#116 – Luisa Rodriguez on why global catastrophes seem unlikely to kill us all
If modern human civilisation collapsed — as a result of nuclear war, severe climate change, or a much worse pandemic than COVID-19 — billions of people might die.That's terrible enough to contemplate....
19 Nov 20213h 45min
#115 – David Wallace on the many-worlds theory of quantum mechanics and its implications
Quantum mechanics — our best theory of atoms, molecules, and the subatomic particles that make them up — underpins most of modern physics. But there are varying interpretations of what it means, all o...
12 Nov 20213h 9min
#114 – Maha Rehman on working with governments to rapidly deliver masks to millions of people
It’s hard to believe, but until recently there had never been a large field trial that addressed these simple and obvious questions:1. When ordinary people wear face masks, does it actually reduce the...
22 Okt 20211h 42min
We just put up a new compilation of ten core episodes of the show
We recently launched a new podcast feed that might be useful to you and people you know. It's called Effective Altruism: Ten Global Problems, and it's a collection of ten top episodes of this show, se...
20 Okt 20213min
#113 – Varsha Venugopal on using gossip to help vaccinate every child in India
Our failure to make sure all kids globally get all of their basic vaccinations leads to 1.5 million child deaths every year.According to today’s guest, Varsha Venugopal, for the great majority this ha...
18 Okt 20212h 5min
#112 – Carl Shulman on the common-sense case for existential risk work and its practical implications
Preventing the apocalypse may sound like an idiosyncratic activity, and it sometimes is justified on exotic grounds, such as the potential for humanity to become a galaxy-spanning civilisation.But the...
5 Okt 20213h 48min
#111 – Mushtaq Khan on using institutional economics to predict effective government reforms
If you’re living in the Niger Delta in Nigeria, your best bet at a high-paying career is probably ‘artisanal refining’ — or, in plain language, stealing oil from pipelines. The resulting oil spills da...
10 Sep 20213h 20min
#110 – Holden Karnofsky on building aptitudes and kicking ass
Holden Karnofsky helped create two of the most influential organisations in the effective philanthropy world. So when he outlines a different perspective on career advice than the one we present at 80...
26 Aug 20212h 46min
