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William MacAskill

Senior Research Fellow, Forethought · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

academicauthorfounder@willmacaskill ↗williammacaskill.com ↗Wikipedia ↗

William MacAskill is one of the foundational leaders of the effective altruism and longtermism movements, having co-founded organizations such as Giving What We Can, 80,000 Hours, and the Centre for Effective Altruism. He is also the author of influential bestselling books on ethics and philanthropy, including Doing Good Better and What We Owe The Future.

34statements → 11claims → 6claims resolved → 83%fully supported → 3.79/5average certainty → 2.65/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 1said about them ↓

5 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted 5 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 10 assertions · 4 opinions · 16 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 6 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how William argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported
MacAskill: Birth country and parental wealth dictate 80% of personal income
“80% of the income that people earn is explained by the country of birth and socioeconomic status of their parents”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 44:19 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted
MacAskill: The poorest people in the US or Canada are in the top 10-15% globally
“Even the very poor in the United States, for example, or Canada, They're still in the richest 10 to 15% of the world's population”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 45:30 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1
none yet certainty 2
100% certainty 3
80% certainty 4
none yet certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of William MacAskill on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything William MacAskill said on the Knowledge Project that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Supported
MacAskill: Saving a child's life with bed nets costs under $10,000
“For example, by buying bed nets and distributing them to those who need them just for the, you know, single digit thousands of dollars, statistically speaking, you can save a child's life.”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 4:27 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Disclosure
MacAskill pledges over half of his lifetime earnings to charity
“I thought about how much money I needed to live on over the course of my life, and I decided, even as an academic, where I'm not going to earn as much as perhaps I could have done, I'm still going to earn much more than I need to be happy, and so what I did wa…”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 4:59 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Insight
MacAskill: Donating to nascent causes compounds faster than market returns
“Because often money that you donate compounds in just the same way that you return on investment if you save the money can compound. In particular, if you're investing in a small growing area often the rate of growth of that cause area can be far greater than …”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 7:07 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Assertion Not checkable as stated
MacAskill: Some recent graduates donate roughly $1M annually through high-earning careers
“And I know a number of people who've chosen to do this, and actually just some of whom are just a few years out of college and already are able to donate on the order of a million dollars per year.”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 16:11 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Assertion Supported
MacAskill: Most people's passions lie in hyper-competitive fields like arts and sports
“When you look at what people are actually passionate about, the vast majority tend to be passionate about things where it's extremely hard to have a promising career. So that's the arts, that's music, that's sport, and that's not a coincidence.”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 18:51 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Insight
MacAskill: Proportional Income Increases Deliver Equal Welfare Value Across Income Levels
“So in general if you can increase someone's income by the same percentage, that's worth about the same, no matter how much someone's income is.”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 31:14 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Opinion
MacAskill: Open Philanthropy is the model foundation for strategic giving
“And I just think this is the model foundation. Again, extremely transparent in terms of how they're choosing causes. Being extremely strategic in what cause areas they choose to focus on.”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 33:03 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Disclosure
MacAskill: Effective Altruism strongly promotes policy and research careers
“Money's only one, but we're very strongly encouraging people to pursue careers in policy and research and working for non-profits too.”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 12:47 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Assertion Supported
MacAskill: Typical rich-country earners make ~100x the poorest 700M people globally
“People on a typical income in, you know, a rich country, they're earning something like a hundred times the amount that the poorest seven hundred million people in the world have.”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 46:11 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good
Disclosure
MacAskill: Personal Operating Rule Is Trying Never to Tell a Lie
“In general, I, Have a principle of just trying never to lie. I know that's different, however, from radical honesty”
William MacAskill Jul 11, 2018 ▶ 57:47 #36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good

The other half of the tape: William MacAskill's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 1 time in 1 episode on the Knowledge Project. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Julia Galef 1

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
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0112016episodes it came up in
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2016 1 mention in 1 episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
#36 William MacAskill: The Science of Doing Good Jul 11, 2018 50m
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