Our subject in this episode is altruism – our human desire and instinct to assist each other, making some personal sacrifices along the way. More precisely, our subject is the possible future of altruism – a future in which our philanthropic activities – our charitable donations, and how we spend our discretionary time – could have a considerably greater impact than at present. The issue is that many of our present activities, which are intended to help others, aren’t particularly effective.

That’s the judgement reached by our guest today, Stefan Schubert. Stefan is a researcher in philosophy and psychology, currently based in Stockholm, Sweden, and has previously held roles at the LSE and the University of Oxford. Stefan is the co-author of the recently published book “Effective Altruism and the Human Mind”.

Selected follow-ups:

Stefan Schubert - Effective Altruism
Effective Altruism and the Human Mind: The Clash Between Impact and Intuition - Oxford University Press (open access)
Centre for Effective Altruism
Professor Nadira Faber - Uehiro Institute, Oxford
What are the best charities to support in 2024? - Giving What We Can
Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed - Time
Virtues for Real-World Utilitarians - by Stefan Schubert & Lucius Caviola, Utilitarianism
Deworming - Effective Altruism Forum
What we know about Musk's cost-cutting mission - BBC article about DOGE
What is your p(doom)? with Darren McKee
Longtermism - Wikipedia

Music: Spike Protein, by Koi Discovery, available under CC0 1.0 Public Domain Declaration

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