I was on it yesterday and thought “huh! 1200+ jobs is a lot!” Well done scaling this up!
JDBauman
Karma: 777
Please do! This is perhaps the single-best resource to share with Christian friends interested in effective altruism.
We may translate to German. Need to check with the publisher
There’s a shortfall of evidence around the topic of human trafficking, which my colleague explores in this report on human trafficking. Innovations for Poverty Action explores this in some new reports here, and here.
My sense from a cursory overview of the problem and tentative solutions: human trafficking is an important cause (comparable in scale (DALYs) to a problem like maternal disorders, but the solvability is of much lower confidence than for problems of similar or greater significance, such as malaria deaths.
For instance, evaluators have strong confidence—based on lots of robust academic peer-reviewed and RCT evidence—that we can prevent a death by malaria for $3-5k.
We don’t have comparably strong evidence for preventing human trafficking (and if there is, I’d love to see it!)
Reminds me of Oliver, who lived in a van for 4 years to donate as much money as possible to the poor while earning to give at Google. He eventually moved to a studio apartment for better health / dating, and still gives away about just as much many many years later.
Oliver’ story below:
Sent you an email!
Thanks for this! I agree the NT puts severe moral weight on care for the poor. Matthew 25 should make any “faith” that never expresses itself in works of mercy look suspect.
Where I think your post is slightly theologically dangerous is in treating salvation a bit like a checklist of criteria humans can meet. The NT is equally clear that none of us meets God’s standard: “None is righteous… no one seeks for God” (Rom 3:10–12), and Jesus’ demand is perfection (Matt 5:48). On that basis, no one is saved.
That’s why the cross matters: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Salvation is by grace, received through faith, “not a result of works” (Eph 2:8–9). Jesus’ core call is “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15); “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Repentance is turning from self-rule toward God’s will, and when it’s real it produces fruit (like service to the poor).
So in Matthew 25 the point isn’t “earn salvation by helping the poor,” but that lack of mercy can reveal a life where one claims to be a follower of God but is actually untouched by repentance and grace. Works don’t save, but the absence of transformed living exposes false faith.
P.S. clarifications, since these terms carry baggage:By “repentance,” I mean a genuine turning away from what is wrong and toward what is good. In Christian terms, it’s a real choice, though one Christians think is enabled by grace. If that turn is real, it shows up in changed direction over time. If you “turned” but never moved, it’s fair to question whether you turned at all.
By “God,” and “God’s will” I mean the God Christians claim is most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ, not a capricious or vengeful deity, but one who wills perfect love and justice. The Christian story ends with the defeat of death and suffering (Rev 21:4). That vision overlaps in important ways with many effective altruist concerns about reducing suffering and caring for the vulnerable, even if the underlying metaphysics differ.
(I’ve been lurking your posts, inspired partially by Nick’s high opinion of you, partially by my interest in helping animals as effectively as possible!)
Thank you for your generosity! What animals are you donating to these days? Or are you stocking up a kind of DAF-like instrument for dispursing later?
They don’t have to be in conflict. But people feel like they are. Why else don’t people give more? Most people just aren’t as excited about giving as they are about spending that money on other things in life.
Ideally giving springs from heart to hands. And the best way to motivate someone else is probably to point to the heart, and the excitement, not the obligation (unless it’s an opening hook—the e.g. drowning child experiment is just really strong).
Thanks for the shoutout to EACH, Nick!
I find myself bobbling between
1) giving as obligation:
“whoever has two shirts should give to him who has none”
“sell your possessions and give to the poor.”
“imagine a child drowning in a shallow pond”
and 2) giving because its exciting
”God loves a cheerful giver”
″It costs just $4,000 to save a life”
It sounds like you’ve leaned more into the joy, and that’s wonderful!
I expect we’ll update this on an (approximately) yearly basis
One obvious answer here that hasn’t come up yet—they can take the 10% pledge! And, of course, hustle at their current job, work their way up, and earn-to-give or build management skills that can later be useful for jobs at direct work organizations
I’m not sure how many 1-1s EA UK does with people who are new to EA, but first timer 1-1s seem especially valuable at helping people who are very new to the movement who maybe didn’t get into it through a typical university pipeline or randomly read about it online.
If EA UK existed solely as a lone, gifted community organizer who took a few hundred 1-1s with new members and sought value-adding connections and resources for the EA UK ecosystem, I think might well be worth a 100k yearly budget.
Seems like the commenter is hung up on this “Because afterlife, evangelism dominates” view.
Saving children’s lives from malaria might have much greater eternal value than preaching a sermon. That’s because preaching and evangelism plausibly aren’t the only thing that influence the afterlife. It’s commonly held that good deeds will be rewarded in the afterlife, even if only as memories (Matt 5:12). Any positive good experienced over an infinite timeframe is, of course, infinite.Recently, philosophers like Brian Cutter and Philip Swenson have written about this in their Connection-building theodicy. Bentham’s Bulldog wrote about that here.
So consequentialist-leaning Christians might not prioritize evangelism at all costs.Most people (Christians included) don’t lean heavily towards consequentialism, anyways, and take at face value the (hundreds) of biblical commands to care for the poor, sick and marginalized.
What is the breakdown by religion?
This looks really cool!
Thank you for posting this! There’s a lot of wisdom here and surely plenty more Christians can (and should!) be doing to share about effective altruism with other Christians.
Super useful, tyvm for sharing.
Thanks Father Peter!