The 100x multiplier
No, I’m not talking about every VC’s dream of getting a return on their fund.
(Although I could talk about that all day with anyone who wants to have lunch with me)
I’m talking about positively impacting as many people as possible, as much as possible.
According to Will MacAskill in ‘Doing Good Better’…
If you’re earning >£10,500, you’re in the richest 10% of the world’s population.
If you’re earning above £34,000, you're top 1%.
[as of 2015 stats]
According to MacAskill, for those of us living in UK, you could do at least one hundred times as much to benefit other people (elsewhere in the world) as you can to benefit yourself.
Now that number should be taken with a pinch of salt, but even if it's 5x the impact, we should dig deeper.
Philosophers Peter Unger, Peter Singer and more recently William MacAskill have been advocates of the notion of ‘Earning to give’: This is an enormously powerful way of doing good in the world, and may be more effective than doing good through our career, or sometimes even volunteering (controversial, I know).
Earning to give exploits the fact that even "typical" workers in developed countries are among the top income earners in the world. Combine that with currency arbitrage when giving to developing countries and the effectiveness of some of the most best charities in the world, and we have a recipe for optimum impact.
Looked at another way. Compare the cost of distribution of edible surplus food in fighting poverty. Felix Project and Food Forward SA are two excellent NGOs in this space, and both redistribute edible surplus food to those at risk of extreme hunger. An extremely noble cause that is saving lives.
Felix Project (UK): Approximately £0.22 to distribute 1 meal
Food Forward (South Africa): Approximately £0.033 to distribute 1 meal (roughly current exchange rate)
There might not be 100x difference in cost between distributing a meal in SA (via FoodForward) compared to in UK (via Felix Project), but the principle applies with a significant cost difference - as £100 can distribute 454 meals in UK, which is great - but, it can distribute 3030 meals in South Africa, which is substantial scale for a relatively small donation (3030 meals = 1000 people fed for a full day, or 100 people fed for a full month, depending how you want to cut it).
That is not to say we should ignore local problems. Charity starts at home and all that. But a question to consider through the lens of effective altruism is, “how do I impact as many people as possible, as much as possible?
I find this idea intoxicating. We get caught up easily in our day to day lives, struggling based on cost of living increase, comparing our salaries to those around us. And faced with the paradox of choice of charity, it’s easier to simply do nothing and focus on our own lives. But if we zoom out - We are genuinely doing well. We should not only be grateful for everything we have, but consider the outsized impact we could have if we leverage the Great British Pound relative to Rwandan Franc, the South African Rand, the Colombian Peso, the Cambodian Riel etc . How the pancakes we ate this morning could translate to monthly school fees for a student, or 340 meals reaching those in need through an effective NGO.
Impacting as many people as possible, as much as possible.
I’ll end this with MacAskill’s 5 key questions of effective altruism
How many people benefit and by how much?
Is this the most effective thing you can do?
Is this area neglected?
What would have happened otherwise?
What are the chances of success, and how good would success be?
So what's my key takeaway from all this?
Based on our current salaries, even if we feel we should be earning more (which we probably do), we are still incredibly well placed to make a difference in the world. I find that extremely powerful and encouraging, and should inspire action - check out givewell.org for more insights into best way to do this.