Jul 23, 2019
Will MacAskill—whom Bill Gates describes as, “a data nerd after my own heart"—is Associate Professor in Philosophy and Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford. Will’s academic research focuses on the fundamentals of effective altruism—the use of evidence and reason to help others by as much as possible with our time and money, with a particular concentration on how to act given moral uncertainty. He is the author of Doing Good Better - Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference. His TED Talk on the subject has earned almost two million views.
Will is also the Director of the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research, a co-founder and the President of the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) and helped to create the effective altruism movement. Through Giving What We Can, CEA encourages people to commit to donate at least 10% of their income to the most effective charities. (You can take the pledge here.)
Will and I discuss global disease, factory farming, nuclear annihilation (smily emoticon) and whether or not those rich folks who donated to re-build Notre Dame Cathedral should have used their money in another way.