The Essentials

We begin with Ajeya Cotra, who shares how she first learned about the world’s deepest problems — and became determined to do as much good as possible.

The single most important idea in effective altruism may be that we are capable of helping others to an incredible extent. Jai Dhyani and Benjamin Todd both tell the stories of people who saved millions of lives.

We can’t all have that level of impact. But throughout the Handbook. you’ll find many effective strategies to change the world for the better, no matter who you are.

Further Reading

Past the essential readings, we have lots of other recommendations.

Holly Elmore’s essay drives home another key ideas — the fact that our resources are limited, making it crucial to set priorities when we can’t help everyone.

The next piece, from Our World in Data, sums up EA philosophy in its title, and goes on to tell a moving story of how far we’ve come — and how much further we can go.

Each sequence has a “more to explore” section with a collection of relevant resources. Don’t feel obliged to read them all! (But we did pick them out by hand, just for you.)