Disclosure: I read drafts of this book, and I’m in the acknowledgements. I’m also a donor to the Centre for Effective Altruism, which helped produce the book, and I’m about as close to a card-carrying effective altruist as you get, since I’m a member of Giving What We Can.

Let me cut to the chase: this is by far the best introduction to effective altruism that I’ve encountered. It’s not too long, it’s accessible, it’s remarkably comprehensive for it’s length, and it’s meticulously referenced (although not footnoted - the notes must be discovered at the back). If you have any interest in the subject, get it. To give you an idea how good it is, I’m writing this review without my copy because within a day of finishing it I’d lent it to an interested friend.

I’m at a pary, and the conversation has gone on too long, and an awkward silence falls. A strategem suggests itself: “I just need to go to the loo,” I say.

And then the toilet cubicle is there for you. It’s not much - just a small, quiet, space where you can’t be seen and you’re not expected to do anything except sit (and excrete, but that’s beside the point). All that makes it an oasis of peace.

The Boston Review’s symposium on effective altriusm is largely more of the usual complaints, and I think Singer’s response has most of it covered. However, there’s one particular strand of argument that I’d like to counter: the argument that effective altruism is in some way not universalizable.

Author’s note:

After a recent data breach at a large accountancy company, whose name the diligent reader can no doubt ferret out, I found the following set of emails buried in the archive. Though they seem exceedingly fantastical, I feel that they cannot be discounted entirely, and so I have endeavoured to have them published in the form you now see.

Have strong opinions, weakly held.

– Paul Saffo

I want to talk about one of those obvious-in-retrospect distinctions that I find very helpful: the distinction between collaborative and combative discussions.¹²

I can’t point to any really clear distinguishing features between collaborative and a combative discussions, so in true 18th Century philosopher style, if I can’t define the difference I’ll just list a whole bunch of things that I associate with one or the other.