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The Latest Breaking News from William MacAskill

‘Eugenics on steroids’: the toxic and contested legacy of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute

Founded in 2005 and lauded by Silicon Valley, the Nick Bostrom’s centre for studying existential risk warned about AI but also gave rise to cultish ideas such as effective altruism

The Guardian - UK

It’s easy to be dazzled by the super-rich, but don’t believe that they’ll do the right thing

Silicon Valley tech showmen like Elon Musk and Sam Bankman-Fried can blind us with science. A little more scepticism would not go amiss

The Guardian - UK

Getting rich in order to give to the poor? The jury’s out, but it seems morally shaky

Trial of philanthropic crypto poster boy Sam Bankman-Fried exposes the flaws in a philosophy that negates the need for social change

The Guardian - UK

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Going Infinite by Michael Lewis review – the downfall of crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried

In this extraordinary book, the author of The Big Short digs into the roots of the ideological fantasy land created by the cryptocurrency billionaire now on trial in the US

The Guardian - UK

How do tech bros plan to ride out Armageddon? Living it up on their private islands

‘Effective altruist’ Sam Bankman-Fried supposedly wanted to buy the Pacific state of Nauru to build a doomsday bunker. Meanwhile, in the real world, quite a few other things need fixing, writes Arwa Mahdawi

The Guardian - UK

‘What if everybody decided not to have children?’ The philosopher questioning humanity’s future

Émile Torres has become a thorn in the side of the branch of moral philosophy that advocates prioritising our distant descendants. They explain the danger of utopian movements

The Guardian - UK

'Effective altruism' has caught on with billionaire donors – but is the world's most headline-making one on board?

One of the ways tech billionaire Elon Musk attracts supporters is the vision he seems to have for the future: people driving fully autonomous electric vehicles, colonizing other planets and even merging their brains with artificial intelligence.

The Conversation

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What's effective altruism? A philosopher explains

Effective altruism is an intellectual and charitable movement that aspires to find the best ways to help others. People dedicated to it rely on evidence and rational arguments to identify what they can do to make the most progress toward solving the world’s most pressing problems, such as reducing malnutrition…

The Conversation

Longtermism – why the million-year philosophy can't be ignored

In 2017, the Scottish philosopher William MacAskill coined the name “longtermism” to describe the idea “that positively affecting the long-run future is a key moral priority of our time”. The label took off among like-minded philosophers and members of the “effective altruism” movement, which sets out to use evidence and…

The Conversation

Commentary: Sam Bankman-Fried is not an effective altruist

It’s an unfortunate thing that the fiery collapse of the crypto exchange FTX is giving many people their first look at one of the most promising charitable movements of the last decade. It’s called effective altruism, or EA, and in recent years, disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, known as SBF,…

Chicago Tribune

Longtermism: how good intentions and the rich created a dangerous creed

Tech billionaires seem intent on giving away a lot of money. But are those who support ‘longtermism’ and ‘effective altruism’ ignoring the very real problems of today?

The Guardian - UK

If greed can ever be good, that philosophy didn’t work at FTX’s charity

The ‘ethics stuff’ was just a front, says the bankrupted cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried

The Guardian - UK

Power-hungry robots, space colonization, cyborgs: inside the bizarre world of ‘longtermism’

Sam Bankman-Fried said his billions would save the world – but his philanthropic ideas ranged from the worthy to the severely outlandish

The Guardian - US

Sam Bankman-Fried and "longtermism"

I'm not surprised that longtermism led to fraud, corruption and disaster. I'm mostly surprised it wasn't worse

Salon

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Reason

What We Owe the Future Is Liberalism

What does "longtermism" offer those of us who favor limited government and free markets?

Fortune

Sam Bankman-Fried's effective altruism may have been his downfall

“I wanted to get rich, not because I like money but because I wanted to give that money to charity,” Sam Bankman-Fried once said.

The Independent UK

FTX bankruptcy also endangers founder's philanthropic gifts

The rapid collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX into bankruptcy last week has also shaken the world of philanthropy, due to the donations and influence of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in the “effective altruism” movement

Chicago Tribune

Commentary: Somebody needs to save effective altruism from itself

Round up for charity?

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Axios

Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's flirtation with Elon Musk and Twitter

The crypto billionaire ultimately walked away from Musk's deal, after offering to invest billions.

Reason

Counting Neurons and the Moral Standing of People vs. Animals

Total human neurons outweigh all farmed animals by a factor of 30–1.

The Conversation

What do we owe future generations? And what can we do to make their world a better place?

Your great grandchildren are powerless in today’s society. As Oxford philosopher William MacAskill says:

Los Angeles Times

Nicholas Goldberg: We can't compartmentalize away our apocalyptic future

Like most people, I'm a compartmentalizer. For years I went blithely about my business — doing my work, watching movies, celebrating birthdays — while only rarely thinking about the end of the world.

Salon

"Longtermism": The marketing campaign

For star author William MacAskill and the "longtermist" movement, marketing, PR and brand management are crucial

The Guardian - UK

What We Owe the Future by William MacAskill review – a thrilling prescription for humanity

Unapologetically optimistic and bracingly realistic, a philosopher’s guide to ‘ethical living’ for dangerous times

The Guardian - UK

William MacAskill: ‘There are 80 trillion people yet to come. They need us to start protecting them’

The moral philosopher gives most of his earnings to charity, says we need more not less economic growth to tackle global heating, and in a striking new book argues that it’s our duty to ensure the wellbeing of our distant descendants

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