Will MacAskill of Effective Altruism Fame — The Value of Longtermism, AI, and How to Save the World

Please enjoy!

00:00 Start
00:01:46 Recommended reading.
00:08:00 How Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment changed Will’s life.
00:12:33 Maintaining optimism in the age of doomscrolling.
00:18:41 What is effective altruism?
00:21:22 Resources for maximizing the impact of your philanthropy.
00:23:13 How adopting a check-in system has most improved Will’s life.
00:26:43 Caffeine limits.
00:28:08 Effective back pain relief.
00:35:49 What is longtermism, and why did Will write What We Owe the Future?
00:38:21 Future generations matter.
00:41:30 Finding the line between apathy and fatalism that spurs action toward ensuring there’s a future.
00:47:22 What Will hopes readers take away from What We Owe the Future.
00:51:08 What is value lock-in?
00:57:13 Most concerning threats projected over the next 10 years.
01:05:41 Most promising developments happening now.
01:10:09 How Will refocuses during periods of overwhelm.
01:15:02 Perils of AI considered plausible by the people who create it.
01:27:24 Longtermist-minded resources and actions we can take now.
01:33:22 Parting thoughts.

About Tim Ferriss:
Tim Ferriss is one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” and an early-stage tech investor/advisor in Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ other companies. He is also the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers: The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef, Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors. The Observer and other media have named him “the Oprah of audio” due to the influence of his podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show, which has exceeded 700 million downloads and been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three years running.

Connect with Tim Ferriss:

[Scott_Raynor]

Podcasts and websites recommended at 1:32:08 -
-In Our Time by Melvyn Bragg
-80, 000 hours
-Hear This Idea
-Irrationaly Speaking by Julia Galef
-Our World in Data

[danerose]

I was just asking my assistant to help me find media on effective giving - now this comes along! Thanks.

[aliciayoungshinkim]

34:12: Suggestion for chronic back pain

[samtallen]

8:45 "You can just tackle the big ideas directly, you don't need to go via fiction."

Fair enough, but I appreciate fictional packaging. I feel that philosophy is best internalized via poetry

[aceconstantine]

Well here I was re-listening to the last time you two spoke before reading the book. Wish I knew this new gem was about to land

[paraworth]

Very cool interview Tim. Loved the lower back stuff from Will.
I’ve also come up with my own routine to overcome hip and lower back pain that’s plagued me for 7 years. I just turned 60 and I’m getting stronger by the day. I tried the inversion boots.but it didn’t work longterm-ish. The Horse stance. I’ve built up over 6 months to a hold of 3min 16 seconds . I do this everyday and increase by 1 second every alternate day. It’s the first scary thing I do each day to get me into the swing of things. It’s helped me so much I feel I’m the cure for my own body.
I teach people to fly paragliders. My life’s dream was to be a bird. So here I perch. ‘ Could I justify my life now to my 15-year-old self’ I’d like to think I am. You’d have to ask my friends and family
Below is a quote I picked up from a book I read while on adventure as a 24 year old. Silence will Speak by Errol Trzebinski
‘Memories are the garden of Eden of our minds from which we reap solace in old age’ When I read Will’s quote my mind went straight to this quote

[amgauctionsmusicgearandm]

Tim is the cutting edge of truth and who humans really are.

[kimberlybotkin]

“Oh my god I have Shrek on the podcast” 😂😂 I’ve listened and re-listened to the trigger action plan part like 39 times LOL

[saltwatergallery]

Minute 1:06 re:UVC Lightbulbs. My concern with this tech is that, applied to an entire environment such as a home or office, it could severely debilitate our immune systems, especially if you spent most of your time indoors, Given that our immune systems are constantly responding to airborne pathogens, their complete eradication could potentially lead to a less-robust immune response when you leave that environment. That said, it would be amazing to have the ability to use thisbtech for specific purposes.

[ChrisBrugman]

If anyone can figure out the stretch that Will mentions that he invented I would love to know how to do it. I can't quite figure it out by the description.

[lozcb]

Nothing about the millions that went missing from his involvement with FTX and Sam Bankfriedman

[samtallen]

4:44 "The hive mind of the Hominids" 😂 Tim has been sitting on that one for a while

[slolurna]

Dostevsky and "existentialism", to me, are reminders of the freedom to act -
one is more free to act, "in each and every moment", than one usually imagines;
there's no "intrinsic meaning" or "essence", one isn't bound by one's "past",
except to the extent that one _chooses_ to be, by bringing that "past", or
rather a narrative of it, which is essentially a function of language and
consciousness, into "the present".

This implies that "God" and "meaning", "moral imperatives", vs "nihilism", the
absence of meaning or value or moral standards are "for the making" - one
_chooses_ to "affirm life", or "denounce it" (be a "nihilist"), one "makes" God
as much as "He" has "made" us, "faith" is precisely that which cannot be
justified "rationally", it is a "leap" (otherwise there would be no need for
that leap, if there were good, rational reasons for the existence of God, it
would all be rationally argued and connected).

And it can lead to the dangers of "nihilism" or "moral relativism", where one
can go back and forth, or round in circles, and "justify anything", if one just
looks at something from multiple opposite perspectives. But the very freedom
also makes it possible to choose one (e.g. moral) position over another, just
as one can choose to have faith, to imagine a future that is not simply an
extrapolation of the past (especially the recent past, which is what
consciousness tends to do), and/or choose to denounce (there's no given/higher
"meaning", therefore "anything goes" etc. - that's what some of Dostoevsky's
characters illustrate, I think, in their freedom to make perverse,
self-destructive choices).

It can also be related to (what little I understand of) Buddhist philosophy, I
think - the idea that "existence" is just a series of "point instants", where
one (a "past" instant) "gives rise" to "the next", but there's also no
necessity between them, one is free to choose etc. And this idea of "the
unconscious" - why people act or choose the way we do, why it sometimes feel
like we might not be free to choose, "impulse", "habit" etc.

Probably sounds like a load of drivel (above :) but that is also the thing
about "philosophy", isn't it, that one makes of it what one will, it's just
"thinking", and there isn't, or shouldn't be, a "definitive" version of "what
existentialism is" etc., like Tim was a bit shy about in the beginning? :)

[magefixler]

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”


― Mark Twain

[aceconstantine]

I heard him drop a "First Principals" how long till he's directing the Musk Foundation

[anafamadormiemiec]

I’d like to do better. 🧡 and the world is better compared to it not existing. Powerful!

[bsirius]

_What We Owe the Future_ will not appear, at least here in the UK, until 1 September. There is a very intriguing article in the present New Yorker if you want to sink your teeth into this intriguing thinking before that.

BTW choose to be vegan; ride your bike and walk rather than driving everywhere and think about giving 10% of your income. It's your decision of course.

EA Effective Altruism ftw... :)

[VanBurenOfficial]

Tim, I gotta be honest, I really hate the blue checkmark next to the guest names, it’s obnoxious.

[SykPaul]

Come on Will, stop beeing modest, we owe the world another Sam Bankman Fried, remember all the "donations" from peoples pockets that didn't even know they donated to your crap agenda

[MrSidney]

Correlation between looks and intelligence : negative lol