Doing Good: A Conversation with William MacAskill (Episode #228)

Publicizing generosity can inspire others to give and amplify overall impact. William MacAskill believes that if one person inspires another to give at the same level, their impact doubles. He argues that fostering a culture of openness and inspiration around giving is more effective for cultural change than strict anonymity, which might appeal less to motivation.

Effective Altruism defines effectiveness as using evidence and careful reasoning to do as much good as possible. This means focusing on interventions that deliver hundreds or thousands of times more impact than typical organizations, such as distributing anti-malarial bed nets or campaigning against factory farming, rather than focusing on less impactful programs like the Play Pump.

The Play Pump was a program in the 2000s that installed merry-go-rounds to pump clean water in sub-Saharan Africa. It was a disaster because it was inefficient, provided insufficient water, and ignored local needs. This example illustrates that well-intentioned charities can be ineffective or even harmful if not rigorously evaluated by outcomes.

Some charities may face perverse incentives to self-perpetuate rather than solve their core problems, as exemplified by Scots Care, which continues despite its original problem being vastly diminished. Effective altruism argues that charities should aspire to put themselves out of business if their goals are achieved, ensuring resources are directed to emergent and pressing needs.

While poverty reduction is a historical focus, Effective Altruism has broadened. It now includes animal welfare, existential risks to future generations (like man-made pandemics and AI alignment), and improving institutional decision-making. The emphasis is on identifying the most impactful causes, regardless of geographic or temporal proximity.

Sam Harris recognized his emotional bias toward certain causes (e.g., less excitement about malaria bed nets). He decided to automate his giving to highly effective charities like the Against Malaria Foundation, taking his moral intuitions offline and ensuring consistent impact without daily deliberation.

Generally, opportunities to significantly improve lives are often found in the poorest countries due to lower costs and unmet needs. However, Sam Harris raises concerns about the potential overlooked suffering in wealthy areas (e.g., homelessness in San Francisco) and the systemic 'knock-on effects' of societal decay. While direct effectiveness calculations often favor global causes, some local issues, like criminal justice reform, can be highly impactful if neglected.

Longtermism is the idea that the most important aspect of our actions is their impact over the very long run. This leads to prioritizing efforts that prevent catastrophic risks to civilization (e.g., nuclear war, man-made pandemics, global totalitarian regimes) or spur continued technological and economic growth for future generations, rather than just short-term benefits.

MacAskill agrees that supporting personal causes, like a struggling family, can be instrumentally beneficial by cultivating a compassionate personality and motivating overall generosity. While not always 'optimal' by strict effectiveness metrics, these actions can provide joy and feedback, fostering long-term commitment to effective giving.

The organization 80,000 Hours helps people find careers that can have the biggest impact, viewing career choice as the largest altruistic decision one makes. This involves selecting cause areas based on their importance, neglectedness, and tractability, and then identifying roles (research, policy, non-profit work, or 'earning to give') that best contribute to those causes.

'Earning to give' involves pursuing a lucrative career to donate a significant portion of one's income to effective charities. It's considered a valid, though minority, path in EA, especially where money is a bottleneck for scaling highly effective interventions, such as global health programs. This contrasts with directly working in the non-profit sector.

Ethical consumerism (e.g., vegetarianism, reducing carbon footprint) has an impact, but it's often small compared to direct giving or career choices. For instance, being vegetarian helps animals equivalent to a few dollars donated to effective animal welfare campaigns. Direct interventions like influencing supply chains or lobbying governments for clean energy innovation generally achieve vastly greater outcomes per dollar.

The 10% pledge is seen as a 'goldilocks zone' – not too small to be ineffectual (like 1%) and not so large as to be prohibitive (like giving away almost everything above a living wage). It has a historical association with tithing and has proven to be an attainable and motivating commitment for many, leading to significant collective impact.

William MacAskill has taken the 10% pledge and plans to donate everything above what is equivalent to £27,000 per year (his living expenses adjusted for inflation). He estimates this amounts to over 50% of his income. He views this as a proof of concept and acknowledges different people have different financial situations and motivations.