Hello and welcome to another episode of the
Uncomplicated English Podcast, today we are
going to learn about Effective Altruism.
Before we get started as always I’d like
to remind you that the full transcript for
this episode can be found for free on my website
at uncomplicatedenglish.com.
Where I also offer 1 to 1 conversational English
lessons!
Alright then, let’s get started with today’s
episode.
As I said at the beginning today we are going
to learn about Effective Altruism.
You might be asking yourself, what is Effective
Altruism, well Effective Altruism is a philosophical
belief that encourages people to think about
their actions, (the things that they do) and
the outcomes of these actions, the outcomes
of their actions are the results.
It encourages people to think about what they
do so that they do the things that will produce
the greatest positive impact.
Now, this might all sound a little complicated
but, as we go along we are going to see some
examples of the things that people who follow
the philosophy of Effective Altruism do.
Quite often when we watch the news or read
the newspaper we see horrible stories of people
that are suffering around the world.
When we see these stories sometimes we think
to ourselves, this is terrible, but how can
I help?
What can I do to help these people?
Effective Altruism might be the answer.
Effective Altruism aims to give people a way
to help.
Many Effective Altruists (these are the people
who follow effective Altruism) try to help
by giving away a large amount of their income
each year.
Giving away is another way of saying donating.
They work out how much money they need to
live comfortably.
They work out how much money they need to
pay their bills, to pay for food and other
things like that, and they give away (they
donate) the rest of their money away to charity.
For example, a famous Effective Altruist William
MacAskill has worked out that he needs 20,000
pounds to live comfortably, so any extra money
he makes above this number he donates to charity.
It is estimated that if someone earnt the
typical income in the US and donated just
ten per cent of that money each year to the
Against Malaria Foundation, they would save
DOZENS of lives over their lifetime.
However Effective Altruists don’t just give
away their money to help, quite often Effective
Altruists will volunteer to help people.
So, for example, a doctor that is an Effective
Altruist might volunteer to treat people for
free, or someone that is a builder might help
people living in poverty to build their houses.
You might be asking yourself, but how do these
Effective Altruists know how to help and where
to donate their money.
This is another interesting part of Effective
Altruism.
Effective Altruism uses objective reasoning
to work out what is the best way to help people.
This basically means that they do not let
their emotions or feelings get involved in
how they make their decisions.
We all know how hard it can be to make a difficult
decision when our emotions are involved.
A good example of this can be found in the
work that is done to prevent the spread of
A.I.D.S.
It is estimated that the best way to prevent
aids is through education.
Some studies say that education is 1,400 times
more effective at reducing the spread of aids
than surgical treatments.
Also, it is estimated that education is twice
as effective at preventing the spread of aids
than the distribution of things like condoms.
Effective Altruists use data and statistics
like this to help them decide what they are
going to donate their money towards.
Another big problem Effective Altruists are
faced with is where to start.
There are so many things going wrong in the
world so how can anyone know where the best
place to start is . Should we focus all our
attention on fighting climate change, or do
we focus all of our attention on reducing
poverty?
This is where Effective Altruists use their
special way of making decisions that are objective,
this means that it isn’t influenced by our
personal emotions and feelings.
This might seem a bit unkind and harsh, but
Effective Altruists believe that if you focus
on a problem that can’t help a lot of people
or a problem that doesn’t have any real
good solutions you limit the impact that you
can have.
When they say that you limit the impact that
you can have it means that you don’t do
as much good as you could, you don’t help
as many people as you could.
So how do Effective Altruists decided what
causes to support.
Well they consider and think about three things.
1 – Is it great in scale, this means how
many people does it affect, how big of a problem
is it?
2- How neglected is it, this means how much
help and time is given to this problem.
Is it a problem that for some reason most
people forget or don’t know about.
Effective Altruists argue that often the problems
that receive a lot of attention are not the
best ones to support, because already these charities
receive a lot of money and support.
3 – Is it highly solvable, this means is
it a problem that can actually be fixed, is
there a clear solution to this problem.
So Effective Altruists ask themselves these question to help themselves find the
best cause to support.
However, it’s important to add that Effective
Altruists still say that any help is good
help, so if someone wants to give their money
to a charity that is well known and supported,
that’s fine, at the end of the day that
is still helping to make the world a better
place.
Earlier this year I’m sure many of you will
remember that the Amazon Rainforest was on
fire and also the great Notre Dame Catherdral
burnt down.
In a situation like this an effective Altruist
would probably say it is better to donate
money towards protecting the rainforest rather
than giving money towards rebuilding Notre Dam
this is because taking care of the rainforest
will help to combat climate change which will
therefore save lives, whereas rebuilding the Notre
Dame Catherdral, all though it seems a good cause won’t
save any lives.
Now let’s look at some specific problems
and look at how Effective Altruist think we
can help to solve them.
Fighting Extreme poverty
This is a cause that many Effective Altruists
see as the most important to support.
Diseases that come with extreme poverty such
as Malaria and others kill millions of people
each year.
However, Effective Altruists argue that it
is actually not that difficult to solve these
problems.
For instance, they argue that a Malaria net
cost 2 U.S. dollars and is incredibly effective
in preventing Malaria.
Furthermore, they argue that simply giving
these people that are living in extreme poverty
money has also proven to be a cost-effective
way of helping.
Now when someone says something is cost-effective
it means that something is effective for its
cost.
So the solution doesn’t require a lot of
money to be successful.
So we can say that something is cost-effective
if it produces good results for very little
money.
Improving the long term future.
Effective Altruists also look for ways to
ensure that the future will be in a good state
for future generations. These are the people who come after us.
They argue that in the future the population
of the earth is going to increase even more.
Right now it is estimated that the population
of the earth is 7.3 billion, (yup that’s
a lot of people) the world population in 1970
was just 3.6 billion.
So it is likely that the population is going
to continue growing at a rapid pace, this
is why Effective Altruists believe that it
is very important to take care of the planet
so that future generations have a good place
to live.
There are even some people that are so dedicated
to the philosophy of Effective Altruism that
they carefully choose what their career will
be so that the work that they do will have
a positive impact on the world!
This might at first seem crazy, but it is
estimated that on average over the course
of our lives we will spend 80,000 hours working,
so I suppose it makes sense to pick a career
that will make good use of this time to make
the world a better place.
However, the majority of Effective Altruists
aren’t this dedicated and work in normal
jobs.
They try to make the world a better place
by giving money to charity and also through
volunteering.
Some Effective Altruists even chose to work
in high paying jobs so that they can to give
more money away to their chosen cause.
There are some people that don’t believe
Effective Altruism is all that good, here
are some of their criticism against Effective
Altruism!
Some people argue that Effective Altruism
is almost cruel.
They say this because Effective Altruism tries
to be completely objective, this means that
it is not influenced by things like our emotions,
but for some this is a problem.
If we see someone on the street who is homeless
and suffering can we really refuse to help
him, by saying that his cause is not worthy
of our help.
For many this seems rather unkind and harsh.
Other people argue that Effective Altruism
might actually be made less effective and
helpful, because it focuses on using statistics
and data to make decisions.
They argue that a lot of data is not trustworthy
and is inaccurate.
(inaccurate is the opposite of accurate).
Quite often things are measured incorrectly
and therefore the statistics that we get
are not entirely accurate.
Furthermore if we make all our decisions through
data, we don’t use our eyes to see the suffering
of the world and see other causes and problems
in the world that need help.
Some also argue that Effective Altruism doesn’t
tackle the root of the problems, this means
that it doesn’t address or fix the cause
of the problem.
When we try and kill a weed, we have to get
the whole root out of the ground otherwise,
the weed will just grow back.
So in the same way, many argue that when effective
altruism tries to solve these problems, it
doesn’t get to the root of them.
Well that’s all for today, Thank you very
much for listening to this episode, please
let me know what you think of effective altruism,
does it seem like a good idea to you or does
it seem too unrealistic to you.
Personally I like the idea, but I don’t
like the idea of making all my decisions through
statistics and data.
By the way, I was inspired to make this episode
after I listened to a podcast about Effective
Altruism, I found the episode quite interesting
so if you are interested and want to test
out your listening comprehension I will leave
the link in the description.
Just a quick warning though, the podcast is made for
native English speakers so don’t feel disheartened
if you don’t understand what they are saying.
As always the full transcript for this episode
can be found for free on my website at uncomplicatedEnglish.com.
where I also offer 1 to 1 conversational English
lessons.
