Why tech bros are trying to give away all their money (kind of)

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do you do the most good in the world? Money and data! That's according to this new wave of philanthropy known as effective altruism, heralded by the likes of Sam Bankman-Fried. Today on the show we uncover the art and science of effective altruism.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:12.0	Whalen, why did you get into journalism?
0:15.0	Well Mary, I guess I like to help people understand the world around them.
0:20.0	I love that.
0:21.0	But how do you know that you're helping people?
0:24.0	Well every once in a while I do get a nice email.
0:27.0	Oh, so how many people would you estimate you're helping?
0:29.0	Judging by the number of emails, not that many.
0:33.0	Okay, okay. I'm just trying to figure out if you calculated a range for how much you're helping.
0:38.0	Like per episode and per listener in terms of units of happiness and or satisfaction.
0:42.0	You know what's not helping Mary is all these questions because now I'm just getting really anxious and stressed out.
0:47.0	I know right. I'm so sorry.
0:49.0	But there is a relatively small but busy philanthropic movement that has opted into this stress.
0:56.0	It's called effective altruism.
0:59.0	It's basically a philosophical lens that uses the language of economics with a goal of maximizing everyone's overall well-being.
1:07.0	Yes, effective altruism.
1:09.0	I know that Sam Bankman freed lately of FTX is a big proponent of this movement.
1:14.0	Yes, that's correct. It is big among tech and crypto people.
1:17.0	SBF even used it as a justification for why he went into crypto.
1:22.0	And why crypto is good.
1:24.0	The industry has the potential to improve a lot of people's lives.
1:29.0	That's him testifying before Congress before the collapse of his exchange FTX.
	...

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