2026 Reading Challenge
Genres

Effective Altruism

Effective altruism is a philosophy and social movement that advocates using evidence and reasoning to determine the most effective ways to benefit others. Altruism refers to improving the lives of others—as opposed to egoism, which emphasizes only self-interest. Effectiveness refers to doing the most good with whatever resources are available—as opposed to only doing some amount of good—as well as determining what is the most good by using evidence and reasoning—as opposed to only doing what feels good or appears intuitively appealing.

Effective Altruism Books

Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference
The Precipice
The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty
80,000 Hours: Find a fulfilling career that does good
The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically
What We Owe the Future
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help
Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty
Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control
Famine, Affluence, and Morality
The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don't
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
Effective Altruism Handbook
How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach
More effective altruism books...

Lists

Doing Good Better by William MacAskillSuperintelligence by Nick BostromThe Life You Can Save by Peter SingerThinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanThe Most Good You Can Do by Peter Singer
Effective Altruism Books
261 books — 154 voters
Superintelligence by Nick BostromReasons and Persons by Derek ParfitGlobal Catastrophic Risks by Nick BostromThe Precipice by Toby OrdLife 3.0 by Max Tegmark
Effective Altruism Long-Termism Books
21 books — 12 voters

Doing Good Better by William MacAskillThe Precipice by Toby Ord80,000 Hours by Benjamin ToddWhat We Owe the Future by William MacAskillThe Life You Can Save by Peter Singer
Effective Altruism Audiobooks
31 books — 1 voter

Quotes Tagged “Effective Altruism”

William MacAskill
“ Effective altruism is about asking "How can I make the biggest difference I can?" and using evidence and careful reasoning to try to find an answer. It takes a scientific approach to doing good. Just as science consists of the honest and impartial attempt to work out what's true, and a committment to believe the truth whatever that turns out to be. As the phrase suggests, effective altruism consists of the honest and impartial attempt to work out what's best for the world, and a commitment to do ...more ”
― William MacAskill, Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference
4 likes

William MacAskill
“ Another common recommendation is to turn lights off when you leave a room, but lighting accounts for only 3% of household energy use, so even if you used no lighting at all in your house you would save only a fraction of a metric ton of carbon emissions. Plastic bags have also been a major focus of concern, but even on very generous estimates, if you stopped using plastic bags entirely you'd cut out 10kg CO2eq per year, which is only 0.4% of your total emissions. Similarly, the focus on buying l ...more ”
― William MacAskill, Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference
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Groups Tagged "Effective Altruism"

Effective Altruists Recommend books, see what other people are reading, start a discussion, what have you. N.B. Thi…more
648 members, last active 9 months ago
We've got books, we've got booze, we've got an aversion to suffering. Welcome to the EA Kansas C…more
7 members, last active 4 years ago
Harvard-MIT Project on Existential Risk A book group for anyone affiliated with Harvard or MIT who is interested in existential risk and…more
4 members, last active 4 years ago