2min chapter

#612: Will MacAskill of Effective Altruism Fame — The Value of Longtermism, Tools for Beating Stress and Overwhelm, AI Scenarios, High-Impact Books, and How to Save the World and Be an Agent of Change

The Tim Ferriss Show

notes

CHAPTER

How to Use Your Career to Make the World Better

Many people, in the effect of altruism, community slash movement, is the king of a systematic approach to not just defining, but questioning assumptions and quantitatively looking at how you can do good. And it's really worth taking a closer look. Are there just a few urales you'd like to mention for people who'd like to dig into that? And then we an move into some of the more currect questions.

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Episode notes

Will MacAskill of Effective Altruism Fame — The Value of Longtermism, Tools for Beating Stress and Overwhelm, AI Scenarios, High-Impact Books, and How to Save the World and Be an Agent of Change | Brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 800M+ users, Vuori comfortable and durable performance apparel, and Theragun percussive muscle therapy devices. More on all three below.

William MacAskill (@willmacaskill) is an associate professor in philosophy at the University of Oxford. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest associate professor of philosophy in the world. A Forbes 30 Under 30 social entrepreneur, he also cofounded the nonprofits Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism, and Y Combinator-backed 80,000 Hours, which together have moved over $200 million to effective charities. You can find my 2015 conversation with Will at tim.blog/will.

His new book is What We Owe the Future. It is blurbed by several guests of the podcast, including Sam Harris, who wrote, “No living philosopher has had a greater impact upon my ethics than Will MacAskill. . . . This is an altogether thrilling and necessary book.”

Please enjoy!

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[07:20] Recommended reading.

[13:26] How Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment changed Will’s life.

[18:12] Maintaining optimism in the age of doomscrolling.

[23:41] What is effective altruism?

[26:04] Resources for maximizing the impact of your philanthropy.

[27:45] How adopting a check-in system has most improved Will’s life.

[32:32] Caffeine limits.

[34:08] Effective back pain relief.

[41:18] What is longtermism, and why did Will write What We Owe the Future?

[43:44] Future generations matter.

[46:42] Finding the line between apathy and fatalism that spurs action toward ensuring there’s a future.

[52:23] What Will hopes readers take away from What We Owe the Future.