Most people assume that if they want to help others, they should focus on doing good in their immediate surroundings — helping neighbors, giving to local charities, volunteering in their communities. But the data suggest this impulse, while understandable, can lead us away from doing the most good we can do.
If you want to help others, you should be aware that a lot of the most important work happens in unglamorous places, doing unglamorous things. The problems that are easiest to see and that tug most at our heartstrings are not always the problems where we can do the most good.
If you want to make a difference, the best thing you can do is to give to the most effective charities, not the ones that make you feel the best. The difference in impact between the most effective charities and average charities isn't 10% or 50% — it's often 100 times or more.
If you want to make a difference, the truth is that some ways of helping are far more effective than others — and the differences between them are not marginal. They can be enormous, sometimes a factor of 10, 100, or even 1,000 times more impactful.
Most of us are limited in how much we can give. But what if the key to maximizing our impact isn't just giving more, but giving smarter? Research by psychologist Paul Bloom and philosopher Peter Singer suggests that where you donate matters enormously — that some charities are hundreds or even thousands of times more effective than others.
Most people think about doing good in terms of the actions they take — the causes they support, the donations they make, the volunteer hours they put in. But researchers who study effective altruism say there's a factor that dwarfs all of these in importance: career choice. The career you choose will determine how much money you have to give, what skills you develop, and what problems you're positioned to solve.
It took foreign aid and philanthropy to fund the research to test it. And it literally took decades to reach the children who needed it. How could we let that happen? How could it take so long to test a vaccine that had already been developed, while half a million children were dying from malaria every year?
I view Bogle as an undercover philanthropist. And at a trillion or even half a trillion dollars, that would make him the greatest philanthropist of all time.
5mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
