree

How many passionate students are there in sports, music, or art for every job?

Don't blindly follow your passion

How often, on average, does a member of Gen Z change jobs?

Try out more options than you think you need to

Which undergraduate degree has the highest median salary?

Choose a flexible degree to not lock yourself in

High school is 12 years long. What is the value, in increased earnings, of finishing that last year of high school compared to finishing only 11 years?

Prestigious degrees open doors

Infrequently asked questions

Many Undergrads Should Take Light Courseloads

Half-assing it with everything you've got

What to study at university

Compare your long-term paths

Create a plan that makes sense for you

Your most impactful, fulfilling career

Common misconceptions

How many lives a doctor saves

What's more important to check to find out if this charity would actually help people?

Save The World By Helping Things™

The overhead myth

Compared to a doctor, how many more lives per year does Elijah, the engineer, save?

What does it cost in the field of global health to save a life, to the nearest order of magnitude?

How does the median American income compare to the rest of the world?

How rich will you be?

You can save lives without a medical degree

Join or build a community changing the world

Confidently taking your next steps

How you can help now

How to actually change the world

Gross domestic product (GDP) is a measure of the size and value of an economy. It measures the value of all goods and services produced in a country each year.

GDP was described by the red line (Forecast A)

GDP was described by the blue line (Forecast B)

The industrial revolution, which began around 1750, significantly increased our economic growth.

So if you were alive at the time and linearly extrapolated growth from the green line, you would have significantly underestimated the changes to come (blue line).

In reality, the exponential growth of the red line is what we got.

In reality, the exponential growth of the 

Around 250 years ago in a British textile mill, one of the most important processes in human history was gathering steam.

 The flying shuttle had just been invented, which doubled how quickly weavers could produce fabric.

 These were humble beginnings, but the industrial revolution was just getting started.

For better or worse, there’s hardly an aspect of society or group in the world the industrial revolution hasn’t touched.

And overall our economic growth rate went from roughly stagnant to roughly exponential.

As of 2020, Burundi was the poorest country in the world.

You might have been expecting England in the 1800s to have been poorer, given exponential GDP growth.

However, this exponential global economic growth wasn’t evenly distributed. This has left some countries with pre-industrial era levels of wealth.

Despite lots of progress, we’ve got a long way to go.

(We try to present relevant arguments even if they counter our thesis. Reality is complicated 🤷.)

You might have been expecting England in 1800 to have been poorer, given exponential GDP growth.

However, this exponential global economic growth wasn’t 

This has left some countries with pre-industrial era levels of wealth.

(We try to present relevant arguments even if they counter our thesis. Reality is 

1818 England is richer than 2018 Burundi.

GDP has risen exponentially. So what? GDP only matters insofar as it influences things we care about: Are we happier? Do people suffer less?

In the past, everyone outside a small elite lived in what today we would call extreme poverty. Even kings and queens were deprived of essential services we take for granted today, like competent medical care.

The changes from the industrial revolution gave humans unprecedented power to shape our world.

This reduction in global extreme poverty is one of the most remarkable achievements of humankind.

In the 1800s, countries that industrialised early were the first to expand education. In the 20th century, many other countries followed suit.

Unfortunately some countries, especially ones in sub-Saharan Africa, have been lagging behind with youth literacy rates below 50%.

Life expectancy is the average length of a human life.

 increasing, so the more recent and shorter period from 1970-1980 saw more growth.

Life expectancy has risen more quickly due to the industrial revolution.

Who do we have to thank for this dramatic increase in how long we’ll live?

When surveyed, people attribute most of this increase to medical care.

However, the data suggests we have public healthcare initiatives – such as sanitation, vaccination, and nutrition – to thank for >80% of our increase in life expectancy.

 increasing, so more recent periods have seen the greatest growth in life expectancy.

The more recent and shorter period from 1970-1980 saw more growth.

In our species' short existence we have made startling progress in improving the human condition.

 technological advances have eradicated material poverty.

 Tensions between countries escalating to war is very rare.

 Racism, sexism, and prejudice in all its forms have been largely eradicated from public life.

 We safeguard our planet and life’s fragile existence.

 In sum, this is a world where human suffering is massively reduced, and people across the world are much happier than they are today.

This future won’t materialise on its own, just as the world today isn’t the result of a half-hearted effort from a few of our ancestors. It took time and dedication to the idea that the future could be better.

Technology has given us the ability to make huge progress in many areas of life

If we continue this progress, life could be very good for a huge number of people

Until the 1960s, most people lived in extreme poverty.

Around 200 years ago, the industrial revolution began giving us the power to reshape most areas of life.

This allowed us to lift billions out of poverty, improve access to quality education, and double our average lifespan.

In the future, we could continue this progress and make the world substantially better than it is today.

We radically improved the world, and could again

What you'll be able to do