a whole and then you know, rebel right, as the things you don't revolt if you have a stake in the system, be really interesting to dial back and think about the longer, deeper history of what housings meant in the united states. not just that old question of the american dream, but the bigger question of who the dream has been for the headline news, a double terror attacker to cobble airport hills more than a 100. and then just at least a $150.00 during evacuation of its 13 us military personnel are among the dead of correspondent that says there was several more blas bye and claims its american forces destroying their own ammunition and islamic state affiliate. and i've got to stand known as isis. k says it carried out. the bombings of the taliban condemns the attack. telephone had earlier warned that an attack on cobbled half what was

possible might be aimed at harming the group's image. the problem is that a huge number of people have gathered near the airport and there was a threat that the single person, one person alone can carry out an attack and kill people in order to damage the taliban reputation. and germany says it's sending evacuations from afghanistan. because the situation is too dangerous, but other nations, including britain, france, and the us pledge to carry on in a televised address, president biden. to advantage the american lives last. we will not forgive. we will not forget. we will hunt you down to make you pay our reporting continues online, get the fax, we know in the analysis, you need to give it some clarity on context right now with t dot com here. so if you shevardnadze said that the vision re

hello welcome to so if you could visionary me sophie shepherd, times of uncertainty. empathy is our moral compass, and out rosen is our way through. but how to make sure that our good intentions do not pay the road to how i ask effective altruism evangelist. professor of philosophy at oxford university, william mac, asco, william catskill, professor of philosophy at oxford university, and the co founder of the center for effective altruism. surely, great to have you with us today. welcome to our show, which is great sphere, thank you for inviting me on so. alright, so the movement here are associated with is called effective altruism. i mean,

the very notion of effective altruism makes me wonder, can altruism be ineffective or even harmful in what cases? yes, so i think sadly, isn't very often it's ineffective or even harmful. so there are many attempts where people find, do some of good actually end up achieving very little or just achieving far less than the could have done. so for example, a program in the united states called scared spate, takes juvenile link once and shows them round pins in order to scan them out of a life of crime. but this has been studied many times over and actually it turns out that this program increases the rates of criminal activity among those teenagers in the years following the program. so this is actually an example of an activity that's actively harmful, not just ineffective, but most of the time things do some math of good is just the very best things we

can focus on time and money on do an enormous amount to improve the well let's talk about the inefficient ways to quench my desire to do something altruistic. like i read an example in one of your interviews, a cherry that for instance, sends books to africa for kids to learn with. but there's no teachers there. so the books aren't really making much difference, so your money sort of wasted, give me other causes that are ineffective enough to be donating too. if i spend money on for instance alzheimer's research is it like money will spend? is it effective? may so i mean, something like funding out same as the search or funding treatment for illnesses that effects some of which is countries in the world. neither good things do that making the world better. but the question is, are they the most effective things you can be doing? and i think generally not. and the reason being that illnesses affects people in which country as well as all ready an enormous amount of money and resources going

towards those causes. so that includes, you know, many important issues like outside those cancer and so on. but when we look at the court as people in the world, you know, those living on less than a couple of dollars per day. well, they don't have a very, very most basic life saving, you know, medical treatments. so a long lasting insecticides me to bed net costs just for dollars to children for 2 years. and statistically speaking, you'll save a life there for just a few $1000.00. that's incredibly cheap, whereas if you're trying to save a life another country, then via you know, some of these other causes you'll, you won't be spending more like millions of dollars to save a life. altruism is traditionally defined as unselfish behavior for the benefit of the others. but it's no secret like doing good for others. it actually makes you feel good, right? and it gives you the sense of fulfillment,

self respect that you often look for. do you agree that altruism has an element of egoism to it? i mean, even them, in this case, the desire to just feel very good about one's self, the reason for as being altruistic. well, i think we should divorce the idea about to as in some unselfish behavior, if i can help lots of people and then also get benefit from it myself. that's a bonus. that's another good thing. that's not a reason against doing that thing. and in fact, i and others in the effect, folks from community you often make no quite significant decisions like to donate 10 percent of incomes or more. we often feel good about us. you know, it's other wording way to live a life. and that's something that we should feel good about, i think because if you feel good about acting elsewhere, stickly, well that's great. what's going to motivate you to do even more over a long time? about a 3rd of all donations in the united states for instance, goes to religious organizations. and i found that very interesting. how effective

is a church as a charitable organization is giving to a church, in your opinion, that's a effective donation. well, i think many people give to the church, not on the grounds of pure effectiveness for doing it for some other reason. perhaps it's, you know, a mark of loyalty to our community that if you want to look at these organizations in terms of their effect, you know, i think often you can just do a lot better. so. ready these kind of large church based organizations, even when they're focused on the right cause areas like including the lives of the course, people in the world. it's often very hard to know exactly what the money is being used for what change they're making that wouldn't otherwise happens. whereas we have some organizations like the against malaria foundation that provides bad nets, though we know saves life save lives for thousands of thousands of dollars. and

given that there are these organizations, well, we should target money towards them. rather than taking this much more kind of broad shotgun approach that church based organizations typically take what given a charity so very widespread and part of the culture in the united states. but much less if i say europe, for instance, or i don't know in china. why is that? why do you think are americans more soft than other nations? whereas is coming from? i think there's a couple of reasons. one is just the effects of christianity. so, united states among which country use has a much larger adherence to the christian faith, certainly than european cultures. and then the 2nd, i think, is a history and culture of social problems being a matter of, you know, tackling social problems, being a matter of individual action rather than state action. so in europe, there's a larger role for state,

or at least that's how it's perceived. and so people naturally think, well the right way of helping those who appoint via my taxes, whether it's in the u. s. it's more likely to be via flat to be back to ones alma mater, the university you graduated from. and i can't say a large proportion of it to like i told you before the interview. i'm also going to board of trustees for a hospice charity fund. can i consider myself an effective archer? is i wonder what you think of that? yes. so i think the question you should ask yourself is, how did i come to engage in this sort of activity? was it that i have really just stood back and thought, what all the problems that the world faces? what are those, you know, the biggest in scale yet the most neglected yet, but i think i can make, have the will selection on. and then chose, you know, that organization on the basis of thinking, yes, this is where they me think i can make the biggest difference. alternatively,

wasn't just, you know, an opportunity that kind of oppose. and i think it is the case that in general, if you're trying to aim to benefit the poor people, well, the very poor people in the world are those in the port countries lot with an n middle income with countries. and so that's why i tend to think that the most effective organizations lie if where it's on a benefit people live today. so in one of your books you propose is really interesting, ethical test. when you have like a burning house in front of you with 2 rooms in one room, there is a child and another one, there's a picasso. and of course, if the choice was up to me, i would save the child because i think that any human life is priceless. but if we look in the standpoint of effective altruism, you'd say it's better to save the castle because then he can sell the because though, and save millions more lives around you is effective altruism,

more about calculus rather than emotional intentions. so i think if i spoke with him about both emotions and calculating, so you're an emotional impulse that you get when you see say, a child, something that's extremely important. and that motivates you to do good. but we need to use reason in order to guide our motivations. we need to use our kind of more logical pop up names. and so in this go experiment that giles peter's. so slaves s on a directed towards me. the, you know, it was a thought experiment, it's a philosophical. ready idea not necessarily something that hired into by the world, but the thought was, well, if you can say someone who's like and some of you or die or this more indirect means, save the painting that you can then save, you know, thousands of other lives. well, my response is that the way we should think about that is just is that just as

a child in a store experiment right there in front of you in this burning building, you can save. well, also just thousands of children around the world to 1000000 children and the world you could potentially save it where it's like within the situation of being facing a burning building just all the time. and that's why ability to use money in the light ways is so important. and that leaves the conclusion of the the will. where does the calculus actually start? because when i compare the bang, my bach and i keep analyzing things through the prism of effective out through them, you know, i could come up to the conclusion. the one i heard from many politicians in africa that actually aid in general is a, is a really bad thing and a long term because it, because it's free free stuff and free stuff kills industries and actually it creates dependencies. so for efficiency sake, i shouldn't be contributing to any charities, let's say that send stuff to africa or should i?

yes. so i think the issue of aids and the cases where it can be actively harmful. i think it's really important. we need to think about it, and it's true that many govern government aided programs in the past. have, you know, sometimes on damage helping to pop up, in fact, come up dictatorships and so on. but it's to heaviest about, i think the 1st is if we look at global health spending, that has just been enormously beneficial, eradication smallpox to say something like 60000000 lives. if we look at malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhea, diseases, feasible drastically down. and global health spending has been a big part of that. i don't know of any serious academic who disputes that and then the 2nd is looking at a money that's going to non governmental organizations, father and government to government organizations. so the literature that's critical of a spending that's normally focused on government to government spending and via non

profits. and so i think even if you are relatively skeptical of the value of aid in general, that doesn't mean that these, they're the best nonprofits that you can be funding on doing enormous amount of goods. and in fact, we have positive evidence for thinking. so they are doing just a huge amount him through the lives of the poor people in the world. well, heather, what, let's say i give money to charity and it said kindle drive in a poor country, right? but i have no control over what these children are going to do with their life. like my donation did not address ethnic hatred or unemployment in only saved lives . and the kids who are, say, they grew up in the same sort of messy environment that their parents did become angry at their neighbors, go fighting a war, etc. how's the world a better place, thanks to my donation in these high pathetically scenario. yes, i think there's 2 ways in which the world's better the service so. so one is just

that, i think even among the poorest people in the worlds, and even though you know, by saving lives, you know, the best thing, all of the problems at once and such things impossible. these people still have good lives on balance. they're happy to lay exist and the world is better for their contribution to it. and so one thing is you just, i'm actually benefiting them. you also benefits in their family. don't have to mourn the loss of the child dying young. but then secondly, i think you also con speaching to the long run to sanity of that country. so these issues like ethnic fragmentation and unemployment and other issues, they tend to go away as a country gets richer, more developed and your, you know, make them just a little different span low to a big you know, what's a big country of ex, logic. and so you're helping to get these countries to higher living standards early on. and along with that, these other top dissipate much more. well, we're going to take a short break right now where we're back. we'll continue talking to professor of

philosophy at oxford university and the co founder. we're center of effective altruism, william mcgasey will stay with us. the the, the, the, what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy foundation, let it be an arms race is often very dramatic development. only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very political time. time to sit down and talk

military mission again, stay will conclude on august 31st. i want to go to what i thought, the quote unquote a young girl who i really want the roof for my you got to be of subtle companies such as the cut cut over the water. okay. that was the 7th. not to get a quote to ship a minute. this was the right weapon against the right and the local. no, no, no bought it from but it was filled out through z o o z the, the signing of the us to all about agreement. and i laid the groundwork for the road ahead toward a lasting peace in afghanistan. and i know we still need that. mcdonald,

and he the ah, and we're talking to our tourist evangelist, professor of philosophy at oxford university. william mac ask ill will. just recently i spoke to the philosopher, i'm sure you know, he was logic and he actually tells me the charity work while eating some lives. some what basically perpetuates the system that makes his life miserable in the 1st place, right? so, as if we're like, guided by the principal effectiveness, it is in the end, it seems much more effective for me to join, let's say,

a political organization that will tackle inequality or other fools. so the system, instead of giving to charities that it will only fix the symptoms, but not the illness. do you know what i mean? really be. yeah. so i think the crucial thing here is to say that you can direct charitable money towards fixing the problems rather than just the symptoms. so this has a long history. even i call marks when writing desk capital, he was funded by the angles acting as a flint best marks wouldn't have been able to do the work he did well, not for that philanthropic constitution. and so similarly, if you're looking at some of the big problems in the world, well, activists, you know, obviously they need people to help. but they also needs money for the running costs to organize, to buy pamphlets and so on. and so if you're more worried by the systemic issues facing the world and including mixing,

or you can fund organizations like the center for global development, that's helping to get you know, fair to say deals for wealth when companies or many other organizations that tackling requests problems in the world, so i think it's important not to generalize across all of france be it's very big tent. what the fact of our tourism line of reasoning calls upon is to treat a charitable donation as an investment, right. and to put the money where the most return on investment will occur. but with some causes, i mean it's tricky to calculate the return. it may mean if i donate to my local symphony, right? it's not as effective as donating to slick and tied anti party n g o, but then again, they were having a symphony around is just as good as helping a 3rd world country kid somewhere so far away. how do we measure the level of goodness so many areas which are just very hard to get meaningful quantitative comparisons on. and we have a general framework looking at causes where it's harder to get to

slice numbers, which we call the importance neglecting this flexibility framework. where you look at a problem, you look at her biggest problem, let's the importance of it. how neglected is it, how much money is already flowing towards this? and how tax was that? how much kind of progress can we be making? and all things being up, all things being equal, you want to look at the biggest problems that yet being very neglected. so i think i've seen for level health and development, i think it's true for. ready animal welfare, i think it's true for issues that might impact civilization such as extensive risks . but then the other thing that you can do is also just create what you might call back of the envelope calculation. so just actually start looking at, okay, if i found the symphony, how much money, if i give them, let's say, $10000.00,

what will actually happen as a result? and how plausible is it that this could be compatible to saving several children's lives? i think if you did this calculation you it, well, we find that maybe you can help a few more people go and see simply that it's going to be hard to make the claim that well that is as important in terms of its contribution to human. well, being and flourishing as satellite saves, you know, we're talking about doing good and using charitable donations as an example. and when we talk about its active altruism, when you explain it everywhere, what you really mean by altruism is basically giving money, right? that is doing good is autism really just about the money? i mean, sometimes it seems that you repeat in holding the notion of altruism into the choice of child to donate to is that really all there is to it? great. yeah, it's a great question. i think it's an important misunderstanding is effective out with

them. so way back in 2011, i actually co founded an organization called 80000 hours, which technically work over the course of your life and advises people and on what careers they can pursue. if they want to have the biggest difference, so how can you use your time to good love and just your money? and in fact, most people in the effect of the community are choosing to do good primarily by the time, by working in the search a policy often non profits well, often can a merely giving money. so often with these issues is you know, somewhat easier to think about them in terms of charity or flimsy. and that's certainly where we've had a huge amount of success as a movement. but i just absolutely agree. that's what you can do with your money on the small part of the question of what you can of how to do the most good in general. yeah, i just came out with

a book. it's called the teacher is now and together with my guests in this book, we're actually discuss the dis, new post cobit reality, and we all come to a conclusion that in order to navigate this times of uncertainty, you need certain qualities like up to billy and emotional intelligence and empathy and was wondering what do you think, what about you, do you expect people to actually become more empathic? and therefore maybe more i'll re stake now that we're all into the mass together. i think it is the case that when those global crises, people do tend to band together, you get greater kind of community funding and that's something that's really good, really positive. and in this particular case, i hope that will be each but what, right lessons, where we appreciate just how bad this is been how we want this to never happen again. and that could be even worse. and i think we should be worried about

in the coming decades, the possibility of even worse. and then next again, including when we looked technology like the to create new pathogens, not just natural pandemic, but man may pandemic as well. this is, some should be off the table is an option feed manatee, and i hope we can respond in that way and i think you're right, you know, greater levels, them see this and then it has caused, can they be nature and help us ensure that we take the actions, one thing and like if you take the coven situation, for instance, as an example, is wearing a mass guests and, and social this to say, actually more effective than donating a ventilator to hospital. because there's only so much you can buy like one to you . ok if you really want really rich 100. but if you, where a mosque you're really saving far more people from getting infected than if you were to buy ventilators where the hospital. so what's, what's more invective here in terms of altruism?

yes, good question. i mean, i think the commercial thing is you can do both. so, wearing a mask and social distancing is just something one can do, in addition to any donations, to choose to make. but then secondly, again, when we're thinking about the greatness flexibility code 19 no issue it's, you know, will kill, has killed over the 1000000 people will kill probably 1000000 small and, but it's a streaming on neglected to the moment, most well known issue in the world at the moment and enormous amounts of funding, tens of millions of dollars going towards it. and so it seems relatively unlikely that unless you're very well informed and unless you have, you know, an unusually good opportunity in front of you. it's unlikely that an individual plans best in my view could do an enormous amount to improve the situation. now the thing that would be more neglected more i'm saying is fun things. tons,

like john hop consent for health security based in the us, which would be thing to design policy such that we're not, we'd learn the lessons and in the future don't allow such terrible content extra you know, presently we're face was so many challenges at once. so we have the climate change, decline, biodiversity, growing inequality, extremism being just like most obvious ones. but there are so many more and you say getting priorities right? is of our importance. so which problem in your opinion should be the center of focus right now. so the general way i was thinking about is how clarity is in my view, is that we should look for one of those issues that most impact the very long run without thinking that centuries of thousands of years hence. and that's because future generations matter just in the same way the present generally matters and

the features just so long, so big. so if there's anything we can do that affects of any longer and that's an enormous importance. and then another 2 issues, i think really stand out there. one is the best because, you know, even worse and alex, the sort of thing the saw and then really in pedal civilization, the in particular might come from development of mind. may pathogens perhaps it was autism. and then the 2nd is development now to say, and that's where i, artificial intelligence is advancing that rapidly. and i think could bring about a point where a single group was thing to see is able to get much greater power over others and kind of look in their values of ideology. and that could be very bad for the very long. but well, that's like a whole new big topic that i would like to discuss with you separately in a separate program, but that interest. interesting thought,

i want to wrap up our top. it's been great speaking to you. thanks for sharing your thoughts. thanks for everything. well, thank you so much and hope will be great. thank you. right, right. the ah ah ah, the me ah

ah, i lose . well america, crazy frat party in afghanistan is over 20 years or leaving behind quite a mass the.