Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems – 80000 Hours

Oct 03 2021 12 ep. 120 mins 348
Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems – 80000 Hours Podcast artwork

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.

  Education  Society & Culture
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Effective altruism in a nutshell

Oct 03 2021 9 mins  
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

Oct 03 2021 193 mins  
Toby Ord is a famously good explainer of complex issues — a bit of a modern Carl Sagan character — so we thought this would be a perfect introduction to the problem of existential risks.

Two: Rachel Glennerster on global poverty

Oct 03 2021 93 mins  
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.

Three: Andy Weber on pandemics and nuclear wars

Oct 03 2021 114 mins  
For five years, Andy Weber, was the US’ Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for biological and other weapons of mass destruction. Andy’s current mission is to spread the word that while bioweapons are terrifying, scientific advances also leave them on the verge of becoming an outdated technology.

Four: Brian Christian on artificial intelligence

Oct 03 2021 174 mins  
The 80,000 Hours team found Brian Christian's 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.

Five: Lewis Bollard on factory farming

Oct 03 2021 151 mins  
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: every year, only about $290 million is spent tackling the problem globally (for comparison, annual climate change philanthropy is estimated to be $8–12 billion).Sin

Six: Jennifer Doleac on criminal justice reform

Oct 03 2021 137 mins  
Jennifer Doleac — Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, and Director of the Justice Tech Lab — is an expert on empirical research into policing, law and incarceration, and we chose her to introduce the problem of criminal justice reform.

Seven: Ezra Klein on journalism

Oct 03 2021 105 mins  
Ezra Klein is one of the most prominent journalists in the world. Ezra thinks that pressing issues are neglected largely because there’s little pre-existing infrastructure to push them, and we chose him to introduce journalism.

Eight: Mark Lynas on climate change

Oct 03 2021 126 mins  
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 it compared to fossil fuels? According to today’s guest, Mark Lynas — author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (winner of the prestigious Royal Society Prizes for Science Books) and Nuclear 2.0. — it’s actu

Nine: Dave Denkenberger on feeding the world through catastrophes

Oct 03 2021 176 mins  
Dr Denkenberger is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and he’s out to spread the word that while a nuclear winter might be horrible, experts have been mistaken to assume that mass starvation is an inevitability. In fact, he says, the only thing that would prevent us from feeding the world is insufficient preparation. Dave was the natural choice to intr