Effective Altruism: Morality by numbers

Origin Story

In the last episode of season four, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey discuss effective altruism. Last month the US entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the dramatic collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried was also a prominent advocate of effective altruism, a philanthropic movement based on utilitarian philosophy, and the scandal has thrown the EA community into crisis.

Dorian and Ian explain how two maverick young Oxford philosophers ended up creating a multi-billion-dollar movement, explore the ideas behind it, and track its journey towards long termism: the philosophy of safeguarding the future of the human race from threats such as hostile AI. Are the principles of EA sound? Did the influx of billionaires and the obsession with existential risk knock it off course? Was Bankman-Fried a true believer who blew it or just a grifter who took the idealists for a ride? And can EA survive one of the biggest financial scandals of this century? When big ideas collide with big money and big tech, things get messy.

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Reading list

Books:

Carol J.Adams, Alice Crary, Lori Gruen, (eds.) — The Good it Promises, the Harm it Does: Critical Essays on Effective Alturism, (2023)

Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Ćirković (eds.) — Global Catastrophic Risks

(2008)

Nick Bostrom — Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014)

Zeke Faux — Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering

Fall (2023)

John Leslie — The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human

Extinction (1996)

Michael Lewis — Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon (2023)

William MacAskill — Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and How You

Can Make a Difference (2015)

William MacAskill — What We Owe the Future (2022)

Toby Ord — The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity

(2020)

Online:

Core EA Principles, Centre for Effective Altruism

Peter Singer — Famine, Affluence and Morality, 1971

Peter Singer — TED talk, 2013

William MacAskill — The history of the term ‘effective altruism’, Effective

Altruism Forum, 2014

Raffi Khatchadourian — The Doomsday Invention, New Yorker, 2015

Gideon-Lewis Krauss — The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism, New

Yorker, 2022

Charlotte Alter — Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned

About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed, Time, 2023

Sophie McBain — Sam Bankman-Fried and the effective altruism delusion,

New Statesman, 2023

Podcasts:

80,000 Hours: Sam Bankman-Fried, 2022

80,000 Hours: Toby Ord, 2023

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.

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