How to Comfort People When They're Feeling Sad

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If you tell people your numbers in advance, then they can do an expected value calculation about how to comfort you. They're like, well, 80% of the time, Kat wants Doritos. So Doritos is a good, good bet here. Start with the Doritos and see how it goes. And even just knowing that I think is really useful.

What's the best way to help someone who's going through a difficult situation? What are the four states of distress? What are "comfort languages"? How can we introduce more nuance into our everyday thinking habits? When gathering information and forming opinions, how do you know who to trust? What's the difference between intelligence and wisdom?

Kat Woods is the co-founder of Charity Entrepreneurship, a startup incubator for effective altruist charities. It provides training, seed funding, and the other things necessary to kickstart an effective nonprofit. Previously, Kat co-founded Charity Science Outreach, a meta-organization that raised nine counterfactual dollars for high impact charities for every dollar spent. Subsequently she co-founded Charity Science Health, a direct poverty charity that received multiple grants from GiveWell and has served hundreds of thousands of families in India. You can find more about Kat at her website or on Twitter at @kat__woods.

Staff