Effective Altruism
You may have heard of a niche brotherhood that gathers in far corners of the world. They hail from technology, finance, and elite universities. A collective aimed at the betterment of humanity through the utilitarian ideals of maximal effectiveness. Dissecting the work of organisations and charities across the globe to find their core output value, distilled down to a simple stack ranking.
Sounds a bit strange, right?
Well I'm all in - and let me tell you why.
Life of Privilege
In juxtaposition to the majority of the worlds population, I live in relative splendour. I have no financial worries, a supportive family, access to private healthcare, accommodation in a safe area, and enough free time to pursue my interests. This, by most standards, is a life with little wants.
However, most people do not have this opportunity; be it through factors outside their control (family, debt, disability, etc) or just purely losing the geo-lottery at birth (the 2025 GDP per capita in Nigeria currently sits at around $835).
Now, I don't intend for this post to become a holier-than-thou sermon on how you should live a life of minimalism, stripping away every penny you don't need to spend for the pursuit of asceticism, but the gaps are stark: a meaningful share of the world still lacks basic literacy, and billions remain offline, shut out from the information and tools many of us take for granted.
For every coffee you treat yourself to, holiday you enjoy, or fancy restaurant you visit, there's a degree of privilege at work. Recognising that doesn't forbid your enjoyment; it simply sharpens the question of how much you're willing to route towards effective causes.
Now you may be thinking, I have worked hard to get to the position I am at. Why should I not be able to enjoy the fruits of my labour?
But let's play a classic thought experiment. You are walking on your daily commute (which in this context contains a lot of water features) and hear a shout coming from a large pond next to you. A child is clearly struggling in the water, and you seem to be the only one who has noticed. It's pretty clear a bad outcome will ensue if you don't intervene.
Most people in this situation would try and aid the child. It's of minimally low cost to you. Your favourite trainers are ruined and you're a bit wet, but the cost to you is trivial compared with the benefit to the child. Now, let's say that we put that same lake one mile away, and you can fund a lifeguard who patrols the lake for an equivalent cost of your trainers - would you pay it?
You're probably starting to see where this is going... At what point does the child's peril stop mattering simply because it is not on your doorstep?
And if that answer feels uncomfortable, ask yourself when you last gave more than £10 to something genuinely useful, versus the last time you spent more than £10 on something you didn't need. The distance changes; the trade-off does not.
Starting Out
I was introduced to the concept of effective altruism through a colleague at work. The common misconception, that I and others often have is that effective altruism promotes a moral obligation to donate all you can spare for causes more worthy than your petty new iPhone, becoming almost monk-like in your devotion. This is however not the case.
What it instead incentivises is the concept that:
Some ways of contributing to the common good are far more effective than typical.
Your social impact is given by the number of people whose lives you improve and how much you improve them, over the long term.
An ecosystem has grown around this, with organisations such as Giving What We Can, collating a list of the best charities to support in a number of categories. Alongside this, you can become a small-time Buffett and take a giving pledge, choosing to donate a percentage of your salary each year to beneficial causes.
I pledged at 5% because it has no effect on the things I enjoy in my life; I genuinely feel a sense of joy from donating to causes that I care about, reduce my donation to the tax man, and I love following the impact my donations make (plus it provides me with the opportunity to write smug blog posts like this). Again, this is not an exercise in fostering guilt - I just want to raise awareness of the good we can all do with minimal sacrifice.
If you are interested in any of these concepts, have a read through some of the posts here.
You never know, you could become one of us.