I’d prefer to give my money to a deworming programme rather than to Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Indeed, a charity like Schistosomiasis Control Initiative that runs programmes against parasitic worms has a far wider impact than training a dog for a single blind person. There is a hard-headedness here that I find both attractive and disappointing at the same time: attractive because it cuts through the sentimentality that so often drives our charitable giving, making it more about the beneficiaries of our money than our own need for warm and fuzzy feelings; and yet also disappointing because it forces all human need to express itself on a single comparable scale because of the giver’s rather nerdish requirement that the world possess some sort of measurable order.

Effective altruists are mostly in their mid to late 20s, male, white, middle class, and highly idealistic. They feel to me a bit like an evangelical youth club, except for atheists. I do wonder how all their enthusiasm will survive disappointment and whether a regular meeting down the pub can continue to bond them in a common enterprise once long-term relationships and children further complicate life and its moral commitments. But I have no quibble whatsoever with their altruism. These are good people wanting to make a real difference. And I am happy to raise a festive glass to their success.

Read the full article on effective altruism by Giles Fraser at the Guardian