Effective Altruism Quotes

I'm sick to death of famous people standing up and using their celebrity to promote a cause. If I see a particular need, I do try to help. But there's a lot that can be achieved by putting a check in the right place and shutting up about it.

If your aims as a donor are modest, you can accomplish an awful lot. When your aims become elevated beyond a reasonable level, you not only don't accomplish much, but you can cause a great deal of damage.

I'd much rather be part of a society which greatly honors and respects people who are altruists and who are effective in their altruism, than one that either admires people because they're, you know, celebrity movie stars or because they're super wealthy just no matter what they do with their wealth because I think we ought to try to encourage more people to act in that way.

Take for example providing a guide dog for a blind person. That's a good thing to do, right? All right. It is a good thing to do. But you have to think what else you could do with the resources. It costs about $40,000 to train a guide dog and train the recipient so that the guide dog can be an effective help to a blind person. It costs somewhere between 20 and $50 to cure a blind person in a developing country if they have trachoma. So you do the sums, and you could provide one guide dog for one blind American or you could cure between 400 and 2,000 people of blindness.

If you have the abilities to earn a lot of money and if you have the character to persist in giving that to the most effective charities you can find, then that may be the best thing that you can do. And - also, if you do become a Wall Street banker, I think you need to be aware of what you're doing in terms of your daily work, not just earning money to give a lot away. But you need to think about - am I harming people through the work that I'm doing?

There should only be charity when it does not increase the need for charity.

Study how to do the most good and let the pay take care of itself.

Being innovative in your philanthropy allows you to stride forward in your giving journey; you can marry your mind and heart to turn charity into lasting impact; and you can become more ambitious in your giving.

Put your good where it will do the most!

I know of a number of people who are successfully earning to give. That isn't for everyone but for those with the ability to earn a lot of money and the character to resist the temptation to spend it on themselves, it can be a great way to do good.

Put your good where it does the most.

In my own life, I do not live like an effective altruist. An effective altruist would really disapprove of my life. I don't give enough to charity and I still have both my kidneys.

Each of us spends money on things that we do not really need. You could take the money you're spending on those unnecessary things and give it to this organization the Against Malaria Foundation which would take the money you had given and use it to buy nets to protect children. And we know reliably that if we provide nets, they're used, and they reduce the number of children dying from malaria. Fortunately more and more people are understanding this idea, and the result is a growing movement effective altruism.

Most philanthropists want to be effective altruists. But the problem isn't intention: it's measurement. Unlike financial investing, which has reporting standards, audit processes, and educational requirements, social investing is notoriously tricky to evaluate.

If you get to think of sharing wealth with people who need it and the purposes that need it, it gives a very different sense of satisfaction. I think I can build an institution which is very unlike the Gates' foundation. Gates' foundation is totally project-driven, that will serve a specific purpose and then self-destruct.

If you want to maximize your expected utility, you try to save the world and the future of intergalactic civilization instead of donating your money to the society for curing rare diseases and cute puppies.

I prefer being able to choose who I want to help or what I want to improve in the world by making a lot of money myself rather than just going out there and talking about things. If you have money to do things, it's much better than just talking about them.

There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.

Effective altruism is the form of altruism in which we bring our rational capacities to bear in order to do the most good that we can.

I think a lot of people are getting more serious about how to do the most good, but there is no road map. I'm hoping I can offer an example.

I have huge admiration for people who think like the effective altruist, who try to rationally think about how they can change the world for the better, and who try not to be swayed by irrational considerations, such as skin color or whether or not someone lives in the same neighborhood.

Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement which tries to work out the most effective ways to improve the world. Effective altruists - conform to old-school utilitarian principles - consider all causes and actions, and then act in the way that they believe brings about the greatest positive impact.

Do your neighbour good by all means in your power, moral as well as physical - by kindness, by patience, by unflinching resistance against every outward evil - by the silent preaching of your own contrary life. But if the only good you can do him is by talking at him, or about him - nay, even to him, if it be in a self-satisfied, super-virtuous style - such as I earnestly hope the present writer is not doing - you had much better leave him alone.

I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough

Charitable giving is a huge sector in the United States. It amounts to $350 billion a year. And yet, I can't help feeling that a lot of that is wasted because people have not been thinking about how to do it as effectively as possible.