Shows
80,000 Hours Podcast#215 – Tom Davidson on how AI-enabled coups could allow a tiny group to seize powerThroughout history, technological revolutions have fundamentally shifted the balance of power in society. The Industrial Revolution created conditions where democracies could flourish for the first time — as nations needed educated, informed, and empowered citizens to deploy advanced technologies and remain competitive.Unfortunately there’s every reason to think artificial general intelligence (AGI) will reverse that trend. Today’s guest — Tom Davidson of the Forethought Centre for AI Strategy — claims in a new paper published today that advanced AI enables power grabs by small groups, by removing the need for widespread human participation. Links to learn m...2025-04-163h 22
80,000 Hours Podcast2024 Highlightapalooza! (The best of The 80,000 Hours Podcast this year)"A shameless recycling of existing content to drive additional audience engagement on the cheap… or the single best, most valuable, and most insight-dense episode we put out in the entire year, depending on how you want to look at it." — Rob WiblinIt’s that magical time of year once again — highlightapalooza! Stick around for one top bit from each episode, including:How to use the microphone on someone’s mobile phone to figure out what password they’re typing into their laptopWhy mercilessly driving the New World screwworm to extinction could be the most compassionate thing humani...2024-12-272h 50
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizGolden Opportunities! Profitable Franchises Under $100KDid you know that in the United States, a new franchise opens every 8 minutes? In this episode, I'll introduce you to five exceptional franchises that you can acquire for under $100,000. These options have been selected for their proven success and the quality of support they offer to franchisees.
We start with Estrella Insurance, a franchise in the insurance sector with an investment range of $49,950 to $84,000. Next is Amazing Athletes, a youth sports franchise with an investment range of $58,000 to $91,000. Finally, we have OMEX, a cleaning and maintenance franchise requiring an investment of $52,000 to $82,000. Each of these franchises offers an...2024-07-0105 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#189 – Rachel Glennerster on why we still don’t have vaccines that could save millions"You can’t charge what something is worth during a pandemic. So we estimated that the value of one course of COVID vaccine in January 2021 was over $5,000. They were selling for between $6 and $40. So nothing like their social value. Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that they should have charged $5,000 or $6,000. That’s not ethical. It’s also not economically efficient, because they didn’t cost $5,000 at the marginal cost. So you actually want low price, getting out to lots of people."But it shows you that the market is not going to reward peopl...2024-05-292h 48
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizAverage Franchisee Makes 500K Topline, Can You?In this episode, we will explore the Matco Tools franchise, an intriguing option for automotive enthusiasts. With an initial investment ranging from $90,000 to $150,000, we ask the question: Can you make money with this franchise? We'll use our exclusive Vetted Biz tools to find the answer. Investigating current franchisee experiences and thoroughly examining the Franchise Disclosure Documents are crucial steps in the due diligence process. It's important to note that over the past five years, more than 1,000 Matco Tools locations have closed. This raises significant questions about the long-term stability and viability of the franchise.
⏭️ Download the latest FDD from Matc...2024-05-2004 min
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizDon't Break The Bank: Top FRANCHISE Opportunities For Under $50k Revealed! 💼💰Franchises Under 50k! 🚀 Dreaming of starting your own business without breaking the bank? Look no further! Our episode dives into the world of affordable franchise opportunities, catering to aspiring ENTREPRENEURS with a budget under $50,000. 💼✨ In this informative episode , we spotlight renowned franchises like JAN-PRO CLEANING, JAZZERCISE, VANGUARD CLEANING SYSTEMS, CRUISE PLANNERS, and CRUISEONE. 🌐💡 Discover the investment ranges, franchise fees, and key details that make these opportunities stand out in the competitive business landscape. 🌟 Our episode goes beyond the numbers, providing insights into scalability, community impact, and the comprehensive support offered by each franchise. We've done the research so you can make informed...2024-01-2503 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#112 Classic episode – Carl Shulman on the common-sense case for existential risk work and its practical implicationsPreventing the apocalypse may sound like an idiosyncratic activity, and it sometimes is justified on exotic grounds, such as the potential for humanity to become a galaxy-spanning civilisation.But the policy of US government agencies is already to spend up to $4 million to save the life of a citizen, making the death of all Americans a $1,300,000,000,000,000 disaster.According to Carl Shulman, research associate at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, that means you don’t need any fancy philosophical arguments about the value or size of the future to justify working to reduce existential risk...2024-01-083h 50
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizTHESE are the World's Largest FRANCHISE BUSINESSES by Location COUNTEver wondered which franchises have the most extensive global presence? Join us on a journey as we dive into the eight largest franchises in the world based on location count! From the ubiquitous 7-Eleven with a staggering 78,400 outlets to the iconic golden arches of McDonald's boasting 40,000 locations, we'll unveil the fascinating reach of these household names. But that's not all! We'll also take you on a tour of Subway's 37,100 stores, KFC's finger-lickin' good 25,000 outlets, Burger King's flame-grilled empire, Domino's speedy pizza delivery service, the classic comfort of Pizza Hut, and the America's favorite coffee pit stop, Dunkin' Donuts. Each...2023-11-0304 min
80,000 Hours PodcastThe 80,000 Hours Career Guide (2023)An audio version of the 2023 80,000 Hours career guide, also available on our website, on Amazon, and on Audible.If you know someone who might find our career guide helpful, you can get a free copy sent to them by going to 80000hours.org/gift.Chapters:Rob's intro (00:00:00)Introduction (00:04:08)Chapter 1: What Makes for a Dream Job? (00:09:09)Chapter 2: Can One Person Make a Difference? What the Evidence Says. (00:33:02)Chapter 3: Three Ways Anyone Can Make a Difference, No Matter Their Job (00:43:33)Chapter 4: Want to Do Good? Here's How to Choose an Area to Focus on (00:58:50)Chapter 5: The...2023-09-044h 41
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizUnveiling Code Ninjas Franchise: Payback and Complaints ExposedAre you considering investing in a Code Ninjas franchise? Hold on! In this eye-opening episode, we delve into the franchise costs, revenue averages, and the lengthy payback period associated with Code Ninjas. With franchise costs ranging from $300,000 to $400,000 according to their Franchise Disclosure Document (FDD) and franchisee reviews, it's important to understand the financial realities. We crunch the numbers and discover that the average revenue generated by Code Ninjas franchisees falls short of $300,000. The big question arises: How do these numbers add up? Is the payback period worth the investment? Our analysis reveals a staggering 5+ year payback period, making...2023-07-1105 min
$1,000 Minute$1,000 Minute - MeganMegan from Rensselaer WON $1,000 today with The Cat's $1,000 Minute! Congratulations Megan!! Join Sean & Andrea Weekday mornings at 7:50 for your chance to win $1,000!2023-05-2503 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#149 – Tim LeBon on how altruistic perfectionism is self-defeatingBeing a good and successful person is core to your identity. You place great importance on meeting the high moral, professional, or academic standards you set yourself. But inevitably, something goes wrong and you fail to meet that high bar. Now you feel terrible about yourself, and worry others are judging you for your failure. Feeling low and reflecting constantly on whether you're doing as much as you think you should makes it hard to focus and get things done. So now you're performing below a normal level, making you feel even more ashamed of yourself. Rinse a...2023-04-123h 11
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizSUBWAY Plans to SELL Their 37,000 Restaurant CHAIN for $10 Billion 😱Subway is planning to sell their restaurant chain for $10 billion! This would be a huge deal, and it could mean big changes for the fast food industry.
Tired of your job?
Thinking of starting or buying a business?
Take our Biz Quiz to filter through over 10,000 business opportunities today!
https://www.vettedbiz.com/quiz-test/
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00:00 Introduction
00:58 Situation of Subway
01:28 EBITDA from Subway
02:10 Big players who could buy...2023-01-2305 min
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizDaniel Kraft Has Secured Leases for 1,000+ Franchise Locations 🙌Daniel Kraft is the president of National Site Selection Service, Inc. (NSSS). Daniel is a highly respected Retail Site Selection Specialist, having helped countless companies make informed decisions about where to locate their businesses.
In this interview, Daniel shares his insights on the services offered by NSSS and talks about some of the biggest trends currently shaping the site selection landscape. He also discusses some of the red flags that companies face when choosing a new location for their operations and provides advice for those looking to invest in their businesses in this competitive market.
V...2022-12-0644 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#134 – Ian Morris on what big-picture history teaches usWind back 1,000 years and the moral landscape looks very different to today. Most farming societies thought slavery was natural and unobjectionable, premarital sex was an abomination, women should obey their husbands, and commoners should obey their monarchs.Wind back 10,000 years and things look very different again. Most hunter-gatherer groups thought men who got too big for their britches needed to be put in their place rather than obeyed, and lifelong monogamy could hardly be expected of men or women.Why such big systematic changes — and why these changes specifically?That's the question best-selling hi...2022-07-223h 41
Sota Soccer Podcasts10K Pitches Ep. 99: 25,000 StrongOn this episode of 10,000 Pitches, Jeremy Rushing and Dominic Jose Bisogno discuss the latest news and storylines in the world of Minnesota soccer.Minnesota Aurora advance to USL W-League SemifinalsMinnesota United wins 3rd straight vs. Vancouver, draw with Sporting KCSt. Croix and Minneapolis City wrap up USL2 seasons this weekendSalvo SC travel to Colorado for WPSL National PlayoffsDuluth and Med City vying for NPSL North crown in final weekendBateaux back atop WPASL after 4-2 win over Lobos--Support- Get the most consistent, dedicated Minnesota soccer coverage at SotaSoccer.com!2022-07-151h 15
80,000 Hours Podcast#130 – Will MacAskill on balancing frugality with ambition, whether you need longtermism, & mental health under pressureImagine you lead a nonprofit that operates on a shoestring budget. Staff are paid minimum wage, lunch is bread and hummus, and you're all bunched up on a few tables in a basement office. But over a few years, your cause attracts some major new donors. Your funding jumps a thousandfold, from $100,000 a year to $100,000,000 a year. You're the same group of people committed to making sacrifices for the cause — but these days, rather than cutting costs, the right thing to do seems to be to spend serious money and get things done ASAP. You sudd...2022-05-232h 16
80,000 Hours Podcast#122 – Michelle Hutchinson & Habiba Islam on balancing competing priorities and other themes from our 1-on-1 careers advisingOne of 80,000 Hours' main services is our free one-on-one careers advising, which we provide to around 1,000 people a year. Today we speak to two of our advisors, who have each spoken to hundreds of people -- including many regular listeners to this show -- about how they might be able to do more good while also having a highly motivating career. Before joining 80,000 Hours, Michelle Hutchinson completed a PhD in Philosophy at Oxford University and helped launch Oxford's Global Priorities Institute, while Habiba Islam studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Oxford University and qualified as a barrister.2022-03-091h 36
80,000 Hours Podcast#35 Classic episode - Tara Mac Aulay on the audacity to fix the world without asking permissionRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in June 2018.
How broken is the world? How inefficient is a typical organisation? Looking at Tara Mac Aulay’s life, the answer seems to be ‘very’.
At 15 she took her first job - an entry-level position at a chain restaurant. Rather than accept her place, Tara took it on herself to massively improve the store’s shambolic staff scheduling and inventory management. After cutting staff costs 30% she was quickly promoted, and at 16 sent in to overhaul dozens of failing stores in a final effort to save them fro...2022-01-111h 23
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizWhy I invested lots of $$$ into Domino's PizzaDomino’s Pizza franchises sell pizza and other authorized products through delivery and carry-out services. Dominos‘ offers both traditional and non-traditional stores in the food & beverage industry. Domino’s started franchising in 2007.
Here’s how much money you’d have if you invested $1,000 in Domino’s pizza 10 years ago.
In 2011, one share of Domino’s cost less than $30, enough to get you a few pies and a 2-liter bottle of Coke. The pizza chain was still in the midst of a major rebrand that saw it toss out its old recipe and admit to its customers that i...2021-12-2205 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#116 – Luisa Rodriguez on why global catastrophes seem unlikely to kill us allIf modern human civilisation collapsed — as a result of nuclear war, severe climate change, or a much worse pandemic than COVID-19 — billions of people might die.That's terrible enough to contemplate. But what’s the probability that rather than recover, the survivors would falter and humanity would actually disappear for good?It's an obvious enough question, but very few people have spent serious time looking into it -- possibly because it cuts across history, economics, and biology, among many other fields. There's no Disaster Apocalypse Studies department at any university, and governments have little incentive to pla...2021-11-193h 45
80,000 Hours Podcast#112 – Carl Shulman on the common-sense case for existential risk work and its practical implicationsPreventing the apocalypse may sound like an idiosyncratic activity, and it sometimes is justified on exotic grounds, such as the potential for humanity to become a galaxy-spanning civilisation.But the policy of US government agencies is already to spend up to $4 million to save the life of a citizen, making the death of all Americans a $1,300,000,000,000,000 disaster.According to Carl Shulman, research associate at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, that means you don’t need any fancy philosophical arguments about the value or size of the future to justify working to reduce existential risk — it p...2021-10-063h 48
80,000 Hours Podcast#110 – Holden Karnofsky on building aptitudes and kicking assHolden Karnofsky helped create two of the most influential organisations in the effective philanthropy world. So when he outlines a different perspective on career advice than the one we present at 80,000 Hours — we take it seriously.Holden disagrees with us on a few specifics, but it's more than that: he prefers a different vibe when making career choices, especially early in one's career.Links to learn more, summary and full transcript. While he might ultimately recommend similar jobs to those we recommend at 80,000 Hours, the reasons are often different. At 80,000 Hours we...2021-08-262h 46
Minnesota RundownKYLE RATKE | New Stadium Name, T'Wolves Hope?, Offseason Moves + A-Rod Ownership Perks | 6-30-21On this episode of the Minnesota Rundown we bring on Kyle Ratke of the 10,000 Layups podcast to discuss everything Minnesota Timberwovles basketball including optimism for the future based on this year's playoffs, poor decisions in years past, potential offseason moves that are actually possible, A-Rod's impact and more!Follow 10,000 Takes on Twitter: @10k_TakesInstagram: @10ktakesFacebook: 10,000 TakesTikTok: @10ktakesCheck out our website:www.10ktakesmn.com2021-06-3035 min
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizMost Popular Franchises: Kumon Review (2021)Want to buy a Kumon franchise?
Learn about this franchise with 1,500+ locations that have taught 4,000,000+ student
Kumon franchise cost, success rates and more in our video
Prefer to read as a text? Click here: https://www.vettedbiz.com/education-f...
If you are looking for more information, you can connect with us through our networks:
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#Kumon #VettedBiz #Franc...2021-05-2505 min
80,000 Hours PodcastThe ten episodes of this show you should listen to firstToday we're launching a new podcast feed that might be useful to you and people you know.
It's called 'Effective Altruism: An Introduction', and it's a carefully chosen selection of ten episodes of this show, with various new intros and outros to guide folks through them.
Basically, as the number of episodes of this show has grown, it has become less and less practical to ask new subscribers to go back and listen through most of our archives.
So naturally new subscribers want to know... what should I listen to first? What episodes will help...2021-04-1503 min
Franchise Findings by Vetted BizLearn From the Founder of Two 2,000+ Location FranchisesThrough this Podcast you will learn about:
1. Business lessons from the founder of multiple 2,000+ unit franchise systems including Jackson Hewitt and Liberty Tax (https://www.vettedbiz.com/listing/liberty-tax-service/)
2. Business opportunities in the service sector including tax preparation starting at just $50,000.
3. Franchise costs related to owning one of the more than 9 Loyalty Brands franchises including ATAX (https://www.vettedbiz.com/listing/atax/)
4. How Loyalty Brand franchises have adapted to the pandemic
#FranchiseF...2021-04-1543 min
Effective Altruism: An Introduction – 80,000 HoursNine: Benjamin Todd on the key ideas of 80,000 HoursThe 80,000 Hours Podcast is about “the world’s most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them”, and in this episode we tackle that question in the most direct way possible. In 2019 we published a summary of all our key ideas, which links to many of our other articles, and which we are aiming to keep updated as our opinions shift. All of us added something to it, but the single biggest contributor was our CEO and today's guest, Ben Todd, who founded 80,000 Hours along with Will MacAskill back in 2012. In thi...2021-04-122h 57
80,000 Hours PodcastRob Wiblin on self-improvement and research ethicsThis is a crosspost of an episode of the Clearer Thinking Podcast: 022: Self-Improvement and Research Ethics with Rob Wiblin.
Rob chats with Spencer Greenberg, who has been an audience favourite in episodes 11 and 39 of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, and has now created this show of his own.
Among other things they cover:
• Is trying to become a better person a good strategy for self-improvement
• Why Rob thinks many people could achieve much more by finding themselves a line manager
• Why interviews on this show are so damn l...2021-01-132h 30
80,000 Hours Podcast#73 - Phil Trammell on patient philanthropy and waiting to do good [re-release]Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in March 2020.
To do good, most of us look to use our time and money to affect the world around us today. But perhaps that's all wrong.
If you took $1,000 you were going to donate and instead put it in the stock market — where it grew on average 5% a year — in 100 years you'd have $125,000 to give away instead. And in 200 years you'd have $17 million.
This astonishing fact has driven today's guest, economics researcher Philip Trammell at Oxford's Global Priorities Institute, to investigate the case for and agai...2021-01-072h 41
80,000 Hours Podcast#75 – Michelle Hutchinson on what people most often ask 80,000 Hours [re-release]Rebroadcast: this episode was originally released in April 2020.
Since it was founded, 80,000 Hours has done one-on-one calls to supplement our online content and offer more personalised advice. We try to help people get clear on their most plausible paths, the key uncertainties they face in choosing between them, and provide resources, pointers, and introductions to help them in those paths.
I (Michelle Hutchinson) joined the team a couple of years ago after working at Oxford's Global Priorities Institute, and these days I'm 80,000 Hours' Head of Advising. Since then, chatting to hundreds of people about...2020-12-302h 14Minnesota RundownCOLEMAN VS. BUBBA | Dan Bailey, Paul Brothers, X-Mas + Gophers-Badgers & Fight Brewing? | 12-16-20On this episode of the Minnesota Rundown, the first episode in its new format, 10K's very own KP Coleman and Bubba debate each other on pressing issues surrounding Minnesota sports and beyond! Who will win this week's debate?NEW Minnesota Rundown FORMAT:Two contributors from 10,000 Takes will debate several topics every week and each be given two minutes to argue their point for a given question. Every question/topic will be considered a round, and whichever individual wins the most rounds, decided by the mediator, will be declared the winner of the episode!2020-12-1641 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#87 – Russ Roberts on whether it's more effective to help strangers, or people you knowIf you want to make the world a better place, would it be better to help your niece with her SATs, or try to join the State Department to lower the risk that the US and China go to war? People involved in 80,000 Hours or the effective altruism community would be comfortable recommending the latter. This week's guest — Russ Roberts, host of the long-running podcast EconTalk, and author of a forthcoming book on decision-making under uncertainty and the limited ability of data to help — worries that might be a mistake. Links to learn more, summary and fu...2020-11-031h 49
80,000 Hours PodcastIdeas for high impact careers beyond our priority paths (Article)Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles.
In this one, we go through some more career options beyond our priority paths that seem promising to us for positively influencing the long-term future.
Some of these are likely to be written up as priority paths in the future, or wrapped into existing ones, but we haven’t written full profiles for them yet—for example policy careers outside AI and biosecurity policy that seem promising from a longtermist perspective.
Others, like information security, we think might be as...2020-09-0727 min
80,000 Hours PodcastBenjamin Todd on varieties of longtermism and things 80,000 Hours might be getting wrong (80k team chat #2)Today’s bonus episode is a conversation between Arden Koehler, and our CEO, Ben Todd.
Ben’s been doing a bunch of research recently, and we thought it’d be interesting to hear about how he’s currently thinking about a couple of different topics – including different types of longtermism, and things 80,000 Hours might be getting wrong.
Links to learn more, summary and full transcript.
This is very off-the-cut compared to our regular episodes, and just 54 minutes long.
In the first half, Arden and Ben talk about varieties of longtermism:
• Pati...2020-09-0157 min
80,000 Hours PodcastGlobal issues beyond 80,000 Hours’ current priorities (Article)Today’s release is the latest in our series of audio versions of our articles.
In this one, we go through 30 global issues beyond the ones we usually prioritize most highly in our work, and that you might consider focusing your career on tackling.
Although we spend the majority of our time at 80,000 Hours on our highest priority problem areas, and we recommend working on them to many of our readers, these are just the most promising issues among those we’ve spent time investigating. There are many other global issues that we haven’t properly investigated, and wh...2020-08-2832 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#85 - Mark Lynas on climate change, societal collapse & nuclear energyA golf-ball sized lump of uranium can deliver more than enough power to cover all of your lifetime energy use. To get the same energy from coal, you’d need 3,200 tonnes of black rock — a mass equivalent to 800 adult elephants, which would produce more than 11,000 tonnes of CO2. That’s about 11,000 tonnes more than the uranium.
Many people aren’t comfortable with the danger posed by nuclear power. But given the climatic stakes, it’s worth asking: Just how much more dangerous is it compared to fossil fuels?
According to today’s guest, Mark Lynas — author of Six Degrees...2020-08-202h 08
80,000 Hours Podcast#81 - Ben Garfinkel on scrutinising classic AI risk arguments80,000 Hours, along with many other members of the effective altruism movement, has argued that helping to positively shape the development of artificial intelligence may be one of the best ways to have a lasting, positive impact on the long-term future. Millions of dollars in philanthropic spending, as well as lots of career changes, have been motivated by these arguments.
Today’s guest, Ben Garfinkel, Research Fellow at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, supports the continued expansion of AI safety as a field and believes working on AI is among the very best ways to have a posi...2020-07-092h 38
80,000 Hours Podcast#75 – Michelle Hutchinson on what people most often ask 80,000 HoursSince it was founded, 80,000 Hours has done one-on-one calls to supplement our online content and offer more personalised advice. We try to help people get clear on their most plausible paths, the key uncertainties they face in choosing between them, and provide resources, pointers, and introductions to help them in those paths. I (Michelle Hutchinson) joined the team a couple of years ago after working at Oxford's Global Priorities Institute, and these days I'm 80,000 Hours' Head of Advising. Since then, chatting to hundreds of people about their career plans has given me some idea of the kinds o...2020-04-282h 13
80,000 Hours Podcast#74 – Dr Greg Lewis on COVID-19 & catastrophic biological risksOur lives currently revolve around the global emergency of COVID-19; you’re probably reading this while confined to your house, as the death toll from the worst pandemic since 1918 continues to rise. The question of how to tackle COVID-19 has been foremost in the minds of many, including here at 80,000 Hours. Today's guest, Dr Gregory Lewis, acting head of the Biosecurity Research Group at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, puts the crisis in context, explaining how COVID-19 compares to other diseases, pandemics of the past, and possible worse crises in the future. COV...2020-04-172h 37
80,000 Hours PodcastArticle: Reducing global catastrophic biological risksIn a few days we'll be putting out a conversation with Dr Greg Lewis, who studies how to prevent global catastrophic biological risks at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute.
Greg also wrote a new problem profile on that topic for our website, and reading that is a good lead-in to our interview with him. So in a bit of an experiment we decided to make this audio version of that article, narrated by the producer of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, Keiran Harris.
We’re thinking about having audio versions of other important articles we wr...2020-04-161h 04
80,000 Hours Podcast#73 – Phil Trammell on patient philanthropy and waiting to do goodTo do good, most of us look to use our time and money to affect the world around us today. But perhaps that's all wrong. If you took $1,000 you were going to donate and instead put it in the stock market — where it grew on average 5% a year — in 100 years you'd have $125,000 to give away instead. And in 200 years you'd have $17 million. This astonishing fact has driven today's guest, economics researcher Philip Trammell at Oxford's Global Priorities Institute, to investigate the case for and against so-called 'patient philanthropy' in depth. If the case for patient phil...2020-03-172h 35
80,000 Hours Podcast#72 - Toby Ord on the precipice and humanity's potential futuresThis week Oxford academic and 80,000 Hours trustee Dr Toby Ord released his new book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. It's about how our long-term future could be better than almost anyone believes, but also how humanity's recklessness is putting that future at grave risk — in Toby's reckoning, a 1 in 6 chance of being extinguished this century.
I loved the book and learned a great deal from it (buy it here, US and audiobook release March 24). While preparing for this interview I copied out 87 facts that were surprising, shocking or important. Here's a sample of 16: ...2020-03-073h 14
80,000 Hours Podcast#71 - Benjamin Todd on the key ideas of 80,000 HoursThe 80,000 Hours Podcast is about “the world’s most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them”, and in this episode we tackle that question in the most direct way possible.
Last year we published a summary of all our key ideas, which links to many of our other articles, and which we are aiming to keep updated as our opinions shift.
All of us added something to it, but the single biggest contributor was our CEO and today's guest, Ben Todd, who founded 80,000 Hours along with Will MacAskill back in 2012.
...2020-03-032h 57
80,000 Hours PodcastRob & Howie on what we do and don't know about 2019-nCoVTwo 80,000 Hours researchers, Robert Wiblin and Howie Lempel, record an experimental bonus episode about the new 2019-nCoV virus.See this list of resources, including many discussed in the episode, to learn more.In the 1h15m conversation we cover:• What is it? • How many people have it? • How contagious is it? • What fraction of people who contract it die?• How likely is it to spread out of control?• What's the range of plausible fatalities worldwide?• How does it compare to other epidemics?• What don't we know and why? • What a...2020-02-031h 18
80,000 Hours Podcast#33 Classic episode - Anders Sandberg on cryonics, solar flares, and the annual odds of nuclear warRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in May 2018.
Joseph Stalin had a life-extension program dedicated to making himself immortal. What if he had succeeded?
According to Bryan Caplan in episode #32, there’s an 80% chance that Stalin would still be ruling Russia today. Today’s guest disagrees.
Like Stalin he has eyes for his own immortality - including an insurance plan that will cover the cost of cryogenically freezing himself after he dies - and thinks the technology to achieve it might be around the corner.
Fortunately for humanity though, that guest is pro...2020-01-081h 25
80,000 Hours Podcast#17 Classic episode - Will MacAskill on moral uncertainty, utilitarianism & how to avoid being a moral monsterRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in January 2018. Immanuel Kant is a profoundly influential figure in modern philosophy, and was one of the earliest proponents for universal democracy and international cooperation. He also thought that women have no place in civil society, that it was okay to kill illegitimate children, and that there was a ranking in the moral worth of different races. Throughout history we’ve consistently believed, as common sense, truly horrifying things by today’s standards. According to University of Oxford Professor Will MacAskill, it’s extremely likely that we’re in the same...2019-12-311h 52
80,000 Hours Podcast#46 Classic episode - Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness & tackling crucial questions in academiaRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in October 2018.
The barista gives you your coffee and change, and you walk away from the busy line. But you suddenly realise she gave you $1 less than she should have. Do you brush your way past the people now waiting, or just accept this as a dollar you’re never getting back? According to philosophy Professor Hilary Greaves - Director of Oxford University's Global Priorities Institute, which is hiring - this simple decision will completely change the long-term future by altering the identities of almost all future generations. 2019-12-2300 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#66 – Peter Singer on being provocative, effective altruism, & how his moral views have changedIn 1989, the professor of moral philosophy Peter Singer was all over the news for his inflammatory opinions about abortion. But the controversy stemmed from Practical Ethics — a book he’d actually released way back in 1979. It took a German translation ten years on for protests to kick off. According to Singer, he honestly didn’t expect this view to be as provocative as it became, and he certainly wasn’t aiming to stir up trouble and get attention. But after the protests and the increasing coverage of his work in German media, the previously flat sales of...2019-12-052h 01
80,000 Hours PodcastRob Wiblin on plastic straws, nicotine, doping, & whether changing the long-term is really possibleToday's episode is a compilation of interviews I recently recorded for two other shows, Love Your Work and The Neoliberal Podcast.
If you've listened to absolutely everything on this podcast feed, you'll have heard four interviews with me already, but fortunately I don't think these two include much repetition, and I've gotten a decent amount of positive feedback on both.
First up, I speak with David Kadavy on his show, Love Your Work.
This is a particularly personal and relaxed interview. We talk about all sorts of things, including nicotine gum, plastic straw bans...2019-09-263h 14
80,000 Hours PodcastHave we helped you have a bigger social impact? Our annual survey, plus other ways we can help you.1. Fill out our annual impact survey here. 2. Find a great vacancy on our job board. 3. Learn about our key ideas, and get links to our top articles. 4. Join our newsletter for an email about what's new, every 2 weeks or so. 5. Or follow our pages on Facebook and Twitter. —— Once a year 80,000 Hours runs a survey to find out whether we've helped our users have a larger social impact with their life and career. We and our donors ne...2019-09-1603 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#63 – Vitalik Buterin on better ways to fund public goods, blockchain's failures, & effective givingHistorically, progress in the field of cryptography has had major consequences. It has changed the course of major wars, made it possible to do business on the internet, and enabled private communication between both law-abiding citizens and dangerous criminals. Could it have similarly significant consequences in future? Today's guest — Vitalik Buterin — is world-famous as the lead developer of Ethereum, a successor to the cryptographic-currency Bitcoin, which added the capacity for smart contracts and decentralised organisations. Buterin first proposed Ethereum at the age of 20, and by the age of 23 its success had likely made him a billionaire. A...2019-09-043h 18
80,000 Hours Podcast#62 – Paul Christiano on messaging the future, increasing compute, & how CO2 impacts your brainImagine that – one day – humanity dies out. At some point, many millions of years later, intelligent life might well evolve again. Is there any message we could leave that would reliably help them out? In his second appearance on the 80,000 Hours Podcast, machine learning researcher and polymath Paul Christiano suggests we try to answer this question with a related thought experiment: are there any messages we might want to send back to our ancestors in the year 1700 that would have made history likely to go in a better direction than it did? It seems there probably are....2019-08-052h 11
80,000 Hours Podcast#61 - Helen Toner on emerging technology, national security, and ChinaFrom 1870 to 1950, the introduction of electricity transformed life in the US and UK, as people gained access to lighting, radio and a wide range of household appliances for the first time. Electricity turned out to be a general purpose technology that could help with almost everything people did.
Some think this is the best historical analogy we have for how machine learning could alter life in the 21st century.
In addition to massively changing everyday life, past general purpose technologies have also changed the nature of war. For example, when electricity was introduced to the...2019-07-171h 54
80,000 Hours Podcast#60 - Phil Tetlock on why accurate forecasting matters for everything, and how you can do it betterHave you ever been infuriated by a doctor's unwillingness to give you an honest, probabilistic estimate about what to expect? Or a lawyer who won't tell you the chances you'll win your case? Their behaviour is so frustrating because accurately predicting the future is central to every action we take. If we can't assess the likelihood of different outcomes we're in a complete bind, whether the decision concerns war and peace, work and study, or Black Mirror and RuPaul's Drag Race. Which is why the research of Professor Philip Tetlock is relevant for all of us...2019-06-282h 11
80,000 Hours Podcast#59 – Cass Sunstein on how change happens, and why it's so often abrupt & unpredictableIt can often feel hopeless to be an activist seeking social change on an obscure issue where most people seem opposed or at best indifferent to you. But according to a new book by Professor Cass Sunstein, they shouldn't despair. Large social changes are often abrupt and unexpected, arising in an environment of seeming public opposition.The Communist Revolution in Russia spread so swiftly it confounded even Lenin. Seventy years later the Soviet Union collapsed just as quickly and unpredictably.In the modern era we have gay marriage, #metoo and the Arab Spring, as well...2019-06-181h 43
80,000 Hours PodcastRob Wiblin on human nature, new technology, and living a happy, healthy & ethical lifeThis is a cross-post of some interviews Rob did recently on two other podcasts — Mission Daily (from 2m) and The Good Life (from 1h13m).
Some of the content will be familiar to regular listeners — but if you’re at all interested in Rob’s personal thoughts, there should be quite a lot of new material to make listening worthwhile.
The first interview is with Chad Grills. They focused largely on new technologies and existential risks, but also discuss topics like:
• Why Rob is wary of fiction
• Egalitarianism in the evolution of hunter gatherers
• How to s...2019-05-142h 18
80,000 Hours Podcast#57 – Tom Kalil on how to do the most good in governmentYou’re 29 years old, and you’ve just been given a job in the White House. How do you quickly figure out how the US Executive Branch behemoth actually works, so that you can have as much impact as possible - before you quit or get kicked out?That was the challenge put in front of Tom Kalil in 1993.He had enough success to last a full 16 years inside the Clinton and Obama administrations, working to foster the development of the internet, then nanotechnology, and then cutting-edge brain modelling, among other things.But not...2019-04-232h 50
80,000 Hours Podcast#56 - Persis Eskander on wild animal welfare and what, if anything, to do about itElephants in chains at travelling circuses; pregnant pigs trapped in coffin sized crates at factory farms; deers living in the wild. We should welcome the last as a pleasant break from the horror, right?
Maybe, but maybe not. While we tend to have a romanticised view of nature, life in the wild includes a range of extremely negative experiences.
Many animals are hunted by predators, and constantly have to remain vigilant about the risk of being killed, and perhaps experiencing the horror of being eaten alive. Resource competition often leads to chronic hunger or starvation. Their diseases...2019-04-152h 57
80,000 Hours Podcast#55 – Lutter & Winter on founding charter cities with outstanding governance to end povertyGovernance matters. Policy change quickly took China from famine to fortune; Singapore from swamps to skyscrapers; and Hong Kong from fishing village to financial centre. Unfortunately, many governments are hard to reform and — to put it mildly — it's not easy to found a new country. This has prompted poverty-fighters and political dreamers to look for creative ways to get new and better 'pseudo-countries' off the ground. The poor could then voluntary migrate to in search of security and prosperity. And innovators would be free to experiment with new political and legal systems without having to impose their ideas...2019-03-312h 31
80,000 Hours Podcast#54 – OpenAI on publication norms, malicious uses of AI, and general-purpose learning algorithmsOpenAI’s Dactyl is an AI system that can manipulate objects with a human-like robot hand. OpenAI Five is an AI system that can defeat humans at the video game Dota 2. The strange thing is they were both developed using the same general-purpose reinforcement learning algorithm. How is this possible and what does it show? In today's interview Jack Clark, Policy Director at OpenAI, explains that from a computational perspective using a hand and playing Dota 2 are remarkably similar problems. A robot hand needs to hold an object, move its fingers, and rotate it...2019-03-192h 53
80,000 Hours Podcast#53 - Kelsey Piper on the room for important advocacy within journalism“Politics. Business. Opinion. Science. Sports. Animal welfare. Existential risk.” Is this a plausible future lineup for major news outlets?
Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and given very little editorial direction, Vox's Future Perfect aspires to be more or less that.
Competition in the news business creates pressure to write quick pieces on topical political issues that can drive lots of clicks with just a few hours' work.
But according to Kelsey Piper, staff writer for this new section of Vox's website focused on effective altruist themes, Future Perfect's goal is to run in the opposite direct...2019-02-272h 34
80,000 Hours PodcastJulia Galef and Rob Wiblin on an updated view of the best ways to help humanityThis is a cross-post of an interview Rob did with Julia Galef on her podcast Rationally Speaking. Rob and Julia discuss how the career advice 80,000 Hours gives has changed over the years, and the biggest misconceptions about our views.
The topics will be familiar to the most fervent fans of this show — but we think that if you’ve listened to less than about half of the episodes we've released so far, you’ll find something new to enjoy here. Julia may be familiar to you as the guest on episode 7 of the show, way back in...2019-02-1756 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#52 - Glen Weyl on uprooting capitalism and democracy for a just societyPro-market economists love to wax rhapsodic about the capacity of markets to pull together the valuable local information spread across all of society about what people want and how to make it. But when it comes to politics and voting - which also aim to aggregate the preferences and knowledge found in millions of individuals - the enthusiasm for finding clever institutional designs often turns to skepticism. Today's guest, freewheeling economist Glen Weyl, won't have it, and is on a warpath to reform liberal democratic institutions in order to save them. Just last year he wr...2019-02-082h 44
80,000 Hours Podcast#10 Classic episode - Dr Nick Beckstead on spending billions of dollars preventing human extinctionRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in October 2017.
What if you were in a position to give away billions of dollars to improve the world? What would you do with it? This is the problem facing Program Officers at the Open Philanthropy Project - people like Dr Nick Beckstead.
Following a PhD in philosophy, Nick works to figure out where money can do the most good. He’s been involved in major grants in a wide range of areas, including ending factory farming through technological innovation, safeguarding the world from advances in biotechnology and ar...2019-02-0200 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#51 - Martin Gurri on the revolt of the public & crisis of authority in the information agePolitics in rich countries seems to be going nuts. What's the explanation? Rising inequality? The decline of manufacturing jobs? Excessive immigration?
Martin Gurri spent decades as a CIA analyst and in his 2014 book The Revolt of The Public and Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium, predicted political turbulence for an entirely different reason: new communication technologies were flipping the balance of power between the public and traditional authorities.
In 1959 the President could control the narrative by leaning on his friends at four TV stations, who felt it was proper to present the nation's leader in a...2019-01-292h 31
80,000 Hours Podcast#8 Classic episode - Lewis Bollard on how to end factory farming in our lifetimesRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in September 2017.
Every year tens of billions of animals are raised in terrible conditions in factory farms before being killed for human consumption. Over the last two years Lewis Bollard – Project Officer for Farm Animal Welfare at the Open Philanthropy Project – has conducted extensive research into the best ways to eliminate animal suffering in farms as soon as possible. This has resulted in $30 million in grants to farm animal advocacy.
Links to learn more, episode summary & full transcript
Jobs focussed on ending factory farming2019-01-1600 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#9 Classic episode - Christine Peterson on the '80s futurist movement & its lessons for todayRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in October 2017.
Take a trip to Silicon Valley in the 70s and 80s, when going to space sounded like a good way to get around environmental limits, people started cryogenically freezing themselves, and nanotechnology looked like it might revolutionise industry – or turn us all into grey goo.
In this episode of the 80,000 Hours Podcast, Christine Peterson takes us back to her youth in the Bay Area, the ideas she encountered there, and what the dreamers she met did as they grew up.
Links to learn mo...2019-01-0700 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#50 - David Denkenberger on how to feed all 8b people through an asteroid/nuclear winterIf an asteroid impact or nuclear winter blocked the sun for years, our inability to grow food would result in billions dying of starvation, right? According to Dr David Denkenberger, co-author of Feeding Everyone No Matter What: no. If he's to be believed, nobody need starve at all. Even without the sun, David sees the Earth as a bountiful food source. Mushrooms farmed on decaying wood. Bacteria fed with natural gas. Fish and mussels supported by sudden upwelling of ocean nutrients - and more. Dr Denkenberger is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska...2018-12-272h 57
80,000 Hours Podcast#49 - Rachel Glennerster on a year's worth of education for 30c & other development 'best buys'If I told you it's possible to deliver an extra year of ideal primary-level education for under $1, would you believe me? Hopefully not - the claim is absurd on its face. But it may be true nonetheless. The very best education interventions are phenomenally cost-effective, and they're not the kinds of things you'd expect, says Dr Rachel Glennerster. She's Chief Economist at the UK's foreign aid agency DFID, and used to run J-PAL, the world-famous anti-poverty research centre based in MIT's Economics Department, where she studied the impact of a wide range of approaches to im...2018-12-201h 35
80,000 Hours Podcast#6 Classic episode - Dr Toby Ord on why the long-term future matters more than anything elseRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in September 2017.
Of all the people whose well-being we should care about, only a small fraction are alive today. The rest are members of future generations who are yet to exist. Whether they’ll be born into a world that is flourishing or disintegrating – and indeed, whether they will ever be born at all – is in large part up to us. As such, the welfare of future generations should be our number one moral concern.
This conclusion holds true regardless of whether your moral framework is based on common...2018-12-1400 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#15 Classic episode - Prof Tetlock on chimps beating Berkeley undergrads & when to defer to the wiseRebroadcast: this episode was originally released in November 2017.
Prof Philip Tetlock is a social science legend. Over forty years he has researched whose predictions we can trust, whose we can’t and why - and developed methods that allow all of us to be better at predicting the future.
After the Iraq WMDs fiasco, the US intelligence services hired him to figure out how to ensure they’d never screw up that badly again. The result of that work – Superforecasting – was a media sensation in 2015.
Links to learn more, summary and full tra...2018-12-0700 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#48 - Brian Christian on better living through the wisdom of computer sciencePlease let us know if we've helped you: Fill out our annual impact survey
Ever felt that you were so busy you spent all your time paralysed trying to figure out where to start, and couldn't get much done? Computer scientists have a term for this - thrashing - and it's a common reason our computers freeze up. The solution, for people as well as laptops, is to 'work dumber': pick something at random and finish it, without wasting time thinking about the bigger picture.
Bestselling author Brian Christian studied computer science, and in the...2018-11-223h 15
80,000 Hours Podcast#47 - Catherine Olsson & Daniel Ziegler on the fast path into high-impact ML engineering rolesAfter dropping out of a machine learning PhD at Stanford, Daniel Ziegler needed to decide what to do next. He’d always enjoyed building stuff and wanted to shape the development of AI, so he thought a research engineering position at an org dedicated to aligning AI with human interests could be his best option.
He decided to apply to OpenAI, and spent about 6 weeks preparing for the interview before landing the job. His PhD, by contrast, might have taken 6 years. Daniel thinks this highly accelerated career path may be possible for many others.
On today’s epis...2018-11-022h 04
80,000 Hours Podcast#46 - Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness & tackling crucial questions in academiaThe barista gives you your coffee and change, and you walk away from the busy line. But you suddenly realise she gave you $1 less than she should have. Do you brush your way past the people now waiting, or just accept this as a dollar you’re never getting back? According to philosophy Professor Hilary Greaves - Director of Oxford University's Global Priorities Institute, which is hiring - this simple decision will completely change the long-term future by altering the identities of almost all future generations. How? Because by rushing back to the counter, you slightly change th...2018-10-232h 49
80,000 Hours Podcast#45 - Tyler Cowen's case for maximising econ growth, stabilising civilization & thinking long-termI've probably spent more time reading Tyler Cowen - Professor of Economics at George Mason University - than any other author. Indeed it's his incredibly popular blog Marginal Revolution that prompted me to study economics in the first place. Having spent thousands of hours absorbing Tyler's work, it was a pleasure to be able to question him about his latest book and personal manifesto: Stubborn Attachments: A Vision for a Society of Free, Prosperous, and Responsible Individuals.
Tyler makes the case that, despite what you may have heard, we *can* make rational judgments about what is best for society...2018-10-172h 30
80,000 Hours Podcast#44 - Paul Christiano on how we'll hand the future off to AI, & solving the alignment problemPaul Christiano is one of the smartest people I know. After our first session produced such great material, we decided to do a second recording, resulting in our longest interview so far. While challenging at times I can strongly recommend listening - Paul works on AI himself and has a very unusually thought through view of how it will change the world. This is now the top resource I'm going to refer people to if they're interested in positively shaping the development of AI, and want to understand the problem better. Even though I'm familiar with Paul's writing I...2018-10-023h 51
80,000 Hours Podcast#43 - Daniel Ellsberg on the institutional insanity that maintains nuclear doomsday machinesIn Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film Dr. Strangelove, the American president is informed that the Soviet Union has created a secret deterrence system which will automatically wipe out humanity upon detection of a single nuclear explosion in Russia. With US bombs heading towards the USSR and unable to be recalled, Dr Strangelove points out that “the whole point of this Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret – why didn’t you tell the world, eh?” The Soviet ambassador replies that it was to be announced at the Party Congress the following Monday: “The Premier loves surprises”.
Daniel Ellsber...2018-09-252h 44
80,000 Hours Podcast#42 - Amanda Askell on moral empathy, the value of information & the ethics of infinityConsider two familiar moments at a family reunion. Our host, Uncle Bill, takes pride in his barbecuing skills. But his niece Becky says that she now refuses to eat meat. A groan goes round the table; the family mostly think of this as an annoying picky preference. But if seriously considered as a moral position, as they might if instead Becky were avoiding meat on religious grounds, it would usually receive a very different reaction. An hour later Bill expresses a strong objection to abortion. Again, a groan goes round the table; the family mostly th...2018-09-112h 46
80,000 Hours Podcast#41 - David Roodman on incarceration, geomagnetic storms, & becoming a world-class researcherWith 698 inmates per 100,000 citizens, the U.S. is by far the leader among large wealthy nations in incarceration. But what effect does imprisonment actually have on crime?
According to David Roodman, Senior Advisor to the Open Philanthropy Project, the marginal effect is zero.
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This stunning rebuke to the American criminal justice system comes from the man Holden Karnofsky’s called "the gold standard for in-depth quantitative research", whose other investigations include th...2018-08-282h 18
80,000 Hours Podcast#40 - Katja Grace on forecasting future technology & how much we should trust expert predictionsExperts believe that artificial intelligence will be better than humans at driving trucks by 2027, working in retail by 2031, writing bestselling books by 2049, and working as surgeons by 2053. But how seriously should we take these predictions?
Katja Grace, lead author of ‘When Will AI Exceed Human Performance?’, thinks we should treat such guesses as only weak evidence. But she also says there might be much better ways to forecast transformative technology, and that anticipating such advances could be one of our most important projects.
Note: Katja's organisation AI Impacts is currently hiring part- and full-time researchers.2018-08-212h 11
80,000 Hours Podcast#39 - Spencer Greenberg on the scientific approach to solving difficult everyday questionsWill Trump be re-elected? Will North Korea give up their nuclear weapons? Will your friend turn up to dinner?
Spencer Greenberg, founder of ClearerThinking.org has a process for working out such real life problems.
Let’s work through one here: how likely is it that you’ll enjoy listening to this episode?
The first step is to figure out your ‘prior probability’; what’s your estimate of how likely you are to enjoy the interview before getting any further evidence?
Other than applying common sense, one way to figure this out is called...2018-08-072h 17
80,000 Hours Podcast#38 - Yew-Kwang Ng on anticipating effective altruism decades ago & how to make a much happier worldWill people who think carefully about how to maximize welfare eventually converge on the same views? The effective altruism community has spent a lot of time over the past 10 years debating how best to increase happiness and reduce suffering, and gradually narrowed in on the world’s poorest people, all animals capable of suffering, and future generations. Yew-Kwang Ng, Professor of Economics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, was independently working on this exact question since the 70s. Many of his conclusions have ended up foreshadowing what is now conventional wisdom within effective altruism - thou...2018-07-261h 59
80,000 Hours Podcast#37 - GiveWell picks top charities by estimating the unknowable. James Snowden on how they do it.What’s the value of preventing the death of a 5-year-old child, compared to a 20-year-old, or an 80-year-old?
The global health community has generally regarded the value as proportional to the number of health-adjusted life-years the person has remaining - but GiveWell, one of the world’s foremost charity evaluators, no longer uses that approach.
They found that contrary to the years-remaining’ method, many of their staff actually value preventing the death of an adult more than preventing the death of a young child. However there’s plenty of disagreement: the team’s estimates of the relative v...2018-07-161h 44
80,000 Hours Podcast#36 - Tanya Singh on ending the operations management bottleneck in effective altruismAlmost nobody is able to do groundbreaking physics research themselves, and by the time his brilliance was appreciated, Einstein was hardly limited by funding. But what if you could find a way to unlock the secrets of the universe like Einstein nonetheless?
Today’s guest, Tanya Singh, sees herself as doing something like that every day. She’s Executive Assistant to one of her intellectual heroes who she believes is making a huge contribution to improving the world: Professor Bostrom at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute (FHI).
She couldn’t get more work out of Bostrom with e...2018-07-112h 04
80,000 Hours Podcast#35 - Tara Mac Aulay on the audacity to fix the world without asking permission"You don't need permission. You don't need to be allowed to do something that's not in your job description. If you think that it's gonna make your company or your organization more successful and more efficient, you can often just go and do it."
How broken is the world? How inefficient is a typical organisation? Looking at Tara Mac Aulay’s life, the answer seems to be ‘very’.
At 15 she took her first job - an entry-level position at a chain restaurant. Rather than accept her place, Tara took it on herself to massively improve the store’s shambo...2018-06-221h 22
80,000 Hours PodcastRob Wiblin on the art/science of a high impact careerToday's episode is a cross-post of an interview I did with The Jolly Swagmen Podcast which came out this week. I recommend regular listeners skip to 24 minutes in to avoid hearing things they already know. Later in the episode I talk about my contrarian views, utilitarianism, how 80,000 Hours has changed and will change in the future, where I think EA is performing worst, how to use social media most effectively, and whether or not effective altruism is any sacrifice.
Subscribe and get the episode by searching for '80,000 Hours' in your podcasting app.
Blog post of the...2018-06-081h 31
80,000 Hours Podcast#34 - We use the worst voting system that exists. Here's how Aaron Hamlin is going to fix it.In 1991 Edwin Edwards won the Louisiana gubernatorial election. In 2001, he was found guilty of racketeering and received a 10 year invitation to Federal prison. The strange thing about that election? By 1991 Edwards was already notorious for his corruption. Actually, that’s not it.
The truly strange thing is that Edwards was clearly the good guy in the race. How is that possible?
His opponent was former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.
How could Louisiana end up having to choose between a criminal and a Nazi sympathiser?
It’s not like they lacked othe...2018-06-012h 18
80,000 Hours Podcast#33 - Anders Sandberg on what if we ended ageing, solar flares & the annual risk of nuclear warJoseph Stalin had a life-extension program dedicated to making himself immortal. What if he had succeeded? According to our last guest, Bryan Caplan, there’s an 80% chance that Stalin would still be ruling Russia today. Today’s guest disagrees. Like Stalin he has eyes for his own immortality - including an insurance plan that will cover the cost of cryogenically freezing himself after he dies - and thinks the technology to achieve it might be around the corner. Fortunately for humanity though, that guest is probably one of the nicest people on the plane...2018-05-291h 24
80,000 Hours Podcast#32 - Bryan Caplan on whether his Case Against Education holds up, totalitarianism, & open bordersBryan Caplan’s claim in *The Case Against Education* is striking: education doesn’t teach people much, we use little of what we learn, and college is mostly about trying to seem smarter than other people - so the government should slash education funding.
It’s a dismaying - almost profane - idea, and one people are inclined to dismiss out of hand. But having read the book, I have to admit that Bryan can point to a surprising amount of evidence in his favour.
After all, imagine this dilemma: you can have either a Princeton education withou...2018-05-222h 25
80,000 Hours Podcast#31 - Allan Dafoe on defusing the political & economic risks posed by existing AI capabilitiesThe debate around the impacts of artificial intelligence often centres on ‘superintelligence’ - a general intellect that is much smarter than the best humans, in practically every field. But according to Allan Dafoe - Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University - even if we stopped at today's AI technology and simply collected more data, built more sensors, and added more computing capacity, extreme systemic risks could emerge, including: * Mass labor displacement, unemployment, and inequality; * The rise of a more oligopolistic global market structure, potentially moving us away from our liberal economic world order;2018-05-1848 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#30 - Eva Vivalt on how little social science findings generalize from one study to anotherIf we have a study on the impact of a social program in a particular place and time, how confident can we be that we’ll get a similar result if we study the same program again somewhere else? Dr Eva Vivalt is a lecturer in the Research School of Economics at the Australian National University. She compiled a huge database of impact evaluations in global development - including 15,024 estimates from 635 papers across 20 types of intervention - to help answer this question. Her finding: not confident at all. The typical study result differs from...2018-05-152h 01
80,000 Hours Podcast#29 - Anders Sandberg on 3 new resolutions for the Fermi paradox & how to colonise the universePart 2 out now: #33 - Dr Anders Sandberg on what if we ended ageing, solar flares & the annual risk of nuclear war The universe is so vast, yet we don’t see any alien civilizations. If they exist, where are they? Oxford University’s Anders Sandberg has an original answer: they’re ‘sleeping’, and for a very compelling reason. Because of the thermodynamics of computation, the colder it gets, the more computations you can do. The universe is getting exponentially colder as it expands, and as the universe cools, one Joule of energy gets worth more and more...2018-05-081h 21
80,000 Hours Podcast#28 - Owen Cotton-Barratt on why scientists should need insurance, PhD strategy & fast AI progressesA researcher is working on creating a new virus – one more dangerous than any that exist naturally. They believe they’re being as careful as possible. After all, if things go wrong, their own life and that of their colleagues will be in danger. But if an accident is capable of triggering a global pandemic – hundreds of millions of lives might be at risk. How much additional care will the researcher actually take in the face of such a staggering death toll? In a new paper Dr Owen Cotton-Barratt, a Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Future of Humani...2018-04-281h 03
80,000 Hours Podcast#27 - Dr Tom Inglesby on careers and policies that reduce global catastrophic biological risksHow about this for a movie idea: a main character has to prevent a new contagious strain of Ebola spreading around the world. She’s the best of the best. So good in fact, that her work on early detection systems contains the strain at its source. Ten minutes into the movie, we see the results of her work – nothing happens. Life goes on as usual. She continues to be amazingly competent, and nothing continues to go wrong. Fade to black. Roll credits.
If your job is to prevent catastrophes, success is when nobody has to pay attention to you...2018-04-182h 16
80,000 Hours Podcast#26 - Marie Gibbons on how exactly clean meat is made & what's needed to get it in every supermarketFirst, decide on the type of animal. Next, pick the cell type. Then take a small, painless biopsy, and put the cells in a solution that makes them feel like they’re still in the body. Once the cells are in this comfortable state, they'll proliferate. One cell becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes eight, and so on. Continue until you have enough cells to make a burger, a nugget, a sausage, or a piece of bacon, then concentrate them until they bind into solid meat.
It's all surprisingly straightforward in principle according to Marie Gibbons, a research fell...2018-04-101h 44
80,000 Hours Podcast#24 - Stefan Schubert on why it’s a bad idea to break the rules, even if it’s for a good causeHow honest should we be? How helpful? How friendly? If our society claims to value honesty, for instance, but in reality accepts an awful lot of lying – should we go along with those lax standards? Or, should we attempt to set a new norm for ourselves?
Dr Stefan Schubert, a researcher at the Social Behaviour and Ethics Lab at Oxford University, has been modelling this in the context of the effective altruism community. He thinks people trying to improve the world should hold themselves to very high standards of integrity, because their minor sins can impose major costs on th...2018-03-2055 min
80,000 Hours Podcast#19 - Samantha Pitts-Kiefer on working next to the White House trying to prevent nuclear warRogue elements within a state’s security forces enrich dozens of kilograms of uranium. It’s then assembled into a crude nuclear bomb. The bomb is transported on a civilian aircraft to Washington D.C, and loaded onto a delivery truck. The truck is driven by an American citizen midway between the White House and the Capitol Building. The driver casually steps out of the vehicle, and detonates the weapon. There are more than 80,000 instant deaths. There are also at least 100,000 seriously wounded, with nowhere left to treat them.
Full blog post about this episode, including a transcript, summ...2018-02-141h 04
80,000 Hours Podcast#6 - Toby Ord on why the long-term future matters more than anything else & what to do about itOf all the people whose well-being we should care about, only a small fraction are alive today. The rest are members of future generations who are yet to exist. Whether they’ll be born into a world that is flourishing or disintegrating – and indeed, whether they will ever be born at all – is in large part up to us. As such, the welfare of future generations should be our number one moral concern. This conclusion holds true regardless of whether your moral framework is based on common sense, consequences, rules of ethical conduct, cooperating with others, virtuousness, keeping...2017-09-062h 08
80,000 Hours Podcast#0 – Introducing the 80,000 Hours Podcast80,000 Hours is a non-profit that provides research and other support to help people switch into careers that effectively tackle the world's most pressing problems. This podcast is just one of many things we offer, the others of which you can find at 80000hours.org.
Since 2017 this show has been putting out interviews about the world's most pressing problems and how to solve them — which some people enjoy because they love to learn about important things, and others are using to figure out what they want to do with their careers or with their charitable giving.
If...2017-05-0103 min