Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems – 80000 Hours artwork

Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems – 80000 Hours

12 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 6 ratings

A collection of ten top episodes of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, designed to bring you up to speed on ten pressing issues the effective altruism community is working to solve.

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Episodes

Effective altruism in a nutshell

October 03, 2021 22:00 - 9 minutes - 8.87 MB

Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems is a collection of ten top episodes of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, designed to bring you up to speed on ten pressing issues the effective altruism community is working to solve. Here the host of the show — Rob Wiblin — briefly explains what effective altruism is all about, and what to expect from the rest of this series.

One: Toby Ord on existential risks

October 03, 2021 21:00 - 3 hours - 88.7 MB

In 2020, Oxford academic and 80,000 Hours trustee Dr Toby Ord released his book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. It's about how our long-term future could be better than almost anyone believes, but also how humanity's recklessness is putting that future at grave risk — in Toby's reckoning, a 1 in 6 chance of being extinguished this century. Toby is a famously good explainer of complex issues — a bit of a modern Carl Sagan character — so we thought this wo...

Two: Rachel Glennerster on global poverty

October 03, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 42.8 MB

If I told you it’s possible to deliver an extra year of ideal primary-level education for 30 cents, would you believe me? Hopefully not – the claim is absurd on its face. But it may be true nonetheless. The very best education interventions are phenomenally cost-effective, but they’re not the kinds of things you’d expect, says Dr Rachel Glennerster — who we chose to introduce the problem of global poverty.  Full transcript, related links, and summary of this interview This episode ...

Three: Andy Weber on pandemics and nuclear wars

October 03, 2021 19:00 - 1 hour - 52.5 MB

COVID-19 has provided a vivid reminder of the damage biological threats can do. But the threat doesn’t come from natural sources alone. Weaponized contagious diseases — which were abandoned by the United States, but developed in large numbers by the Soviet Union, right up until its collapse — have the potential to spread globally and kill just as many as an all-out nuclear war. For five years, Andy Weber, was the US’ Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for biological and oth...

Four: Brian Christian on artificial intelligence

October 03, 2021 18:00 - 2 hours - 79.9 MB

Brian Christian is a bestselling author with a particular knack for accurately communicating difficult or technical ideas from both mathematics and computer science. The 80,000 Hours team found his new book The Alignment Problem to be an insightful and comprehensive review of the state of the research into making advanced artificial intelligence useful and reliably safe, and we thought he'd be a great person to introduce the problem. Full transcript, related links, and summary of t...

Five: Lewis Bollard on factory farming

October 03, 2021 17:00 - 3 hours - 89.8 MB

Every year tens of billions of animals are raised in terrible conditions in factory farms before being killed for human consumption. Despite the enormous scale of suffering this causes, the issue is largely neglected, with only about $50 million dollars spent each year tackling the problem globally. Since 2015, Lewis Bollard has led Open Philanthropy’s program on farmed animal welfare, where he has conducted extensive research into the best ways to eliminate animal suffering in far...

Six: Jennifer Doleac on criminal justice reform

October 03, 2021 16:00 - 2 hours - 62.9 MB

The killing of George Floyd has prompted a great deal of debate over whether the US should shrink its police departments. The research literature suggests that the presence of police officers does reduce crime, though they’re not cheap, and as is increasingly recognised, impose substantial harms on the populations they are meant to be protecting, especially communities of colour. So maybe we ought to shift our focus to unconventional but effective approaches to crime prevention — a...

Seven: Ezra Klein on journalism

October 03, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour - 48.4 MB

How many words in U.S. newspapers have been spilled on tax policy in the past five years? And how many words on CRISPR? Or meat alternatives? Or how AI may soon automate the majority of jobs? When people look back on this era, is the interesting thing going to have been fights over whether or not the top marginal tax rate was 39.5% or 35.4%, or is it going to be that human beings started to take control of human evolution; that we stood on the brink of eliminating immeasurable leve...

Eight: Mark Lynas on climate change

October 03, 2021 14:00 - 2 hours - 58 MB

A golf-ball sized lump of uranium can deliver more than enough power to cover all your lifetime energy use. To get the same energy from coal, you’d need 3,200 tonnes of the stuff — a mass equivalent to 800 adult elephants, which would go on to produce more than 11,000 tonnes of CO2. That’s about 11,000 tonnes more than the uranium. Many people aren’t comfortable with the danger posed by nuclear power. But given the climatic stakes, it’s worth asking: Just how much more dangerous is...

Nine: Dave Denkenberger on feeding the world through catastrophes

October 03, 2021 13:00 - 2 hours - 81 MB

If a nuclear winter or asteroid impact blocked the sun for years, our inability to grow food would result in billions dying of starvation, right? According to Dr Dave Denkenberger, co-author of Feeding Everyone No Matter What: no. If he’s to be believed, nobody need starve at all. Even without the sun, Dave sees the Earth as a bountiful food source. Mushrooms farmed on decaying wood. Bacteria fed with natural gas. Fish and mussels supported by sudden upwelling of ocean nutrients – ...

Ten: Persis Eskander on wild animal suffering

October 03, 2021 12:00 - 2 hours - 71.2 MB

Most animals are hunted by predators, and constantly have to remain vigilant lest they be killed, and perhaps experience the terror of being eaten alive. Resource competition often leads to chronic hunger or starvation. Their diseases and injuries are never treated. In winter wild animals freeze to death and in droughts they die of heat or thirst. There are fewer than 20 people in the world dedicating their lives to researching these problems. But according to Persis Eskander, if ...

What's next

October 03, 2021 11:00 - 2 minutes - 1.27 MB

Now you've finished Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems, here's what we suggest you do next. And if you’ve listened to this series and found the ideas resonated with you, our one-on-one team might be able to help you apply them to your career. We can talk to you about career options, make introductions in your chosen fields, and help you work out next steps on a free careers call. Apply now.