The life you can save
by Peter Singer · first published 2009
65% recommend35% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A short, accessible, non-judgmental case for giving more to fight global poverty, pointing readers to effective charities. Readers say it changed their donating habits. Suits anyone new to effective altruism.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
This is the right time to ask yourself: "What should I be doing to help?"For the first time in history, it is now within our reach to eradicate world poverty and the suffering it brings. Yet around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for bottled water. And though the number of deaths attributable to poverty worldwide has fallen dramatically in the past half-century, nearly ten million children still die unnecessarily each year. The people of the developed world face a profound choice: If we are not to turn our backs on a fifth of the world's popula
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…someone who claims to read a lot it's odd that he would use a passage from an unrelated source to describe the motivation for EA. Why not just read some of the direct sources and their motivations? The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer is quite short and accessible. Maybe it's easier to attack straw men... Having read Singer, I'd say that the motivation is to take the sense of "doing good in the world" and apply reason…
on “Effective Altruism Is about Getting Rich with a Clean Conscience” ↗…true knowledge; this is what 'Critique' traditionally means, the limit of the scope. That being said my interest in formal philosophy (I've always been interested in epistemology) at all came from "The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer. I ended up disagreeing with the argument Singer advocates for but he provides both the argument and the counter-argument. With the fairness being so remarkable, the book remains invaluable…
on “Ask HN: Learning about philosophy” ↗"The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty" by Peter Singer. After reading this I dramatically increased the amount of money that I donate and began supporting several new charities. "Lying" by Sam Harris. This…
on “Ask HN: What book changed your life in 2013?” ↗I've read this book together with the two books about Effective Altruism bei Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save and The Most Good You Can Do), and I have to say these books have really changed my life. I know it sounds cheesy, but I've never read books that had such a lasting influence on me. Those books provide…
on “The ‘effective altruists’” ↗He's one of the world's most pre-eminent bioethicists. His writings on animal welfare (e.g., The Way We Eat) and fighting poverty (e.g., The Expanding Circle, The Life You Can Save) are fantastic and should be required reading.
on “Did James Damore really deserve to be fired for what he wrote? (P. Singer)” ↗Effective Altruism has changed my life: I'm now giving at least 10% of my income to cost-effective charities thanks to the ideas behind the movement. Good books to start with: The Life You Can Save - Peter Singer The Most Good You Can Do - Peter Singer Doing Good Better - William MacAskill
on “Why philosophers could be the ones to transform your 2020” ↗If you're not convinced by this article, or simply want to know more about effective altruism, a good place to start is Peter Singer's free book The Life You Can Save, available at https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/. (You can use a fake email if you don't want to give your real one). I highly recommend it. The concepts of EA have been life changing for me,…
on “Effective altruism is not effective” ↗…and not dismiss it so easily. I've pitched this one before, as it is a short book (pdf, or audiobook) and is one of the most impactful things I've read in a long time. It was Peter Singer's book, The Life You Can Save [1] The book methodically and non-judgmentally addresses many objections and false beliefs people have about charity [2] and effective altruism. In a nutshell: ideally we'd have enough resources that…
on “Intellectual Loneliness” ↗…person, like Huw Price, left a very good impression on me. And their work is important to the future of humanity: I've talked to many people who changed their whole careers after reading Singer's The Life You Can Save or Bostrom's Superintelligence. At the same time, it's true that academic careers are surprisingly terrible on average and fewer people should choose them.
on “Why I Left Academic Philosophy” ↗Whenever it comes to philosophy, I always recommend Peter Singer -- just about anything by him is great. Consider Practical Ethics [1], or the recently-released-free The Life You Can Save 10th anniversary edition [2] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Ethics-Peter-Singer/dp/0521... [2] https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book/
on “Ask HN: What are you learning?” ↗One organization that you could have on your radar is Population Services International - recommended by The Life You Can Save (which aims to encourage people to commit to giving at least 1% of their income to cost-effective charities) https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/best-charities/population-...
on “The elitist philanthropy of so-called effective altruism (2013)” ↗I liked it too. It's the argument from Australian philosopher of ethics Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (2009). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_You_Can_Save Singer started a charity of the same name, designed to make your charity dollar do the most good. The site…
on “The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics (2015)” ↗Another resource I’ve found super helpful is The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer. Very interesting read/listen and gets you thinking about the most impactful ways to give. Free to download or listen as well: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/the-book
on “Some fundraisers pay >90% of the funds to themselves” ↗Absolutely. I recently read "The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer, and it really does a great job of making the case for generosity even amongst middle class 1st world individuals. ebook/audiobook are free from their website: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org.au/the-book/
on “I am rich and have no idea what to do” ↗…books, but there are also many extraordinary, irreplicable works: A Pattern Language, Thinking Fast and Slow, The Landscape of History, The Modern Firm, The Diffusion of Innovations, Bowling Alone, The Life You Can Save, And the Band Played On, and on and on.
on “The Need to Read” ↗