New Directions: Reading Group Notes 9/16

For our first discussion/dinner of the academic year, we examined “Introduction to Effective Altruism” from the Effective Altruism (EA) website. We also reviewed “Why You Should Focus More on Talent Gaps, not Funding Gaps” by Benjamin Todd, founder and CEO of 80,000 Hours, an organization offering research-based career advice on maximizing one’s positive impacts on the world.

The first reading provides a good overview of EA. Some of our returning members wished that they had read the article earlier and would strongly recommend the article to other EA groups for introductory meetings. The article defines EA as using evidence-based reasoning to find out how to do good, laying out three criteria for topics worthy of investigation in EA: we are looking for issues large in scale, highly neglected, and sufficiently solvable. Guided by these principles, effective altruists have identified numerous issue areas, such as malaria control and nuclear nonproliferation which are listed in the article. The article ends by outlining some actions we can take to practice effective altruism, like donating to cost-effective charities and directly seeking a career in valued issue areas

We spent more time discussing the article by Todd. He argues that a lack of talent rather than a lack of funding is becoming the chief bottleneck to doing more good. As donations for critical issue areas grow, the need for creativity, insights, and leadership is surpassing that for money and pointing towards new directions in EA.

Our discussion produced some ideas complementing Todd’s arguments. To begin with, the distinction between the talent gap and funding gap proves meaningful mostly in the short run. For given enough time, skill and money become interchangeable. Funding can be used to build schools that produce talented people, and talented people can make altruism more cost-effective. The lack of interchangeability in the short run, however, provides a reason why we need to tackle both constraints. Also, the donation of money from the rich to the poor, or the attempted mending of the funding gap, may still signify and even perpetuate an unbalanced power dynamic, whose negative social impacts would require talented people to resolve. Finally, while high wages, an outcome of closing the funding gap, may help narrow the talent gap by attracting talented employees to important causes, employers should also consider creating motivations that are not money-oriented, which may prove just as powerful.

I would like to end this post with some explanations of why we are experimenting with blogging this year. Firstly, simply keeping a record of our thoughts within Princeton EA might prove useful, as future discussions may build upon past ideas. Secondly, the blog may become a first step towards promoting our ideas in campus publications such as Daily Princetonian. Thirdly, the blog can provide a means for other effective altruists and the broader public to learn about what’s happening with Princeton EA. We have members from around the world with different academic backgrounds, and leading intellectuals in EA, like Peter Singer and William MacAskill this semester, sometimes drop by for special events. We feel keen to share what has been going on with Princeton EA and are looking forward to more discussions with the wider community interested in having a positive impact on this world.