A community of law students interested in using evidence and careful reasoning to take actions to confront the world’s most pressing problems, including extreme poverty and existential risks from emerging technologies.
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Where Does a Dollar Help the Most? Lunch Discussion with HLS Effective Altruism
November 17, 2021 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Are some charities more effective than others? Does it make sense to rank charities based on “effectiveness”?
Charity evaluators like GiveWell have identified charities that save and improve lives at fractions of the cost of other charities’ operations. Given how many people each dollar can help at these “highly effective” charities, some argue that people in wealthy countries should donate at least 10% of their income to these charities. Others argue that people should “earn to give”—that is, earn a high salary and donate a large share of it to charity—rather than focusing on direct-impact work.
Does any of that make sense? Is it the right way to think about impact? Please join HLS Effective Altruism for a lunch discussion to talk more about these ideas, potential counterarguments, and what they might mean for our personal decisions about where and how to give.
Please click here to RSVP: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdgnNk4NMQCqMkfGpytY0p095mYReZWcPn-rxXH9_4R827oWg/viewform
Optional background reading: “The Greatest Good” (Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 2015)