“Part 5: The world’s biggest problems and why they’re not what first comes to mind” by Benjamin Todd

We’ve spent much of the last 10+ years trying to answer a simple question: what are the world’s biggest and most neglected problems?

We wanted to have a positive impact with our careers, and so we set out to discover where our efforts would be most effective.

Our analysis suggests that choosing the right problem could increase your impact by over 100 times, which would make it the most important driver of your impact.

Here, we give a summary of what we’ve learned. Read on to hear why ending diarrhoea might save as many lives as world peace, why artificial intelligence might be an even bigger deal, and what to do in your own career to make the most urgent changes happen.

In short, the most pressing problems are those where people can have the greatest impact by working on them. As we explained in the previous article, this means problems that are not only big, but also neglected and solvable. The more neglected and solvable, the further extra effort will go. And this means they’re not the problems that first come to mind.

If you just want to see what we think the answer is, go to our list of the world’s most pressing problems.

---

Outline:

(01:26) Why issues facing rich countries aren’t always the most important — and why charity shouldn’t always begin at home

(05:25) Global health: a problem where you could really make progress

(12:42) Why focusing on future generations might be even more effective than tackling global health

(15:32) One way to help future generations: avert neglected existential risks

(17:05) Biorisk: the threat from future disease

(19:28) Preventing an AI-related catastrophe

(26:46) Dealing with uncertainty and “going meta”

(27:07) Global priorities research

(27:51) Broad interventions, such as improved politics

(29:19) Capacity building and promoting effective altruism

(31:50) How to work out which problems you should focus on

(34:13) Exercise: Apply this to your own career

---

First published:
March 10th, 2017

Source:
https://80000hours.org/career-guide/world-problems