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

PlayPumps International

Good intentions aren’t enough

Imagine you’re in charge of a hospital…

Causes don't deserve support. People do.

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

How to avoid scope neglect

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

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

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

What is the best way for you to help?

We are in triage every second of every day

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

How to achieve hundreds of times more

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

Factor 1: Importance

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

Factor 2: Neglectedness

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

Do drug substitution programs reduce criminal offending among drug addicts?

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

Factor 3: Tractability

The ITN framework

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

The ITN framework, cost-effectiveness, and cause prioritisation

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

Global priorities research & shaping the ideas of intellectuals

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

Choosing the most critical problem

What happened to GDP per capita in England after 1825?

Our wealth across the ages

The industrial revolution changed everything

Comparing wealth across countries and time

We’ve seen progress across most areas of our lives

Billions now live free from extreme poverty

We’ve become vastly better educated

In what period did global life expectancy grow the most?

Our growing life expectancy

We could make the future radically better

Takeaways

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

We radically improved the world, and could again

Know whether you’re actually helping

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

The real impact of saving a life

What was your true counterfactual impact?

Real positive change wouldn't have happened without you

Does Scared Straight help difficult kids commit less crime?

Scared straight?

You can accomplish more in hard-to-replace jobs

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

Shapley values: Better than counterfactuals

How to be irreplaceable

Who deserves our concern?

Should you report the kidnapping to the police?

Kidnapper conundrum

We should care for moral patients

A golden rule

The all-knowing dictator

The blind dictator

We’re making moral progress

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

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

Many more women now enter the workforce than a century ago

We’re not done yet

Being a moral entrepreneur

Our descendants will probably see us as moral monsters

Identifying and tackling prejudice

Every answer has an element of uncertainty

Expected value is a tool for handling uncertainty

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

Let’s make a bet

Averting a nuclear disaster

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

Paxlovid

Expected value is used by leaders across industries

Which of your options has the highest expected value?

Sink or swim

Probabilities can be subjective and made up

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

Deworm The World

Expected value doesn’t handle extremes gracefully

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

Moral cluelessness, population ethics, and probability within a multiverse

How to manage uncertainty in impact

Which problem should you work on?

Your career is loooooong…

You could change the course of history

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

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

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

Which graph best describes the relationship between income and happiness?

You can be financially secure and impactful

Take action

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You)

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

Making the most of your career

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

Build career capital to set yourself up for success

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

Conduct quick tests to find your best long-term option

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

How much should you research?

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

Reach high, with a backup

Score your options

Career exploration: when should you settle?

What to do when you’re uncertain

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

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

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

What percent of American undergraduate students change degrees?

Take small steps to become more confident in a degree

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

Don't blindly follow your passion

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

Try out more options than you think you need to

Which undergraduate degree has the highest median salary?

Choose a flexible degree to not lock yourself in

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

Prestigious degrees open doors

Infrequently asked questions

Many Undergrads Should Take Light Courseloads

Half-assing it with everything you've got

What to study at university

Compare your long-term paths

Create a plan that makes sense for you

Your most impactful, fulfilling career

Common misconceptions

How many lives a doctor saves

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

Save The World By Helping Things™

The overhead myth

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

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

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

How rich will you be?

You can save lives without a medical degree

Join or build a community changing the world

Confidently taking your next steps

How you can help now

How to actually change the world

But finite. Let’s see how much time you have left.

In May of 1980, the World Health Organization declared the successful 

Smallpox may have remained endemic were it not for a 

who initiated the campaign 20 years earlier.

 can solve many of humanity’s most important issues.

 to solve many of the world’s biggest problems.

before can have an impact on humanity’s trajectory.

Due to its impressive track record of advocating for CO2 reduction policies, Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is likely among the most effective climate charities.
Consider three options you have to support their mission.

Becoming personally carbon neutral (assuming you’re the Average American)

Tonnes of CO2 averted by becoming carbon neutral, donating, $10,000, or working

A few hundred dollars donated to CATF reduces as much CO2 as becoming 

 to fix the world's most important problems than donations can, and working full-time requires a much greater proportion of your attention than donating or becoming carbon neutral.

Nerdy aside: Adjusting for indirect effects

important problems require more people than donations

, and working full-time requires a much greater proportion of your attention than donating or becoming carbon neutral.

A CATF fundraiser would avert a larger amount of CO2 emissions.

Correlation between factors and happiness based on a survey of >40,000 Americans.

One study found that being happily married or in good health mattered much more than income, which mattered approximately as much as identifying as female.

Nerdy aside: 5 reasons to not take these estimates literally

Reporting to be in good health had the strongest correlation with self-reported happiness in a survey of 40,000 Americans.

Money can buy happiness but you might be surprised at how little

Recent research found that there is no evidence for a well-being plateau at $75,000, contradicting some previous research.

This means that, in general, as people's incomes increase, their happiness also increases.

relationship between income and happiness is weak

, so doubling your income only increases your happiness by a small amount (around 1 point out of 100).

Income has a logarithmic relationship with happiness.

To make a large change in the world, you 

don't necessarily have to make a large sacrifice


In the below jobs, you could have a family, a house, and vacations, and still be in a position to make a substantial contribution to solving the 

You have tens of thousands of hours left in your career, which makes choosing your career one of your 

Making a difference doesn’t have to mean huge

Explore 3 skills you’d like to develop

11th Grade, XKCD

Schedule time to conduct a quick test

Make a career plan

You might be in a position to change the course of history, unlike most people who've lived in the past. You may also be able to do that while being financially secure and fulfilled in your career. We give some tips for choosing your undergraduate degree and finding an impactful, fulfilling career.

How to set yourself up for a more impactful career

What to do when you’re uncertain about your career path

Making the most of your career

What you'll be able to do