Earned to Give - Is That a Good Idea?

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The notion of earned to give and the way that it is argued for has changed over time as they have wanted effective altruism to be open to a wider range of people. Initially, so I believe McCaskill co-founded 80,000 hours because that's the average number of hours that somebody will spend throughout their career working. And later on, they realized that not only was that sort of a bad strategy because a lot of people found it absolutely abhorrent that you'd go and work on Wall Street. They've fostered connections with major governing bodies like the United Nations or tech billionaires like Elon Musk in recent years.

Paris Marx is joined by Émile P. Torres to discuss the ongoing effort to sell effective altruism and longtermism to the public, and why they’re philosophies that won’t solve the real problems we face.

Émile P. Torres is a PhD candidate at Leibniz University Hannover and the author of the forthcoming book Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation. Follow Émile on Twitter at @xriskology.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Émile recently wrote about the ongoing effort to sell longtermism and effective altruism to the public.
Peter Singer wrote an article published in 1972 arguing that rich people need to give to charity, which went on to influence effective altruists.
NYT recently opined on whether it’s ethical for lawyers to defend climate villains.
Nathan Robinson recently criticized effective altruism for Current Affairs.

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