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 family very often is 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 they could have done. so for example, a program in the united states called schedule takes juvenile delinquents and shows them round pins in order to scan them out of a life of time. 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 actively harmful, not just ineffective, but most of the time things do some amount 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 its just countries in the world. neither good things do that. making the world better. 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 most cancer and so on. but when we look at the course, 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 treatment. 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 want to 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 self, the reason for as being altruistic. well, i think we should divorce the idea about to some, 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 who often make no quite significant decisions, like to get donate 10 percent, whether incomes or more. we often feel good about this. 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 the nations 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 as no pure effectiveness for doing it for some other reason. perhaps it's mark of loyalty to our community that part of 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 organisations likely against malaria foundation that provides bed nets, though we know saves life save lives for thousands of you know, 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 lower 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 you hear a 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 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 met with 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 those via my taxes, whereas in the u. s, it's more likely to be via flat to be and then kind of, as you said, just church based donations are enormous. part of giving family or giving back to ones alma mater, the university you graduated from and that account so 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 tourist? 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 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, we 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 as countries lot of and then you know, middle income at chicken sees. and so that's what i tend to think that the most effective organizations lie if we're, it's on a benefit people alive 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 a standpoint of effective altruism, you'd say it's better to save the castle because then he can sell to 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 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 experiment that giles peters, so slaves, us on a directed towards me. the union, 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 in direct 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 about just as a child in a store experiment right there in front of you in this burning building, you can save will also just thousands of children around the world to 1000000 the children and the world you could potentially save it where it's like when 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 bangle, 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, it's 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 aid 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 the to have you asked about, i think the 1st is if we look at global health spending, that has just been enormously beneficial. eradication small boxes saved 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, bars 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 very best nonprofits that you can be funding on doing an enormous amount of goods. and in fact, we have positive evidence for thinking. so they are doing just a huge amount to me, please elias of the point us people in the world. well, hello. otherwise, let's say i give money to charity and it saves 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. it 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,

so i think there's 2 ways in which the world's better the so the so, so one is just that, i think even among the poor people in the worlds and even though you know, by saving lives, you're not the best thing. all of the problems at once and such a thing is impossible. these people still have good lives on balance. they're happy to 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 who don't have to mourn the loss of the child dying young. but then secondly, i think you also con, speaking to the long run prosperity of that country. so these issues like ethnic fragmentation and unemployment and other issues. they tend to go away as a country gets richer and more developed. and your, you know, makes them just a little different than to a big you know, what's a big country epic fudge act. and so you're helping to get these countries to

higher living standards earlier and along with that, these are the top dissipate 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 were center of effective altruism william mc ask. he'll stay with us on or military mission against dam. we'll conclude on august 31st. i want some to who did a good to us all the quote, i quoted young george. and i really need proof for my you got to be southern company, southern the cut cut over what was the quote to show me that this was the right weapon against the right

hand body. but it was filled out through z o, o z the, the signing of the us tell about agreement. and i laid the groundwork for the road ahead toward a lasting peace in afghanistan. and i know we still need that mcdonalds. and as i have the the is the still large enough to satisfy the ambitions of jeff bezos. you know,

it's that its tentacles in so many aspects of the economy. there's nothing that amazon isn't trying to get into to step by step. the amazon empire has extended its grip on the world that was like a duck quacked, like a dog. so amazon looks like monopoly trays like a monopoly makes money like the monopoly behaves like monopoly. amazon essentially controlled the marketplace. it's not really a market as a private arena where a single company controls the distribution of daily products and the infrastructure of our economy. according to amazon ah

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 easy 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 charity that it will only fix the symptoms, but not the illness. do you know what i mean? that's really be. yeah. so i think the crucial thing here is to say that you can dive ex 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 said the angles acting as a fence 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 wealthy by the systemic issues facing the world and including mixing poor, you can fund organizations like the center for global development that's helping to get you know, fair. it's a deals. ready for wealth, when it's companies or many other organizations, but tackling the correspondence in the world. so i think it's important not to generalize across all of france be it's very big tent. what this active altruism 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, maybe 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 i think that maybe areas which are just very hard to get meaningful quantitative comparisons on. and we have a general framework for looking at causes where it's harder to get to slice numbers, which we call the importance neglect, mis 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 her tractable is 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 health and development, i think it's true for animal welfare. i think it's 2 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 gave 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 while that is as important in terms of its contribution to human,

well being and flourishing as set lifesavers you know, we're talking about doing good and using charitable donations as an example. and when we talk about effective altruism, when you explain it everywhere, what you really mean by tourism is basically giving money, right? that is doing good is autism really just about the money? i mean, sometimes it seems that you repeat, 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 effect 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 on what can be as they can pursue, if they want to have the biggest difference. so how can you use your times 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. ready 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's 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 when a book is called, the teacher is now and together with my guests in this book where 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 delivery and emotional intelligence and empathy. and was wondering what do you thing, 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 we 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 at technology like the to create new pathogens, not just natural pandemic, but man made 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 that you can take the covert 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 the hospital. because there's only so much you can buy like want to ok if you really want really rich 100. but if you were 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 potential thing is you can do both. so wearing a mask and social listen thing is just something one can do. in addition to any donations they choose to make. but then secondly, again, when we're thinking about and once the greatness flexibility, coven, 19, enormous in issue it's, you know, will kill, has killed over the 1000000 people,

will kill probably 1000000 small. and it's extremely non neglect to the most well known issue in the world at the moment and enormous amounts of funding, tens of billions of dollars going towards it. and so it seems relatively unlikely that unless you're very well informed and unless you have 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 done 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 pants and extra, you know, presently we're face was so many challenges at once. so we have the climate change

declined by diversity 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 long on that some enormous importance. and then another 2 issues, i think really stand out that one is the best because you know, even worse, spend amex, the saw thing the saw and then completely in pedal civilization the in particular might come from development of mind. may pathogens perhaps resulting as it was last?

and then the 2nd is development not to say. and where i, artificial intelligence is advancing that rapidly. and i think could bring about a point where a single group wants to see his able to get much greater power over others and kind of look in the values of ideology. and that could be very bad for the very long been. 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 to speak to thank you, right. the

ah ah, ah. the families that up with the mark to get i took marking your function, you would like to get some way to show me what to do. i'm john. i got, i've got that limit and i wanted them off to be like that to do the work for me even about the less above

me and i is your media a reflection of reality in a world transformed what will make you feel safe? tyson lation community, are you going the right way or are you being that somewhere? direct? what is true? what is in a world corrupted. you need to defend the so join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. ah.

americans love buying homes. ah, this was a funny middle part of how our political leadership and our country, large understood the bargain. you get 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

ah, ah more than 100 and dead, 1300 injury to the tragic aftermath of a terrorist attack. that shook cobble airport. but crowds of people, both afghans on foreigners, were crammed together, waiting to be evacuated from the country. and islamic state affiliate enough gown, this time, known as icy k, says that it carried out those bombings. experts revealed to us more about the group. this group actually is

a direct byproduct of the us invasion and occupation of afghanistan.