Dr Stefan Schubert Interview

What is Effective Altruism? And what are the internal obstacles blocking people from making effective donations?

Dr Stefan Schubert is a researcher from Oxford University at the Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab.

In this interview Stefan describes the different obstacles people have that block them from donating effectively.

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February 20, 2021

An Introduction to Effective Altruism with Dr Stefan Schubert

#129 Great.com Talks With... Dr Stefan Schubert from from The Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab, University of Oxford

What is Effective Altruism? And what are the internal obstacles blocking people from making effective donations?

Effective Altruism can be separated into 2 parts, altruism and effectiveness. The first part, altruism, is the idea that we should allocate our resources, like time and money, to others. The second part, effective, means to use this time and money in an effective way.

Dr Stefan Schubert is a researcher at the Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab of Oxford University. In this interview Stefan describes the different obstacles people have that blocks them from donating effectively.

Effective vs Ineffective Donations

Stefan explains that the difference between effective vs in-effective donations can be 100 times when money is donated strategically; but when Stefan asked people how much they thought the difference was, most people believed it was only two-fold. Stefans research reveals that there is a big miss-conception on how far donated money can go in common view.

When researchers in the Effective Altruism community have tried to define which cause areas are the most effective to make donations towards, there are three factors that have been used to help guide people towards a more strategic mindset: 

  1. Scale - How many people would benefit if the problem was solved?
  2. Tractability - How likely is it that the problem can be solved?
  3. Neglectedness - How many people are already working on solving the problem? 

Stefan recommends anyone interested in finding highly effective charities solving global poverty to look at GiveWell.org. If you rather are interested in other cause areas like animal welfare or long term future problems, Stefan recommends looking into the Effective Altruism Funds.

Want to learn more about Stefan Schubert? You can visit his personal website at https://stefanfschubert.com/

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