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How Effective Altruism Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:13
Speaker 1: Clark and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here,
0:16
Speaker 1: so that appropriately makes this stuff you should know. That's right.
0:20
Speaker 1: Before we get going, we want to give a little
0:23
Speaker 1: special plug to our good friend John Hodgeman and our
0:26
Speaker 1: buddy David Reese because they got a season two of
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0:59
Speaker 1: Who Lou and the whole jam here is that John
1:02
Speaker 1: and I watched the whole first season, the whole their
1:04
Speaker 1: short episodes. The whole first season was less than two
1:07
Speaker 1: hours long, which really like makes a great case. We're
1:10
Speaker 1: just streaming the whole thing and laughing a lot in
1:13
Speaker 1: one night. But it's uh, it's about two detectives, John Hunchman,
1:17
Speaker 1: John Hodgeman and David Purefoy David Reese, and uh, Hodgeman
1:23
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2:06
Speaker 1: So yeah, like you said, you can stream the whole
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Speaker 1: first season on Hulu, and you can catch this second
2:11
Speaker 1: season on f x X. I wasn't aware of the
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2:18
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2:22
Speaker 1: And it is rated PG thirteen, so if you're thirteen
2:25
Speaker 1: and up you should enjoy. It's got a few swear words,
2:28
Speaker 1: adult themes here and there, but it's it's great. It's
2:30
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Happy for Hodgman in Reese. Happy
2:34
Speaker 1: Happy Hodgeman, Happy, happy Reese. And I just like saying
2:40
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2:43
Speaker 1: It is. Should we talk about effective altruism? Yeah, I
2:47
Speaker 1: was gonna say, we're we're talking about that today and
2:49
Speaker 1: this one kind of I don't know if you noticed
2:51
Speaker 1: a similarity, but this one really kind of ties into
2:54
Speaker 1: that short stuff that we uh we released before the
2:58
Speaker 1: end of the year about riable giving. Did you notice
3:01
Speaker 1: I did? Although in that episode it was like we're like, yeah,
3:06
Speaker 1: you know, find a charity that speaks to you and
3:08
Speaker 1: maybe something it's local, or if you have animals, or
3:10
Speaker 1: if you had you know, a family member with cancer,
3:13
Speaker 1: and this basically says don't do any of that, right, Uh,
3:17
Speaker 1: the only way you should give is by just kind
3:20
Speaker 1: of coldly calculating what would help a human the most
3:25
Speaker 1: on planet Earth. Yes, so effective altruism is one of
3:31
Speaker 1: those movements. It's a pretty new movement. I think it
3:33
Speaker 1: really started in earnest around two thousand ten UM. And
3:38
Speaker 1: it's one of those movements that like elicits passion one
3:43
Speaker 1: way or another. It's a very polarizing idea if you
3:47
Speaker 1: just take it at its bare bones, which people love
3:50
Speaker 1: to do. And the reason why people love to take
3:52
Speaker 1: it at its bare bones, at its extremes extremes is
3:56
Speaker 1: because it is at heart of philosophical movement. Its rooted
4:01
Speaker 1: in utilitarianism, and utilitarianism is even more polarizing it has
4:05
Speaker 1: been for centuries than effective altruism is. And I think
4:09
Speaker 1: if everybody would just move past the most extreme parts
4:13
Speaker 1: of it and just kind of took effective altruism and
4:16
Speaker 1: it's at its most middle ground, where most of it
4:19
Speaker 1: seems to have accumulated and settled and where most of
4:22
Speaker 1: the work is being done, it would be really difficult
4:25
Speaker 1: to disagree with the ideas behind it. It's when you
4:28
Speaker 1: trot out Peter Singer and some of his most extreme views,
4:32
Speaker 1: or when you say, oh, it's all Silicon Valley billionaires,
4:36
Speaker 1: you know, um, when you when you just look at
4:38
Speaker 1: it like that, that's when people get all riled up
4:41
Speaker 1: and they're like, I hate it infactive altruism. If you
4:43
Speaker 1: really just kind of take it in a much more
4:45
Speaker 1: level headed way, it's actually pretty sensible and pretty great
4:49
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, you're saving people's
4:52
Speaker 1: lives and you're figuring out how to save the most
4:54
Speaker 1: lives possible. Yeah. I think anything that has some of
4:58
Speaker 1: its roots and philosophical movements of tech bros. It's it's
5:04
Speaker 1: a hard sell for a lot of people. Uh, but
5:08
Speaker 1: let's talk about a few things that it is, which
5:11
Speaker 1: is the idea that, uh, there's a lot of good
5:16
Speaker 1: that can be done with money, and if you can
5:20
Speaker 1: provide for yourself and your own basic needs, um, you
5:23
Speaker 1: should be probably giving to charity. Uh. You can take
5:27
Speaker 1: a cold hard look at your finances by literal, strict
5:32
Speaker 1: calculations financial calculations. If you make if you were a
5:37
Speaker 1: person without kids making forty dollar a year, you are
5:40
Speaker 1: in the ninety seven point four percentile on planet Earth
5:46
Speaker 1: as far as your wealth goes. And that you might
5:49
Speaker 1: not think if make forty dollars a year and then
5:52
Speaker 1: I have taxes, and I really like people with a
5:55
Speaker 1: lot of money should give to charities. I really don't
5:57
Speaker 1: have enough to spare. The idea is that, no, you
6:00
Speaker 1: have some to spare. You can give a little bit,
6:04
Speaker 1: uh like ten of your money and still be in
6:06
Speaker 1: the top ninety six percentile and you can literally save
6:10
Speaker 1: human lives on plans. That's the big thing that they're
6:14
Speaker 1: trying to get across here, that like, the money that
6:16
Speaker 1: you're giving is saving lives that otherwise would be crippled
6:21
Speaker 1: with disease or just not around, like they would die
6:26
Speaker 1: if you didn't give this money. And the fact that
6:29
Speaker 1: you are giving this money, those people are now living
6:33
Speaker 1: what are called quality adjusted life years, where they're living
6:36
Speaker 1: in additional healthy year or more because of that intervention
6:41
Speaker 1: that you gave your money for. And that yes, it's
6:44
Speaker 1: based on the premise that basically everyone living in the
6:48
Speaker 1: United States is rich compared to entire swaths of the
6:53
Speaker 1: rest of the world, and that basically anyone living in
6:56
Speaker 1: the United States can afford to give temper scent of
7:00
Speaker 1: their income and forego some clothes or some cars or
7:04
Speaker 1: something like that to help other people literally survive. And
7:09
Speaker 1: so right off the bat, we've reached levels of discomfort
7:13
Speaker 1: for the average person, especially the average American that like
7:17
Speaker 1: that are really tough to deal with. And so that's
7:20
Speaker 1: the first challenge that effective ultrasts have to do is
7:22
Speaker 1: kind kind of tamped down that overwhelming sense of guilt
7:25
Speaker 1: and responsibility and shame at not doing that that that
7:29
Speaker 1: people immediately kind of that crops up and people when
7:33
Speaker 1: they hear about this. Yeah, So I think maybe let's
7:36
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the history and some of
7:39
Speaker 1: the main organizations that are tackling this and maybe through
7:43
Speaker 1: that what some of the founders describe as the core commitments.
7:48
Speaker 1: Like you said, it took hold in about two thousand
7:51
Speaker 1: and ten UH, and there's a group of organizations under
7:55
Speaker 1: what is now an umbrella organization called the Center for
7:58
Speaker 1: Effective Altruism c e A. And UH started off with
8:02
Speaker 1: philosopher's Toby Ord and Will mccaskell founding a group called
8:07
Speaker 1: Giving What we Can UH self defined as an international
8:10
Speaker 1: community of people committed to giving more and giving more effectively.
8:14
Speaker 1: A couple of years later, mccaskell and a man named
8:17
Speaker 1: Benjamin Todd founded something called eighty thousand Hours, the ideas
8:20
Speaker 1: that you might devote eighty thousand hours to a career,
8:23
Speaker 1: so when choosing a career be very thoughtful on the
8:27
Speaker 1: impact that career has for both good and evil. We'll
8:30
Speaker 1: get way more into all this, uh, and then um,
8:35
Speaker 1: there's other you know, sort of nut fringes and weird
8:38
Speaker 1: groups but just on the outskirts called The Life You
8:42
Speaker 1: Can Save and then animal charity evaluators, which we'll get
8:46
Speaker 1: into how animals figure in. Um, but let's talk a
8:50
Speaker 1: little bit. I guess about Will mccaskell and what he
8:53
Speaker 1: sees as the core what he calls the core commitments
8:56
Speaker 1: of e A. So yeah, and Will McCaskill, he's A.
9:00
Speaker 1: He's out of Oxford, and so is Toby Ord. And
9:03
Speaker 1: I first came across this chuck when I was researching
9:06
Speaker 1: the End of the World podcast, and like, I deeply
9:09
Speaker 1: admire Toby Ord on like a personal level. He actually
9:11
Speaker 1: walks the walkkey and his whole family does, like they
9:13
Speaker 1: donate a significant portion of their family income to charity
9:17
Speaker 1: and like forego all sorts of stuff, and like he's
9:20
Speaker 1: literally trying to save the world. So um, and that
9:23
Speaker 1: since I'm I'm like really kind of open to the
9:25
Speaker 1: ideas that come out of that guy's mouth. Um, and
9:29
Speaker 1: you mentioned the End of the World with Josh Clark
9:31
Speaker 1: available wherever you can find your podcast. Yes, you're wonderful heady,
9:36
Speaker 1: highly produced in part series. Thank you very much. That
9:38
Speaker 1: was nice of you. Where is the new tackle the
9:41
Speaker 1: existing existential risks of the of the universe? Yes, okay,
9:45
Speaker 1: that's I just want to make sure the right chich
9:47
Speaker 1: one and the same. And I was not doing that
9:49
Speaker 1: to set you up for a plug. I was doing
9:51
Speaker 1: it and like kind of full disclosure that I'm a
9:53
Speaker 1: little I'm probably a little less than objective at this one. Yeah,
9:57
Speaker 1: but you know, that's a great show and it's still
9:59
Speaker 1: out there just because it is, you know, a few
10:02
Speaker 1: years old now, it's very evergreen. I think it's at
10:04
Speaker 1: least in these times. Yeah, the world hasn't ended yet,
10:07
Speaker 1: so it's still ever exactly good point. So, um, but
10:12
Speaker 1: I mentioned that in part is kind of fully disclosed.
10:16
Speaker 1: Um that I think Toby we're just one of the
10:18
Speaker 1: greatest people walk in the earth right now. But also
10:20
Speaker 1: Will mccaskell, who I don't know, seems to be in
10:24
Speaker 1: lock step with Toby too, and so he's kind of
10:27
Speaker 1: one of the one of the founders of this movement.
10:29
Speaker 1: And he said that that there's um four tenants he
10:32
Speaker 1: wrote a two thousand eighteen paper. And so there's basically
10:34
Speaker 1: four tenants that formed the core of effective altruism. One
10:39
Speaker 1: is maximizing the good, which we can all pretty much
10:42
Speaker 1: get on board with, like you want to make as
10:44
Speaker 1: much good as possible for as many people as possible.
10:47
Speaker 1: The second is aligning your aligning your your ideas, your
10:52
Speaker 1: your contributions with science using like evidence based um uh
10:59
Speaker 1: well evian to to to create where you're going to
11:03
Speaker 1: put your donations to use that to guide you rather
11:06
Speaker 1: than your heart. It's a big one, so it's a
11:08
Speaker 1: tough one for people's swallow. Another one's welfare is m
11:12
Speaker 1: where by maximizing the good, you're you're improving the welfare
11:18
Speaker 1: of others. That's the definition of good in that sense
11:21
Speaker 1: of maximizing the good. And then last one is impartiality.
11:24
Speaker 1: That's as hard for for people this swallow. That's harder
11:28
Speaker 1: I think for people swallow than science alignment, um, because
11:31
Speaker 1: what you're saying, then, Chuck, is that every single person
11:34
Speaker 1: out there in the world equally deserves um your charitable contribution. Yeah.
11:40
Speaker 1: And that's a big one because I'm trying to find
11:43
Speaker 1: the number here of how much Americans give abroad. Where
11:50
Speaker 1: is that? Okay, here we go out of the um.
11:56
Speaker 1: What is it four hundred and seventy billion dollars that
11:58
Speaker 1: Americans donate? Yeah, I think, yeah, one billion dollars twenty
12:04
Speaker 1: five point nine billion of that went to went outside
12:07
Speaker 1: of America to international affairs. So it's a lot of money,
12:11
Speaker 1: but it's not a lot of money in the total
12:13
Speaker 1: pot in the The idea for e A is is
12:17
Speaker 1: to sort of shatter your way of thinking about, you know,
12:20
Speaker 1: trying to help the your the people in your city,
12:24
Speaker 1: or the people in your state or your country, and
12:27
Speaker 1: to look at every human life is having equal value. Yes,
12:30
Speaker 1: and not even human life, but every life. Yeah, they
12:33
Speaker 1: include animals too, like you mentioned before, and we'll get
12:35
Speaker 1: into a little more um. But the key is that
12:39
Speaker 1: if every single person living on earth is equally important,
12:44
Speaker 1: then and you're trying to maximize the help you can
12:47
Speaker 1: you can do if from a from a strict e
12:51
Speaker 1: A perspective, you're wasting your money if you're donating that money,
12:56
Speaker 1: if you're an American, if you're donating it in America,
12:59
Speaker 1: because just by virtue of the value of a dollar,
13:02
Speaker 1: it can do exponentially more good. One dollar can in
13:06
Speaker 1: other like developing poverty stricken areas of the world, then
13:11
Speaker 1: it can here in the United States. So that right
13:14
Speaker 1: there sets up for critics of that of a like
13:17
Speaker 1: to point out that, well, wait a minute, wait amut,
13:18
Speaker 1: are you saying that we shouldn't donate locally here at home,
13:22
Speaker 1: That we shouldn't save the animals and the animal shelter,
13:24
Speaker 1: That we shouldn't donate to your local food pantry, That
13:27
Speaker 1: you shouldn't donate to your church. And if you really
13:30
Speaker 1: back at effective altruists into a corner, they would say, look,
13:33
Speaker 1: just speaking of maximizing your impact and everybody around the
13:37
Speaker 1: world is equally important. No, you shouldn't be doing any
13:42
Speaker 1: of those things, and you certainly shouldn't be donating any
13:44
Speaker 1: money to your local museum or symphony or something like that. Yeah,
13:48
Speaker 1: And they say that with their their head down and
13:50
Speaker 1: they're kind of drawing on the floor with your foot.
13:53
Speaker 1: They're saying like, yeah, that's kind of what we're saying.
13:57
Speaker 1: That's right, yes, And that's really tough for people swallow.
14:00
Speaker 1: There's like it's just this huge jagged pill that they're
14:03
Speaker 1: asking people swallow. But if you can step back from it,
14:06
Speaker 1: What they're ultimately saying is, look, man, you want to
14:10
Speaker 1: do the most good with your charitable donations, here's how
14:13
Speaker 1: to do it. You want to sit aside, you want
14:17
Speaker 1: to feel good about it, or really do the good exactly.
14:20
Speaker 1: And that's what they're doing. That's the whole basis of
14:22
Speaker 1: effective altruism. Is they're saying, set like you're all of
14:26
Speaker 1: your charitable giving is for you. You're doing it for yourself,
14:30
Speaker 1: that's why you give. This takes that out of the
14:33
Speaker 1: equation and says, now you're giving to genuinely help somebody else.
14:38
Speaker 1: All right, I think that's a great beginning. Maybe let's
14:41
Speaker 1: take a break now that everyone knows what this is
14:43
Speaker 1: and everyone is is choking on their coffee because they
14:47
Speaker 1: just donated to their local neighbor organization. Uh. And we'll
14:52
Speaker 1: come back and talk about some of the other uh
14:55
Speaker 1: philosophical founders right after this. George So a couple of
15:15
Speaker 1: people we should mention really quickly because they're gonna come
15:18
Speaker 1: up as far as organizations we did not mention GiveWell yet. Uh.
15:22
Speaker 1: They were founded in two thousand seven. They're a big
15:24
Speaker 1: part of the e a movement by Facebook co founder
15:28
Speaker 1: Dustin Moskovitz and his wife. Is it carry or Carrie Tuna.
15:34
Speaker 1: I'm going with Cary. I think so it's c A
15:37
Speaker 1: r I. Uh So they have partnered up UM to
15:41
Speaker 1: create open philanthropy, UM phil and philanthropy. It sounds weird.
15:48
Speaker 1: I wanted to say philanthropy LOO too early in the
15:51
Speaker 1: episode for that. Uh So they're they're big donors and
15:54
Speaker 1: big believers in the cause UM. And then another person
15:58
Speaker 1: you mentioned is well, first of all, you mentioned utilitarians, uh,
16:02
Speaker 1: in this philosophical movement UM, they were developed by and
16:06
Speaker 1: then we've talked about Jeremy Jeremy Bentham before and John
16:10
Speaker 1: Stewart Mill. But the idea that people should do what
16:14
Speaker 1: causes the most happiness and relieves the most suffering. And
16:18
Speaker 1: the other guy you mentioned that uh sort of controversial,
16:22
Speaker 1: I guess you could say is Peter Singer. Uh. He
16:25
Speaker 1: is an author and a philosopher and a and a
16:28
Speaker 1: ted talker who who kind of UM became I don't
16:33
Speaker 1: know about famous, because a lot of people don't know
16:34
Speaker 1: any modern philosophers, but in these circles became famous from
16:39
Speaker 1: an idea thought experiment in V two from his essay Famine,
16:43
Speaker 1: Affluence and morality, which is, you're going to work. You
16:48
Speaker 1: just bought some really expensive, great new shoes. You see
16:51
Speaker 1: a kid drowning in a shallow pond. Do you wait
16:54
Speaker 1: in there and ruin those new shoes and rescue the
16:56
Speaker 1: kid and make you late for work? And you know, people,
17:02
Speaker 1: if asked would say, well, of course you do. You're
17:04
Speaker 1: not gonna let that kid drown. So that the flip
17:07
Speaker 1: to that is, well, that's happening every day all over
17:10
Speaker 1: the world, and you're essentially saving your new shoes by
17:14
Speaker 1: letting these kids die. Yeah, you're you're you're buying those
17:19
Speaker 1: new shoes rather than donating that money to save a
17:22
Speaker 1: child's life. It's morally speaking, it's the exact same thing.
17:27
Speaker 1: And in the in the essay I wrote it last night,
17:29
Speaker 1: it's really good. Do you want to feel like a
17:31
Speaker 1: total piece of garbage for not doing enough in the world. Um.
17:36
Speaker 1: He basically goes on to destroy any argument about, well,
17:40
Speaker 1: that's a kid that you see in a pond. You're
17:42
Speaker 1: you're actually physically saving that kid. He's like, well, it's
17:45
Speaker 1: so easy to donate to help a child on the
17:48
Speaker 1: other side of the world, right now, that for all
17:49
Speaker 1: intents and purposes, it's as easy as going into a
17:52
Speaker 1: pond to say. These days it is easier. You don't
17:55
Speaker 1: even have to get wet. You're just calling your credit
17:57
Speaker 1: card basically, you know. Um, So, so he just destroys
18:02
Speaker 1: like any argument you could possibly have. And he is
18:06
Speaker 1: an extremist utilitarian philosopher, and that he's basically saying, not
18:12
Speaker 1: just that giving money to the point where you are
18:18
Speaker 1: just above the level of poverty the as the people
18:23
Speaker 1: you're giving, like really cutting into your your luxuries to
18:28
Speaker 1: help other people. Not only is that a good thing
18:31
Speaker 1: if you do that, it's actually not doing that is
18:35
Speaker 1: a morally bad thing. It's morally wrong to not do that.
18:38
Speaker 1: So he will really turn like the the hot plate
18:41
Speaker 1: up under you. Um, and it just really make you
18:44
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable. But he's saying like like, this is my
18:47
Speaker 1: philosophical argument, and it's pretty sound if you hear me out,
18:51
Speaker 1: and if you hear him out, it is pretty sound. Um.
18:54
Speaker 1: The problem is he's a utilitarian philosopher and a very
18:57
Speaker 1: strict one too, And so um, there's a lot of
19:01
Speaker 1: like you can take that stuff to the nth degree,
19:04
Speaker 1: to some really terrible extremes, um to where it's it
19:08
Speaker 1: becomes so anti sentimental that, um, it actually can be
19:13
Speaker 1: nauseating sometimes, Like, strictly speaking, under your utilitarian view, this
19:18
Speaker 1: one's often trotted out. It is morally good to murder
19:23
Speaker 1: one person to harvest their organs to save the lives
19:26
Speaker 1: of five other people with the the murdered person's organs.
19:30
Speaker 1: Technically speaking in the utilitarian lens, that's that's maximizing the
19:36
Speaker 1: good in the world. The thing is is, like, if
19:38
Speaker 1: that's what you're focusing on, and you're equating effective altruisms
19:42
Speaker 1: desire to get the most bang for your donation buck
19:46
Speaker 1: to murdering somebody to harvest their organs to save five people,
19:49
Speaker 1: you've just completely lost your way. Sure you can, you
19:52
Speaker 1: can win an argument against utilitarianism in that respect, but
19:56
Speaker 1: the fact that it's leveled and trained on on these
19:59
Speaker 1: on this movement, this charitable philanthropy movement, is totally unfair,
20:05
Speaker 1: even though yes, it is pretty much part and parcel
20:08
Speaker 1: with utilitarianism. Yeah, the singer is a guy who I
20:13
Speaker 1: think is one of his philosophies is the journey of life,
20:16
Speaker 1: and that interrupting a life before it has goals or
20:22
Speaker 1: after it's accomplished goals is Okay. Uh so he you know,
20:27
Speaker 1: if you mentioned his name, there are a lot of
20:29
Speaker 1: people will will point to this idea that he says
20:33
Speaker 1: things like it's okay to kill a disabled baby right
20:36
Speaker 1: after they're born in some cases, especially if it will
20:40
Speaker 1: lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects
20:42
Speaker 1: of a happy and productive life, or an older person
20:46
Speaker 1: who has already accomplished those goals, and the idea being
20:49
Speaker 1: that the disabled baby doesn't have goals yet. Uh, you know,
20:54
Speaker 1: that's obviously some controversial stuff. Then he's a hard liner
20:58
Speaker 1: and doubles down on this, but it again to to
21:02
Speaker 1: sort of throw that in that has nothing to do
21:04
Speaker 1: with effective altruism. No, he wrote that paper Famine, Affluence
21:08
Speaker 1: and Morality, which basically provides the general contours of the
21:13
Speaker 1: effective altruist movement. But it's not like he's just the
21:17
Speaker 1: leading heartbeat of the movement or anything like that. That's
21:20
Speaker 1: not their bible or anything like that. No, And unfortunately
21:23
Speaker 1: he's an easy target that people can like point to
21:26
Speaker 1: because the effective altruist movement has kind of taken some
21:29
Speaker 1: of his ideas and they're like, oh, yeah, you like singer, Well,
21:32
Speaker 1: what about singers arguing about this. It's like that has
21:34
Speaker 1: nothing to do with effect of altruism. He makes a
21:37
Speaker 1: really good, easy, easily obtained straw man that people like
21:41
Speaker 1: to pick on. That's right. Uh. Let's talk about numbers
21:45
Speaker 1: a little bit. We mentioned that in the United States, uh,
21:48
Speaker 1: four seventy one billion dollars was donated in UM. About
21:53
Speaker 1: three and twenty four of that came from individuals, which
21:56
Speaker 1: is amazing. You know, those corporate guys are really pulling
21:59
Speaker 1: their way. Yeah, no kidding, Uh, individuals, and that boils
22:03
Speaker 1: down to about a thousand dollars per person uh in
22:06
Speaker 1: the USA, which is not that much money if you
22:09
Speaker 1: think about it. And out of that, there are a
22:12
Speaker 1: couple of UM pledges that e A endorses. One called
22:16
Speaker 1: Giving what we Can, which is promising to give away
22:19
Speaker 1: ten percent of your lifetime income, and then another one
22:22
Speaker 1: called the Founder's Pledge, where if you're a startup founder,
22:25
Speaker 1: you promised to give away a percentage of your eventual proceeds. Uh.
22:29
Speaker 1: And then there's also try Giving, which is a temporary
22:32
Speaker 1: pledge to donate. And you know, it's only about twelve
22:37
Speaker 1: years old. Only about eight to ten people have taken
22:40
Speaker 1: these pledges so far, right, UM, which is still I mean,
22:43
Speaker 1: that's a decent amount of people, especially considering that most
22:46
Speaker 1: of the people involved in this movement are UM high earning,
22:51
Speaker 1: UM extremely educated people who are probably like ten percent
22:54
Speaker 1: of their income is going to add up to quite
22:56
Speaker 1: a bit over the course of their careers. And that's
22:59
Speaker 1: the thing they're saying, I'm going to give this ten
23:02
Speaker 1: percent a year for my career. And the reason why
23:06
Speaker 1: they really kind of targeted careers. Um, that's part of
23:09
Speaker 1: eighty thousand hours. Eighty thousand hours is this idea that
23:12
Speaker 1: we spent about eighty thousand hours working. So if you
23:15
Speaker 1: took that eighty thousand hours and figured out how to
23:17
Speaker 1: direct your energy the most effectively towards saving the world, um,
23:23
Speaker 1: you can really do some good just by the virtue
23:26
Speaker 1: of having to have this career to support yourself. And
23:29
Speaker 1: so there's a couple of ways to do it. One
23:31
Speaker 1: is to have a job that you make as much
23:34
Speaker 1: money as you possibly can at and then you donate
23:37
Speaker 1: as much as you comfortably can, and then maybe even
23:40
Speaker 1: then some say ten percent or some people donate. There's
23:44
Speaker 1: a NASA engineer named Brian Ottens who is profiled in
23:48
Speaker 1: The Washington Post who said he specifically got the most stressful,
23:54
Speaker 1: high earning job he could handle. Um in order to
23:58
Speaker 1: give away. I think a quarter of is of his income, right,
24:02
Speaker 1: And that's great. That's one way to do it. But
24:04
Speaker 1: another way to do it is to say, Okay, actually,
24:08
Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to figure out something that I really love,
24:11
Speaker 1: but I'm going to adjust it so that it's going
24:14
Speaker 1: to have the most impact possible. Yeah. I think it's interesting,
24:18
Speaker 1: Like there are two ways to think about it. The
24:21
Speaker 1: first one that you were talking about, they call it
24:22
Speaker 1: earning to give. And you know, the idea that you
24:27
Speaker 1: if you are capable of getting like a really high
24:29
Speaker 1: paying job in like the oil industry, with the idea
24:32
Speaker 1: that you're going to give most that a way in
24:35
Speaker 1: the earning to give philosophy side of things, they're saying, yeah,
24:39
Speaker 1: go do that. It doesn't have to be a socially
24:41
Speaker 1: beneficial job. Make the most money you can and give
24:44
Speaker 1: it away. Uh, don't go get the job of the
24:47
Speaker 1: nonprofit because there are tons of people that will go
24:50
Speaker 1: and get that job at the nonprofit like that that
24:53
Speaker 1: someone will fill that position. UM eights doesn't. Uh, they
24:58
Speaker 1: say that that's not the best way. There's is more.
25:00
Speaker 1: The second when you mentioned, which is don't take a
25:03
Speaker 1: job that causes a lot of harm. Being happy is
25:07
Speaker 1: part of being productive, and you don't have to go
25:10
Speaker 1: grind it out at a job you hate just because
25:12
Speaker 1: you make a lot of money, so you can give
25:13
Speaker 1: it away, like make yourself happy. Don't take a job
25:17
Speaker 1: that causes harm. Do a job where you have uh
25:21
Speaker 1: a talent. Um policy making is one field media. I
25:25
Speaker 1: would argue that we have a job where you know,
25:28
Speaker 1: we didn't know, but it turns out we have a
25:29
Speaker 1: talent for doing this, and we can leverage our voice. Uh,
25:33
Speaker 1: and we occasionally do to point out things that we
25:37
Speaker 1: think make a difference in the world and to mobilize people. Um,
25:40
Speaker 1: that's not the goal of our show, but we can
25:42
Speaker 1: dabble in that, which is which is great. Uh. That's
25:45
Speaker 1: not what we intended going into it. But I think
25:47
Speaker 1: we woke up one day and found that we had
25:49
Speaker 1: a lot of years, so we could we could throw
25:52
Speaker 1: in episodes. I think that lead to good Yeah, I agreed,
25:56
Speaker 1: which means we can shave a little off of that
25:58
Speaker 1: ten percent we're morally obligated to donate every year, right,
26:04
Speaker 1: so um, A good example of that of like figuring
26:08
Speaker 1: out how to direct your career path more toward improving
26:12
Speaker 1: the world. UM. On the I guess the eighty thousand
26:15
Speaker 1: hours site, they profile the woman who wanted to become
26:18
Speaker 1: a doctor, and she did some research and said, um,
26:22
Speaker 1: well this is cool, but most doctors in Australia treat
26:25
Speaker 1: Australians who are you know, relatively very well off and
26:29
Speaker 1: very healthy. And so instead she decided that she wanted
26:32
Speaker 1: to go into a different field of medicine. I think
26:34
Speaker 1: she went into like epidemiology and figured out how to
26:37
Speaker 1: get how to direct her her interest in medicine towards
26:42
Speaker 1: getting vaccines out to market faster to get them through
26:46
Speaker 1: the clinical trial process. And so she's not going to
26:49
Speaker 1: get to be a doctor, but she's gonna get to
26:51
Speaker 1: focus on medicine and she's going to get to have
26:53
Speaker 1: the satisfaction that she's improving the world demonstrably through her job.
26:58
Speaker 1: And she might not donate a die with that. I
27:00
Speaker 1: suspect she's probably going to, because she's on the eighty
27:04
Speaker 1: thou hours website. UM. But even if she didn't, she's
27:09
Speaker 1: still figuring out how to use evidence UM to make
27:14
Speaker 1: evidence based decisions to maximize the eights she's going to
27:18
Speaker 1: spend in her career to make the world a better place.
27:21
Speaker 1: Right because one of the ideas of e A and
27:24
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, the the charity Navigator and
27:26
Speaker 1: charity watched like good websites that we endorsed, uh that
27:30
Speaker 1: we're not poopooing at all. But um, they tend to
27:33
Speaker 1: focus a lot on you know, how much goes to overhead,
27:36
Speaker 1: how much goes to the programs, which is which is good.
27:39
Speaker 1: But e A is like, now, what we want to
27:41
Speaker 1: see our data and literal scientific data measurables on how
27:47
Speaker 1: much return you're getting for that dollar. And some charities
27:51
Speaker 1: do this and are a little more open about it,
27:53
Speaker 1: but they basically say, you know, every charity should say
27:57
Speaker 1: here's how much your dollar, uh, here's how far your
28:01
Speaker 1: dollar goes and exactly what it does. And the charities
28:04
Speaker 1: of the West said, come on really nervously when they're
28:10
Speaker 1: asked that, when they're told that they should be doing that,
28:13
Speaker 1: because they just don't. Part of the reason why this
28:15
Speaker 1: is very expensive to run. Um, what if effective altruists
28:20
Speaker 1: like to use is the gold standard random control trials
28:23
Speaker 1: where basically, um, you know what UX testing is user
28:28
Speaker 1: experience testing for like a website. So there's a B
28:30
Speaker 1: testing where you've got some people who are using your
28:33
Speaker 1: website and they're getting one banner AD and the B
28:36
Speaker 1: testers are getting a totally different banner AD, and you
28:38
Speaker 1: just see which gets the most clicks. It's basically that,
28:42
Speaker 1: but for a charity, for the work that the charity
28:46
Speaker 1: is carrying out, some group gets malaria nets, another group doesn't,
28:49
Speaker 1: and then you study which group had the best outcome,
28:52
Speaker 1: and then you could say, oh, well, these malaria nets
28:54
Speaker 1: increased these um these uh life adjusted years by you know,
28:59
Speaker 1: thirty percent, which means that it comes out to um,
29:03
Speaker 1: you know, point five life adjusted years UM per dollar
29:08
Speaker 1: compared to you know, point to life adjusted years for
29:11
Speaker 1: the control group. Ergo, we want to put our money
29:15
Speaker 1: into these groups that distribute malaria nets in Africa because
29:18
Speaker 1: they are demonstrably saving more lives than groups that don't.
29:22
Speaker 1: Like they want data like that, and you just don't
29:26
Speaker 1: get that with most charities. The good thing is that
29:29
Speaker 1: they're pushing charities to do that, because if you do
29:32
Speaker 1: care about that kind of thing, then then if you
29:35
Speaker 1: can come up with that kind of evidence, you can
29:37
Speaker 1: get these effective ultrus dollars and there's a lot of
29:40
Speaker 1: dollars coming from that group, even though it is relatively small. Yeah,
29:44
Speaker 1: it is interesting because you know, in that example, if
29:48
Speaker 1: you were to just say on your website, uh, people
29:52
Speaker 1: with with malaria nets fair better dot dot dot duh, right,
29:58
Speaker 1: Like everyone knows that, but they really want to have
30:01
Speaker 1: that to drill down and have that measurable where they
30:05
Speaker 1: can point to a number and say that, you know this,
30:08
Speaker 1: this is the actual result. We all know malaria nets help.
30:12
Speaker 1: But maybe if people I mean maybe they think it
30:15
Speaker 1: speaks to people more. Um, it certainly speaks to them,
30:18
Speaker 1: but I guess they think it would speak to the
30:20
Speaker 1: masses if if because these things cost money. I mean,
30:23
Speaker 1: that's one of the criticisms of these randomized controlled trials.
30:27
Speaker 1: It is that there is sort of expensive and like
30:30
Speaker 1: maybe that money should be used to do to actually
30:32
Speaker 1: donate instead of doing these trials. But they must think
30:35
Speaker 1: it speaks to people to have actual data like that. Well,
30:39
Speaker 1: it speaks to them because the way that you figure
30:42
Speaker 1: out how to maximize your money is to have data
30:44
Speaker 1: to look at to decide rather than your heart. It
30:47
Speaker 1: makes sense these are techies because they're all about that
30:50
Speaker 1: data very much so, and there's some problems with that,
30:54
Speaker 1: with relying on that. There's some criticisms, I should say,
30:56
Speaker 1: but it's problems to One is that there's a lot
30:59
Speaker 1: of stuff that you can't quite quantify in terms like that.
31:03
Speaker 1: Like if you're saying, like, no, I want to see
31:05
Speaker 1: how many lives saved your your work is doing per dollar, um, well,
31:12
Speaker 1: then the you know, the High Museum is going to
31:14
Speaker 1: be like, um, zero, we're saving zero lives. But that
31:18
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're not enriching or improving lives through
31:23
Speaker 1: through the donations that they're receiving this art museum, you
31:26
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Um. Livia, who helps us with
31:28
Speaker 1: this article, gives an example. She's saying, like, you couldn't
31:31
Speaker 1: really do a randomized controlled trial for the nineteen sixty
31:35
Speaker 1: three March on Washington that helps solidify the civil rights movement, um,
31:41
Speaker 1: and yet it'd be really hard to argue that that
31:43
Speaker 1: didn't have any major like effects on the world. So
31:47
Speaker 1: that's a that's a big that's a big argument. Then
31:50
Speaker 1: the other thing is that sometimes these randomized controlled trials,
31:53
Speaker 1: like you can hold it one year and then in
31:55
Speaker 1: one part of the world and go to another part
31:57
Speaker 1: of the world the next year. And it's what should
32:00
Speaker 1: be the same is just not the same. And so
32:02
Speaker 1: if you're basing all of your charitable giving on these things,
32:04
Speaker 1: they better be um, reproducible or else what are you doing? Yeah,
32:10
Speaker 1: I mean this. You get why this is such a
32:12
Speaker 1: divisive thing and why it's such a hard sell to
32:14
Speaker 1: people because people give with their hearts generally, Uh, they
32:18
Speaker 1: give to causes they find personal to them, Like I
32:21
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, a family member with cancer, or a family
32:25
Speaker 1: member with m S or just you know, name anything.
32:28
Speaker 1: Generally people like have a personal connection somehow which makes
32:33
Speaker 1: them want to give. And that's sort of the heart
32:35
Speaker 1: of philanthropy has always been the heart. Uh. And it's
32:40
Speaker 1: a it's a tough sell for e A to say,
32:42
Speaker 1: is I'm sorry, you have to cut that, cut that
32:44
Speaker 1: out of there. Um. You know, it's a very subjective
32:48
Speaker 1: thing to what constitutes a problem, even um when it
32:52
Speaker 1: comes to the animal thing, like when when people give
32:55
Speaker 1: for animal charities, they're generally giving to you know, dogs
32:58
Speaker 1: and cats and stuff like that. Um. These these great
33:02
Speaker 1: organizations that do great work here in America. But the
33:05
Speaker 1: concentration if from the e A. Perspective are factory farmed animals,
33:11
Speaker 1: and that one percent of charitable spending in the US
33:14
Speaker 1: goes to the suffering of farmed animals, and that's what
33:19
Speaker 1: we should be concentrating on because of the massive, massive scale. Again,
33:23
Speaker 1: to try and do the most good, you would look
33:25
Speaker 1: at like where the most animals, and sadly they're on farms. Yeah,
33:29
Speaker 1: I mean just from sheer numbers. Um, you can make
33:33
Speaker 1: a you can make a case utilitarian speaking that your
33:36
Speaker 1: money would be better off spent improving the lives of
33:39
Speaker 1: cows that we're going to be slaughtered for beef, that
33:42
Speaker 1: will still eventually be slaughtered for beef, but you can
33:45
Speaker 1: improve their welfare during their lifetimes and that technically is maximizing, um,
33:53
Speaker 1: the impact of your dollar by reducing suffering just because
33:55
Speaker 1: there's so many cows awaiting slaughter in the world, humans
34:01
Speaker 1: that are dying in Africa back. Yeah, that's a tough sell.
34:05
Speaker 1: And I think this is where like, this is where
34:07
Speaker 1: it makes sense to just kind of like maintain a
34:10
Speaker 1: certain amount of common sense where it's like, yeah, man,
34:13
Speaker 1: like if you really want to maximize your money, go
34:16
Speaker 1: look at the e A sites. Go check out eighty
34:18
Speaker 1: thousand hours, um, like like get into this and actually
34:22
Speaker 1: do that. But there's no one who's saying, like, but
34:24
Speaker 1: if you give one dollar to that, to that local
34:28
Speaker 1: symphony that you love, you're a sucker, you're a chump,
34:30
Speaker 1: you're an idiot. Nobody's saying that. And so maybe it
34:33
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be all or nothing one way or
34:36
Speaker 1: the other, which seems to be the push in the poll,
34:38
Speaker 1: and I think the issue here, Yeah, we should read
34:42
Speaker 1: directly from Will mccaskell um. He defends uh e A
34:47
Speaker 1: and he says this effective altruism makes no claims about
34:50
Speaker 1: what obligations of benevolence one has. Uh nor does e
34:54
Speaker 1: A claim that all ways of helping others are morally
34:57
Speaker 1: permissible as long as they help others the most. Indeed,
35:00
Speaker 1: there's a strong community norm against promoting or engaging in
35:03
Speaker 1: activities that cause harm. So they flat out say, like
35:08
Speaker 1: the whole murder someone to harvest their organs, like, we're
35:11
Speaker 1: not down with that, that's not what we're about. Please
35:14
Speaker 1: stop mentioning Peter Singer, right, yeah, and he says it
35:17
Speaker 1: doesn't require that I always sacrifice my own interest for
35:20
Speaker 1: the good of others, And that's actually very contradictory of
35:23
Speaker 1: Peter Singers. Um. Essay, he says, no, you're morally obligated
35:27
Speaker 1: to do that, and if you don't, it's morally bad.
35:29
Speaker 1: They're saying like, no, let's let's all just be reasonable.
35:32
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, we're philosophers, but you know we can
35:35
Speaker 1: also like think like normal human beings too, And that's
35:38
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do. We're trying to take this
35:40
Speaker 1: kind of philosophical view um, based in science, based in evidence,
35:43
Speaker 1: and try to direct money to get the biggest impact. Um. Yeah,
35:47
Speaker 1: like you said, can we stop? Can we stop bringing
35:49
Speaker 1: up Peter Singer place? How about we take another break
35:54
Speaker 1: and uh, we'll talk a little bit about geez, what
35:57
Speaker 1: else long termism and e A s impact right after
36:00
Speaker 1: the case. So, long termism is part of the e
36:23
Speaker 1: A movement, and this is the idea of hey, let's
36:25
Speaker 1: not just think about helping people now. If we really
36:29
Speaker 1: want to maximize impact to help the most people, which
36:31
Speaker 1: is at the core of our mission statement, we need
36:34
Speaker 1: to think about the future because there will be a
36:37
Speaker 1: lot more people in the future to save and uh,
36:41
Speaker 1: and so long termism is really where your dollar is
36:46
Speaker 1: going to go the most if you think about like
36:47
Speaker 1: deep into the future even yeah, um, like if if
36:51
Speaker 1: humanity just kind of hangs around planet Earth for another
36:54
Speaker 1: billion or so years, which is entirely possible, if we
36:56
Speaker 1: can make it through the great filter, uh um uh,
37:02
Speaker 1: there will be like quadrillions of human lives left to come.
37:06
Speaker 1: And a lot of philosophers who think about this kind
37:09
Speaker 1: of thing kind of make the make the case, or
37:12
Speaker 1: can make the case if they want to, that their
37:15
Speaker 1: lives are probably going to be vastly more um enjoyable
37:19
Speaker 1: than ours, just from the technology available and not having
37:23
Speaker 1: to work, and all sorts of great stuff that's going
37:24
Speaker 1: to come along, and so technically, just by virtue of
37:28
Speaker 1: the fact that there's so many more of them, we
37:30
Speaker 1: should technically be sacrificing our own stuff now for the
37:35
Speaker 1: benefit of these generations and generations and generations of humans
37:38
Speaker 1: become that vastly out number the total number of humans
37:41
Speaker 1: who have ever lived, like a hundred eight billion humans
37:44
Speaker 1: have ever lived. We're talking quadrillions of humans left to come.
37:48
Speaker 1: That very much devetails with the um the kind of
37:51
Speaker 1: discomfort you can elicit from somebody who says that your
37:54
Speaker 1: money is better spent relieving the suffering of cattle awaiting
37:58
Speaker 1: slaughter than it is saving children's lives in Africa, you
38:01
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Yeah, And they're not just talking
38:03
Speaker 1: about climate change and like obviously that kind of existential risk.
38:06
Speaker 1: They dabble in AI and stuff like that. And I
38:09
Speaker 1: know that we don't need to go down that rabbit hole.
38:13
Speaker 1: You should listen to the End of the World with
38:14
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, the AI episode. But I mean, it's all
38:17
Speaker 1: about that, but it does have to do with that
38:21
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's not just like we need to
38:23
Speaker 1: save the planet so it's around in a billion years. Uh,
38:27
Speaker 1: you know, they tackle like all kinds of existential risk basically, Yeah,
38:30
Speaker 1: and they dedicate like a lot of these guys are
38:32
Speaker 1: dedicating their careers to figuring out how to avoid existential
38:35
Speaker 1: risk because they've decided that that is the greatest threat
38:38
Speaker 1: to the future that would cut out any possibility of
38:42
Speaker 1: those quadrillions of lives. So that's what the that's literally
38:46
Speaker 1: why they have dedicated themselves to thinking about and alleviating
38:49
Speaker 1: these risks, because they're trying to save the future of
38:52
Speaker 1: the human race. Because they've decided that that is the
38:55
Speaker 1: best way to maximize their careers for the most good,
38:59
Speaker 1: which is just astounding if you stop and think about
39:02
Speaker 1: what they're actually doing in real life. Uh, we mentioned
39:07
Speaker 1: the kind of money that's even though it's a UM,
39:10
Speaker 1: not a huge movement so far. I think we said
39:13
Speaker 1: like somewhereround eight thousand people of maybe these pledges, I
39:16
Speaker 1: think overall. Uh. The co founder of eighty thousand Hours,
39:20
Speaker 1: Benjamin Todd says about forty six billion dollars is committed
39:24
Speaker 1: to e a going forward UM. Like you said, a lot.
39:28
Speaker 1: You know, it's because of there are a lot of
39:31
Speaker 1: rich people and tech people that are backing this thing.
39:33
Speaker 1: So a lot of that money comes from people like
39:36
Speaker 1: Duskin Moskovitz and uh, Cary Tuna and Sam bankman Fried
39:41
Speaker 1: of he's a cryptocurrency guy, so a lot of that
39:44
Speaker 1: money comes from them. But they're they're trying to just
39:47
Speaker 1: raise awareness to get more and more regular people on
39:50
Speaker 1: board that you know, if they have you know, two
39:53
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or three thousand dollars to give a year,
39:57
Speaker 1: they're saying, I think they estimate that three to four
40:00
Speaker 1: five bucks is like the amount of money it takes
40:03
Speaker 1: to save a human life and to give them additional
40:05
Speaker 1: quality years. Yeah, so if you cough up that much
40:08
Speaker 1: and you directed toward one of the charities that they've
40:10
Speaker 1: identified is the most effective. UM through their sites through
40:14
Speaker 1: like give well is a place to go look for
40:17
Speaker 1: for charities like that that have been vetted by effective ultras.
40:20
Speaker 1: You're literally saving the life of a child every year.
40:23
Speaker 1: It's like you're saving a child from drowning in a
40:25
Speaker 1: pond every single year, just and all you're doing is
40:28
Speaker 1: ruining your new shoes or you know, it's interesting new shoes,
40:31
Speaker 1: but yeah, you're you're ruining you're really nice vacation that year,
40:35
Speaker 1: right because you you know, you sent this one thing.
40:37
Speaker 1: I don't know where it came from, but the the
40:39
Speaker 1: idea of someone running into a burning building and pulling
40:41
Speaker 1: a child out or a kid out of a pond,
40:43
Speaker 1: they're they're written in the newspaper as a hero. But
40:46
Speaker 1: you can you can do that. You can save a
40:49
Speaker 1: kid a year or more every year for the rest
40:52
Speaker 1: of your life. Um, it's a little less dramatic. You're
40:56
Speaker 1: not gonna have a newspaper, You're not gonna be above
40:58
Speaker 1: the fold. It's you know what I'm saying, But uh,
41:02
Speaker 1: that's I mean that has the a is like all
41:05
Speaker 1: about it is the antithesis of that antithesis. Yeah, I
41:11
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean, it's it's no frills
41:14
Speaker 1: version of antithesis. The thing is too is also I mean,
41:18
Speaker 1: it's still very relative. Likes is is relatively a very
41:24
Speaker 1: large amount or so so size amount or not much amount,
41:27
Speaker 1: depending on how much you you make. And again, nobody
41:30
Speaker 1: in the effective ultraist movement is saying that you should
41:33
Speaker 1: personally sacrifice unless you really want to, unless you're driven to.
41:38
Speaker 1: But you're not morally required to personally sacrifice to cough
41:41
Speaker 1: up that fort when it means you're you're not going
41:44
Speaker 1: to be able to eat for a week, or you're
41:46
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to have a place to live. Like,
41:48
Speaker 1: nobody's saying that, and nobody's being flipping about the the
41:51
Speaker 1: idea that isn't that much. What they're saying is can
41:56
Speaker 1: literally save a child's life. And if you stop and
41:59
Speaker 1: look at your life and think that you could come
42:01
Speaker 1: up with that, you could donate it to a certain
42:03
Speaker 1: place that will go save a child's life in real life.
42:07
Speaker 1: That's that's what they're saying. Yeah, this, uh, this, this
42:11
Speaker 1: would be a hard sell to Emily, what I'm thinking
42:15
Speaker 1: about our our charity conversation we have every year, and
42:20
Speaker 1: I'm trying to imagine myself saying, what if we don't
42:23
Speaker 1: give to the local animal shelter and neighbor in need
42:25
Speaker 1: like we usually do, and instead we do this. She
42:29
Speaker 1: would just be like, uh, I see what you're saying,
42:32
Speaker 1: but but no, get get out of my face with that.
42:34
Speaker 1: But I mean you could be like, well, how about
42:36
Speaker 1: we do both? You know exactly? So I think I
42:38
Speaker 1: think that's the thing. That's my take on it, Like
42:41
Speaker 1: we support co ED, and like that's I have no
42:45
Speaker 1: qualms about supporting COD even after doing all this research
42:48
Speaker 1: and understanding effective altruism even more, no qualms whatsoever. I'm
42:51
Speaker 1: sure that that money could be directed better to help
42:54
Speaker 1: other people in other parts of the world. I still
42:57
Speaker 1: think it's money well spent and it's helping people, and
43:00
Speaker 1: I'm I'm very happy with that. I think that's great.
43:03
Speaker 1: And then I don't have any guilt or shame about
43:05
Speaker 1: that at all. And because what you're saying at that point,
43:08
Speaker 1: like with co ED, it is an organization dedicated to
43:12
Speaker 1: helping children in a in a not very well off
43:15
Speaker 1: country live better and longer live, so like it essentially
43:20
Speaker 1: is effective altruism in a way, except effective altruism is
43:23
Speaker 1: like no, no, no no, no no. The data says that
43:27
Speaker 1: this one is look at the numbers. It's point this, this,
43:31
Speaker 1: this better, and goes further like they really it's a
43:36
Speaker 1: it's a numbers in a data game that makes it
43:38
Speaker 1: tough for a lot of people to swallow. I think, yeah,
43:41
Speaker 1: it's anti sentimentalism basically in the service of saving the
43:47
Speaker 1: most lives possible. I know, it's it's it's interesting, and
43:51
Speaker 1: it doesn't surprise me that it has its roots in
43:53
Speaker 1: and philosophy because it is really a philosophical sort of
43:57
Speaker 1: uh head scratcher at the end of the day. Yeah,
44:00
Speaker 1: for sure, it's pretty interesting stuff and it really is.
44:04
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's fascinating. Yeah. So there's
44:07
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot more to read, both criticisms
44:10
Speaker 1: and um, you know, pro e a stuff, And seriously,
44:18
Speaker 1: you could do worse than than reading um, Peter Singer's
44:22
Speaker 1: essay what is it called Famine Affluence, Famine Affluence and Morality.
44:30
Speaker 1: It's like sixteen pages. It's a really quick read. Um,
44:33
Speaker 1: it's really good, So read that too, and just see
44:35
Speaker 1: what you think, see what you think about yourself too,
44:38
Speaker 1: and maybe take some time and examine you know, um,
44:41
Speaker 1: if you could give to some of these charities, or
44:44
Speaker 1: if you're not giving to charity at all, seriously, do
44:47
Speaker 1: spend some time and see where you could make that change. Uh.
44:52
Speaker 1: And since I said make that change and Chuck said yeah,
44:54
Speaker 1: that means, of course it's time for a listener mail.
45:00
Speaker 1: This is follow up to albinism. I knew we would
45:02
Speaker 1: have someone who has albinism to write in. I'm glad
45:05
Speaker 1: we did. And then we had listeners out there. And
45:07
Speaker 1: this is from Brett. Hey, guys, a longtime listener. I
45:10
Speaker 1: have albinism, so I thought i'd throw in my perspective.
45:14
Speaker 1: First off, I know you were struggling to decide how
45:16
Speaker 1: to describe it albino or albinism. My preference is using
45:20
Speaker 1: the term albinism like you guys did, as to me,
45:22
Speaker 1: it denotes a condition while saying if someone or something
45:25
Speaker 1: is albino, it feels like you're delegating them to a
45:28
Speaker 1: different species. Being called albino always used to bug me
45:31
Speaker 1: growing up, and that was usually because they were kids
45:35
Speaker 1: were trying to get a rise out of me. Fortunately,
45:37
Speaker 1: I was a big kid, so it never really escalated
45:40
Speaker 1: to physical bullying. Like I like this idea. Uh, like
45:45
Speaker 1: the kid with albinism who's like huge and someone says something,
45:49
Speaker 1: They're like, excuse me, what did you just say? I
45:53
Speaker 1: didn't say anything. Being a child of the seventies and eighties,
45:57
Speaker 1: like you're like you guys, it was pretty rough at times.
46:00
Speaker 1: On the physical side, my eyes are very light sensitive. Uh,
46:03
Speaker 1: they're blue. Where Again, while growing up, some of the
46:07
Speaker 1: kids would keep asking me why my eyes were closed
46:10
Speaker 1: it was bright. Uh. And of course the low vision
46:13
Speaker 1: comes into play as well. I'm considered legally blind, as
46:16
Speaker 1: pretty much every other person with albinism I have met
46:20
Speaker 1: has the same issue. There were ways to adjust in school,
46:23
Speaker 1: and ways they could assist me with large print books, magnifiers, binoculars,
46:29
Speaker 1: or the teachers simply letting me look at their slides
46:31
Speaker 1: afterward and have more time with them. Uh. Yeah, that's great.
46:36
Speaker 1: As for how people with albinism are portrayed in TV
46:38
Speaker 1: and movies, I don't think being portrayed as a hitman
46:41
Speaker 1: or even someone with magical powers bug me as much
46:44
Speaker 1: as the fact that I know that it was fake
46:46
Speaker 1: because it would be really hard to be a hitman
46:49
Speaker 1: with a kind of eyesight that we have. I love
46:52
Speaker 1: that so practical. Uh And Brett had a lot of
46:55
Speaker 1: other great things to say, but that is from Brett
46:58
Speaker 1: and a long time listener. Thanks a lot, Brett, that
47:01
Speaker 1: was great. Glad you rode in, And uh, yeah, thanks
47:05
Speaker 1: a lot. If you want to be like Brett and
47:06
Speaker 1: get in touch with us and say, hey, you guys
47:08
Speaker 1: are pretty good, or hey you guys could have done
47:11
Speaker 1: a lot better, or hey I'm mad at you guys,
47:14
Speaker 1: or whatever you want to say, we would love to
47:16
Speaker 1: hear from you. We can take it all and you
47:18
Speaker 1: can address it all to stuff podcast at iHeart radio
47:22
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
47:27
Speaker 1: I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
47:30
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
47:33
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.