Advertise on podcast: Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems – 80,000 Hours

Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems is a collection of ten top episodes of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, designed to bring you up to speed on ten pressing issues the effective altruism community is working to solve. Here the host of the show — Rob Wiblin — briefly explains what effective altruism is all about, and what to expect from the rest of this series.

Toby Ord is a famously good explainer of complex issues — a bit of a modern Carl Sagan character — so we thought this would be a perfect introduction to the problem of existential risks.

The very best education interventions are phenomenally cost-effective, but they’re not the kinds of things you’d expect, says Dr Rachel Glennerster — who we chose to introduce the problem of global poverty.

For five years, Andy Weber, was the US’ Assistant Secretary of Defense responsible for biological and other weapons of mass destruction. Andy’s current mission is to spread the word that while bioweapons are terrifying, scientific advances also leave them on the verge of becoming an outdated technology.

The 80,000 Hours team found Brian Christian's new book The Alignment Problem to be an insightful and comprehensive review of the state of the research into making advanced artificial intelligence useful and reliably safe, and we thought he'd be a great person to introduce the problem.

Every year tens of billions of animals are raised in terrible conditions in factory farms before being killed for human consumption. Despite the enormous scale of suffering this causes, the issue is largely neglected, with only about $50 million dollars spent each year tackling the problem globally. Since 2015, Lewis Bollard has led Open Philanthropy’s program on farmed animal welfare, where he has conducted extensive research into the best ways to eliminate animal suffering in farms as soon as possible.  He might be the single best person in the world to introduce the problem of factory farming. Full transcript, related links, and summary of this interviewThis episode first broadcast on the regular 80,000 Hours Podcast feed on September 27th, 2017. Some related episodes include: #91 – Lewis Bollard on big wins against factory farming and how they happened #99 – Leah Garcés on turning adversaries into allies to change the chicken industry #26 – Marie Gibbons on how exactly clean meat is created & the advances needed to get it in every supermarket #20 – Bruce Friedrich on inventing outstanding meat substitutes to end speciesism & factory farming #14 – Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuse Series produced by Keiran Harris.

Jennifer Doleac — Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, and Director of the Justice Tech Lab — is an expert on empirical research into policing, law and incarceration, and we chose her to introduce the problem of criminal justice reform.

Ezra Klein is one of the most prominent journalists in the world. Ezra thinks that pressing issues are neglected largely because there’s little pre-existing infrastructure to push them, and we chose him to introduce journalism.

Many people aren’t comfortable with the danger posed by nuclear power. But given the climatic stakes, it’s worth asking: Just how much more dangerous is it compared to fossil fuels? According to today’s guest, Mark Lynas — author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet (winner of the prestigious Royal Society Prizes for Science Books) and Nuclear 2.0. — it’s actually much, much safer. We chose Mark to introduce the problem of climate change.

Dr Denkenberger is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and he’s out to spread the word that while a nuclear winter might be horrible, experts have been mistaken to assume that mass starvation is an inevitability. In fact, he says, the only thing that would prevent us from feeding the world is insufficient preparation. Dave was the natural choice to introduce the problem of feeding the world through catastrophes.

Most animals are hunted by predators, and constantly have to remain vigilant lest they be killed, and perhaps experience the terror of being eaten alive. Resource competition often leads to chronic hunger or starvation. Their diseases and injuries are never treated. In winter wild animals freeze to death and in droughts they die of heat or thirst. There are fewer than 20 people in the world dedicating their lives to researching these problems. But according to Persis Eskander, if we sum up the negative experiences of all wild animals, their sheer number – trillions to quintillions, depending on which you count – could make the scale of the problem larger than most other near-term concerns.  We chose Persis to introduce the problem of wild animal suffering. Full transcript, related links, and summary of this interviewThis episode first broadcast on the regular 80,000 Hours Podcast feed on April 15, 2019. Some related episodes include: #91 – Lewis Bollard on big wins against factory farming and how they happened#99 – Leah Garcés on turning adversaries into allies to change the chicken industry#26 – Marie Gibbons on how exactly clean meat is created & the advances needed to get it in every supermarket#20 – Bruce Friedrich on inventing outstanding meat substitutes to end speciesism & factory farming#14 – Sharon Nunez & Jose Valle on going undercover to expose animal abuse Series produced by Keiran Harris.

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