EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM COMBINING THE HEART AND THE HEAD Peter Brietbart Compare Let’s play a game. You get £100,000. Rules: • Money can only be spent on doing good. • Only one winner: the person who does the most good. • You have to be able to bring evidence. • I decide the winner. Quality Adjusted Life Years: QALYs • 1 QALY represents 1 year of life in perfect health. • Illnesses reduce our QALYs. • Cures can win us back QALYs. Some examples: 0.4 QALYs 0.7 QALYs Can win back 0.6 Can win back 0.3 Helpful Thing 1 COST EFFECTIVENESS If you don’t get really good value-for-money on £ to QALYs, you probably won’t win. Helpful Thing 2 CAUSE NEUTRALITY Doesn’t matter what you spend money on, only how much good it actually does. Helpful Thing 3 PREVENTION AS GOOD AS CURE Preventing future loss of QALYs is as valuable as bringing about gains now. What do you do? • £100,000 • Winner is the one who does the most good. • Good measured in QALYs. • 1 QALY = 1 year of perfect health. • Cause neutral: Whatever works. • Cost effectiveness: Get value for money. • Yes, it’s supposed to be super hard. Effective Altruism • This is a new way to think about doing good. • We try to find the most cost-effective, high impact interventions that do the most good on a societal scale. (I’ll give you our answers.)