What are the world's most pressing problems?

What should be a global top priority, but needs more attention?

And how can you best make a difference to other people's lives?

These are the questions at the heart of effective altruism, a movement that is not united by any particular cause or solution to the world’s problems, but by a focus on helping others as much as possible with our efforts.

Our first event of the year is a talk and Q&A with associate professor Will MacAskill, who was a key figure in the development of the EA movement. In 2012, Will MacAskill co-founded 80,000 Hours, a charity that applies EA ideas to advise people on how they can have high-impact careers. Will also co-founded Giving What we Can, a community who pledge 10% of their income to be donated to the best charitable causes.

There will also be free pizza afterwards and plenty of time to chat to other attendees and the EA Oxford committee!

In this talk from Will, he’ll start by explaining why it’s easier than you think to help a large number of people and give you some tools for finding careers that help many, many times more people than you otherwise might.

When Will helped to create the Effective Altruism movement, he was focused on ways we could help relieve the suffering of the global poor. And yet, in his most recent book, he argues that humanity should be far more focused on helping future generations of people. He writes, “humanity is in its infancy. Our future could last for millions of years – or it could end tomorrow. Astonishing numbers of people could lead lives of great happiness or unimaginable suffering, or never live at all, depending on what we choose to do today.”

So in the second half, we’ll hear from Will about why he now focuses on the long-term future of humanity and what this means for how we make the world better.

There will be plenty of time for audience questions, which makes this a great event for both people new to effective altruism and those who are familiar with the ideas.

There will also be free pizza afterwards, and plenty of time to chat to other attendees and the EA Oxford committee.

Please come and join us in the L1 Lecture Theatre of the Maths Institute! No ticket required.

By coming to any EA Oxford event, you are agreeing to:

- Be considerate, especially of other people’s boundaries.

- Communicate and act in a way that makes everyone feel comfortable and welcome.