
Doing Good Better
How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference
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Narrated by:
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Sean Pratt
Most of us want to make a difference. We donate our time and money to charities and causes we deem worthy, choose careers we consider meaningful, and patronize businesses and buy products we believe make the world a better place. Unfortunately we often base these decisions on assumptions and emotions rather than facts. As a result even our best intentions often lead to ineffective - and sometimes downright harmful - outcomes. How can we do better?
While a researcher at Oxford, trying to figure out which career would allow him to have the greatest impact, William MacAskill confronted this problem head on. He discovered that much of the potential for change was being squandered by lack of information, bad data, and our own prejudice. As an antidote he and his colleagues developed effective altruism, a practical, data-driven approach that allows each of us to make a tremendous difference regardless of our resources. Effective altruists believe that it's not enough simply to do good; we must do good better.
At the core of this philosophy are five key questions that help guide our altruistic decisions: How many people benefit, and by how much? Is this the most effective thing I can do? Is this area neglected? What would have happened otherwise? What are the chances of success, and how good would success be? By applying these questions to real-life scenarios, MacAskill shows how many of our assumptions about doing good are misguided.
MacAskill urges us to think differently, set aside biases, and use evidence and careful reasoning rather than act on impulse. When we do this - when we apply the head and the heart to each of our altruistic endeavors - we find that each of us has the power to do an astonishing amount of good.
©2015 William MacAskill (P)2015 Gildan Media LLCListeners also enjoyed...




















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Perhaps the most important book of my life
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Uuuuggghhhh
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Very inspiring and I highly recommend it.
Amazing introduction to effective altruism
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So Good!
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"Doing Good Better" is a different way to look at charity and giving, focusing solely on the actual outcomes of the charity and giving. And what is suggests is that most of us have probably been doing it very wrong. Know someone that died of cancer and suddenly have a desire to throw money at cancer research? Probably don't bother. It might make you feel better but it probably wont do much for cancer research. If you really want to make a difference in the world there is a better way.
By looking at things like "what are others doing?" (small, less well known issues are better), "what has the biggest impact per dollar" (third world stuff, due to exchange rate), and "would someone else do it better?" (don't work for a charity if someone else is better for the role) you can maximise your impact. Is it better to work in a "unethical" job to make tonnes of money and give the money to charity than it is go work for the charity direct? Is it better to buy cheaper non fair trade items and donate what you save, rather than trust fair trade policies? Should you give to high profile disaster recovery when daily there are often more deaths from things that are cheaper/easier to fix?
In the end, the approach is right for getting the most out of how you do charity and how you change the world. But it feels wrong. And I guess that is why we fail to making a huge change to poverty, because we go with what is currently popular or trendy. We go with the 'easy' charities. And it makes us feel good to do so.
This book is about putting off the quick easy feel good for the longer term feel good of knowing you have actually made a difference, not just thrown money at whatever catches your eye,
Narration by Sean Pratt is pretty good. Clean and clear and easy to follow. Happy to listen to his work again.
There were however some issues with listening to this book on audio. Later in the book (chapter 8 on or so) the book starts to contain a lot of lists and breakdowns of companies/charities. This is easy enough to follow but because it's all quick facts in dot points it's not easy to retain or compare. These lists would really be served better through a written copy (or pdf supplement) so that it can be easily referenced later and comparisons between different charities on the list can be made.
Cold, calculating and ultimately beneficial
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A book I'm going to read again
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fascinating data driven approach to altruism
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Useful framework
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I highly recommend
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Good
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