Episode #17 - Famine, Affluence, and Morality

Books & Booze

Guest: Evan Sandhoefner (blogger, Effective Altruist, and alum of Microsoft & Harvard) Book: Famine, Affluence, and Morality by Peter Singer Booze: Ballast Point Sculpin IPA 0:00:00 - Evan and Ballast Point Sculpin https://sandhoefner.com/ https://twitter.com/EvanSandhoefner?lang=en 0:03:49 - Brian Tomasik, who inspired Evan’s website https://briantomasik.com/ https://reducing-suffering.org/ 0:05:21 - How does Evan handle discussing ethics without sounding like a dick? 0:08:00 - Famine, Affluence, and Morality and the Effective Altruism movement https://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_singer_the_why_and_how_of_effective_altruism?language=en https://www.centreforeffectivealtruism.org/blog/understanding-cause-neutrality/ 0:17:42 - Direct work vs Working to Give https://80000hours.org/articles/earning-to-give/ https://80000hours.org/career-guide/ https://80000hours.org/2015/07/80000-hours-thinks-that-only-a-small-proportion-of-people-should-earn-to-give-long-term/ 0:26:28 - The Most Effective Cocaine Dealer https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/3DGYg2RxXHgekLGeG/to-save-the-world-don-t-get-a-job-at-a-charity-go-work-on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem 0:30:57 - Utilitarian calculus: Quantifying fuzzy concepts like suffering, happiness, well-being, etc. 0:33:09 - Consciousness, consciousness meters, and aliens https://www.iep.utm.edu/hard-con/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speciesism https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html 0:42:19 - Moral tug-of-war: The demandingness objection to utilitarianism and Effective Altruism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demandingness_objection 0:49:53 - Bugs in our brains: Grappling with our flawed moral minds https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-risky-is-it-really/201108/statistical-numbing-why-millions-can-die-and-we-don-t-care https://fs.blog/2017/05/confirmation-bias/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-group_favoritism https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/27/15077864/elon-musk-neuralink-brain-computer-interface-ai-cyborgs 0:56:58 - Is ethics self-limiting? Can ethical people be successful? 1:02:11 - Self-deception, and The Elephant in the Brain by Robin Hanson and Kevin Simler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Brain-Hidden-Motives-Everyday/dp/0190495995 1:03:56 - Wild animal suffering, selection theory, and cats wearing bells https://reducing-suffering.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory https://www.birdsbesafe.com/ 1:17:57 - Domestic animal suffering, unhappy cows, and reducing vs eliminating meat from your diet https://animalcharityevaluators.org/ https://www.givewell.org/ 1:26:53 - Existential risk and the “expected value” of the far future https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/existential-risks/ https://concepts.effectivealtruism.org/concepts/the-long-term-future/ https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/ea-global-2018-far-future-of-life/ 1:30:42 - Epic Givewell spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xBKlshqbu6H-uByB2INEaDNPpj_Ulz0WrrFwgrnkXfk/edit#gid=1537947274 1:31:59 - Open philanthropy, hit-based giving, and The Man Who Fed the World https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/hits-based-giving https://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Fed-World-Laureate/dp/1930754906 1:41:04 - Slow vs fast Artificial intelligence, giving now vs giving later, the time value of money, and John’s personal reasons for (mostly) giving later https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7uJcBNZhinomKtH9p/giving-now-vs-later-a-summary https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/timevalueofmoney.asp https://fs.blog/2013/02/the-psychology-of-human-misjudgement/ 1:53:01 - Effective Altruism’s “popularity problem”, growing the movement, and caring vs counting https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/pcygusgiy6ZabnB93/how-valuable-is-movement-growth 2:06:10 - An opportunity to be a real superhero