EA Talks

Joshua Greene discusses two psychological research projects aimed at broadening the scope of human altruism and cooperation. The first (with Lucius Caviola) aims to expand the circle of effective giving. They show that ordinary donors are happy to give effectively, provided that it is part of a bundled donation including a personal favorite charity. They explain the appeal of bundled donations and show that economic incentives can boost their appeal. This research led them to create GivingMultiplier.org, which incentives bundled donations using a self-sustaining system of micro-matching. Since launching in late 2020, Giving Multiplier has raised over 1.6 million USD, mostly from donors who are new to effective giving. The second project (with Evan Defilippis) aims to reduce political animosity using a scalable online quiz game (“RedBrain BlueBrain”). Republicans and Democrats play as partners and succeed by reaching mutually rewarding compromises. Two large-scale, preregistered experiments showed that an hour of game play can produce warmer attitudes toward the political out-group, with effects lasting up to four months. These two projects address different problems, but they are grounded in the same empirically informed conception of human nature: people are reciprocal cooperators, driven by emotions that limit their scope of moral concern. However, people are capable of moral expansion through rationally structured opportunities and experiences.View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Attendees discuss models of longtermist movement-building, hear about recent project ideas, and participate in a project brainstorming exercise.View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

This presentation is based on Max Bazerman’s book by the same name as the title of the talk (Harper Business, 2020): Every day, you make hundreds of decisions. They’re largely personal, but these choices have an ethical component as well; you value certain principles and ends over others. Better, Not Perfect provides a prescriptive roadmap on how to maximize the pleasure and minimize pain that you create.  Melding philosophy and psychology, participants will leave this session with an audit of how they can achieve their maximum sustainable level of goodness.View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Exactly how "grand" - in terms of wealth, wellbeing, survival, computation, or other measures - could the future be, and how can we analyse it? Anders gives an overview of his research on compiling some estimates, and discusses how this feeds back to our near-term considerations about what to prioritize and research. View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP) is an international NGO that works with policy-makers and industry to end the availability of lead paint, a major source of lead poisoning globally. In this talk, Clare Donaldson describes how LEEP has been able to drive policy change in several low- and middle-income countries in its first 18 months and reflect on some possible lessons learnt for the Effective Altruism community. View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Suitable for people who believe stuff and value stuff but have not found particular directions yet, this minimally interactive workshop aims to amplify your reasoning about what your goals are. Questioning what the mark you would like to put on the world looks like can be thought of as probing a daunting search space, and Quinn Dougherty hopes to provide some heuristics to make you search more effectively. In Scope: How to convert beliefs and values, once you have them, into goals.View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.  Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Hayden Wilkinson (Global Priorities Institute) provides an overview of GPI's goals and their progress so far.View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Simran Dhaliwal chats with William MacAskill about several topics, including his new book: What We Owe the Future.View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.

Rohin Shah (DeepMind), Lewis Hammond (Cooperative AI) and Jamie Bernardi (Centre for Effective Altruism) host a Q&A session on careers directed at solving the AI alignment problem.View the original talk and video here.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet.Effective Altruism is a social movement dedicated to finding ways to do the most good possible, whether through charitable donations, career choices, or volunteer projects. EA Global conferences are gatherings for EAs to meet. You can also listen to this talk along with its accompanying video on YouTube.