Recommended videos, books, podcasts, and essays

Want to learn more about effective giving, effective altruism, and how to do the most good with your resources?

This collection of videos, books, podcasts, essays, and articles is a great place to start learning more about how to use your resources to best help others.

Why I'm giving 10% of my income to charity by Ali Abdaal

Charity evaluation and its future by GiveWell, ACE, Founders Pledge, and Giving What We Can | EAG London 23

What are the most important moral problems of our time? by Will MacAskill

Effective altruism by Beth Barnes

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The moral imperative towards cost-effectiveness by Toby Ord

Conversations about the ethics of global health usually focus on traditional moral issues such as justice, equality, and freedom. While these issues are important, they are often overshadowed by cost-effectiveness. In this essay, Toby explains how this happens and what it means for global health.

Giving without sacrifice? The relationship between income, happiness and giving by Andreas Mogensen

A perfectly natural response to the idea that one ought to donate a percentage of one’s income to fight poverty in the developing world is: how will this affect me? Won’t it make my life much worse? Luckily, there is a body of psychological research that can help us to answer this question. This page summarises this psychological research, in relation to how giving 10% will affect your happiness.

Famine, Affluence and Morality by Peter Singer

This highly influential essay started a public discussion about our obligations regarding global poverty. Prior to its publication, the issue of global poverty rarely arose within the academic field of ethics. Singer changed this by forcefully arguing that donating to stop poverty was not merely a nice thing to do, but was morally urgent, and that we all had an obligation to donate a large part of our income. Moreover, he did so without invoking a particular moral theory; instead, he derived the obligation directly from our most basic shared moral beliefs.

More essays

TitleSpeakerTopic
What are the most important moral problems of our time?Will MacAskillEffective altruism
Why I'm giving 10% of my income to charityAli AbdaalEffective altruism
Effective altruismBeth BarnesEffective altruism
The why and how of effective altruismPeter SingerEffective altruism
How using science can radically increase your social impactGabriella OverödderEffective altruism
Giving what we canJonathan CourtneyEffective altruism
The most good you can doPeter SingerEffective altruism
Introduction to effective altruismAjeya CotraEffective altruism
How to save hundreds of livesToby OrdGlobal health & development
Experiences of the Giving What We Can PledgeGiving What We Can MembersEffective Altruism
Social experiments to fight povertyEsther DufloGlobal health & development
New insights on povertyHans RoslingGlobal health & development
The way we think about charity is dead wrongDan PalottaGlobal health & development

Philosophy & applied ethics

Animal welfare

Behaviour, science, & decision making

Big history

Career & lifestyle advice

Global health & development

Long-term future

NameHostsDescription
The 80,000 Hours PodcastRob WiblinConversations about the world's most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them.
The Giving What We Can PodcastLuke FreemanJoin us on our very own podcast as we explore how to use our resources to do the most good. Learn more about effective giving, high impact charities, philanthropy, and effective altruism.
Doing Good Better Podcast (3 episodes)Stephanie Tam, Sam DeereThis three episode podcast covers the why, how, and what of effective altruism: the idea that we shouldn't just try to do good — instead, we should try to do the most good that we can.
Effective Altruism: An IntroductionRob WiblinTen curated episodes from The 80,000 Hours Podcast, to quickly get up to speed on the school of thought known as effective altruism.
The Life You Can SavePeter SingerEnjoy hearing Kristen Bell, Paul Simon, Stephen Fry, and more celebrity supporters narrate this compelling book, and learn how you can be part of the solution.
Future PerfectDylan Matthews, Sigal SamuelFuture Perfect explores provocative ideas with the potential to radically improve the world. They tackle big questions about the most effective ways to save lives, fight global warming, and end world poverty to create a more perfect future.
Hear This IdeaFin Moorhouse, Luca RighettiShowcases new thinking in philosophy, the social sciences, and effective altruism.
AI Alignment PodcastLucas PerryExplores the AI alignment problem across a large variety of domains, reflecting the fundamentally interdisciplinary nature of AI alignment.
Clearer ThinkingSpencer GreenbergEnjoy learning about powerful, practical concepts and frameworks. Listen to deep, intellectual conversations.
Rationally SpeakingJulia GalefExplores the borderlands between reason and nonsense, likely and unlikely, and science and pseudoscience.
EA RadioEARadio consists of talks on topics relevant to effective altruists. Much of the content is from online videos, packaged for easy listening on the go!
TitleAuthorDescription
The moral imperative towards cost-effectivenessToby OrdConversations about the ethics of global health usually focus on traditional moral issues such as justice, equality, and freedom. While these issues are important, they are often overshadowed by cost-effectiveness. In this essay, Toby explains how this happens and what it means for global health.
Giving without sacrifice? The relationship between income, happiness and givingAndreas MogensenA perfectly natural response to the idea that one ought to donate a percentage of one’s income to fight poverty in the developing world is: how will this affect me? Won’t it make my life much worse? Luckily, there is a body of psychological research that can help us to answer this question. This page summarises this psychological research, in relation to how giving 10% will affect your happiness.
Famine, affluence and moralityPeter SingerThis highly influential essay started a public discussion about our obligations regarding global poverty. Prior to its publication, the issue of global poverty rarely arose within the academic field of ethics. Singer changed this by forcefully arguing that donating to stop poverty was not merely a nice thing to do, but was morally urgent, and that we all had an obligation to donate a large part of our income. Moreover, he did so without invoking a particular moral theory; instead, he derived the obligation directly from our most basic shared moral beliefs.
All animals are equalPeter SingerPeter Singer argues that, in deciding what to do, we should give the interests of non-human animals as much weight as the interests of members of our own species.
Prospecting for goldOwen Cotton-BarrattDiscusses a series of key effective altruist concepts, such as heavy-tailed distributions, diminishing marginal returns, and comparative advantage, illustrating them with metaphors.
Crucial considerations and wise philanthropyNick BostomExplores what “crucial considerations” are and what they mean for effective altruism.
Misconceptions about effective altruismBenjamin ToddEffective altruism is widely misunderstood, even among its supporters. This article by Benjamin Todd goes through four of the most common misconceptions.
You have more than one goal, and that's fineJulia WiseThis essay frames one way in which to pursue finding a balance between a commitment to helping others with the other things we care about.
Introduction to effective altruismCentre for Effective AltruismAn accessible introduction to effective altruism and examples of how this approach is used in practice to work on pressing global problems.
Understanding cause-neutralityCentre for Effective AltruismClarifies different ways in which the concept of “cause-neutrality” is being used in effective altruism.

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