Giving Compass' Take:

• Cullen O’Keefe describes how, where and why effective altruists pursue their work for social change. 

• Do you agree with a) the premise, b) the methods, and c) the conclusions drawn by O’Keefe? How can these elements be tweaked for better results? 

• Read one individual's prioritization for effective altruism in 2018. 

Effective altruism (EA) provides a framework for prioritizing causes. That framework identifies three characteristics that make a cause a good candidate for prioritization: importance (or, as I’ll refer to it, magnitude), neglect, and tractability.

  • Magnitude can be decomposed into two factors: scale (i.e., how many individuals the problem affects) and severity (i.e., how bad the problem makes the lives of the affected individuals). I hope that the idea that we should choose causes with especially large magnitude needs little justification.
  • Neglect is an important consideration because, just as money has decreasing marginal returns for individuals (i.e., an increase of income by X dollars improves the welfare of a rich person less than it improves the welfare of a poor person), additional charitable dollars given to (the right) underfunded charities (and the causes they tackle) do more good than if given to well-funded ones.
  • Finally, those who care about actually effecting positive change cannot ignore tractability: the extent to which definite, evidence-based interventions exist for the problem.

The scale and severity of extreme global poverty make it a worthwhile cause for [high magnitude, neglect and tractrability].

Approximately 802 million people live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank definition[3]: a cost-of-living-adjusted income of <$1.90/day. Given that there are only roughly 323 million Americans, this is a good reason to believe that extreme poverty is a greater problem than any (purely) domestic problem.

The severity of extreme poverty is almost unimaginable for those of us fortunate enough to have never experienced it. Extreme poverty means the lack of consistent access to the most basic healthcare services (such as insecticide-treated bednets or deworming drugs, both of which are incredibly cheap), primary education, potable water, toilets, food, and housing. Of course, many Americans struggle with these same problems. But the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide is far greater, and American poverty, though horrible, is usually not as severe as extreme poverty.

Given its magnitude, your charitable dollars have the power to significantly improve the lives of those in extreme poverty by, for example, stopping young children from dying of easily preventable diseases. This has the added benefit of aiding the economies of affected regions. In the right hands, your donation can do an incredible amount of good.

Read the full article by Cullen O'Keefe about effective altruism for extreme poverty at HLS Effective Altruism.