Effective Altruism

The effective altruism movement consists of a growing global community of people who organize significant parts of their lives around two key ideas, represented in its name. Altruism: If we use a significant portion of the resources in our possession—whether money, time, or talents—with a view to helping others, we can improve the world considerably. Effectiveness: When we do put such resources to altruistic use, it is crucial to focus on how much good this or that intervention is reasonably expected to do per unit of resource expended (for example, per dollar donated). While global poverty is a widely used case study in introducing and motivating effective altruism, if the ultimate aim is to do the most good one can with the resources expended, it is far from obvious that global poverty alleviation is highest priority cause area. In addition to ranking possible poverty-alleviation interventions against one another, we can also try to rank interventions aimed at very different types of outcome against one another. This includes, for example, interventions focusing on animal welfare or future generations. The scale and organization of the effective altruism movement encourage careful dialogue on questions that have perhaps long been there, throwing them into new and sharper relief, and giving rise to previously unnoticed questions. In the present volume, the first of its kind, a group of internationally recognized philosophers, economists, and political theorists contribute in-depth explorations of issues that arise once one takes seriously the twin ideas of altruistic commitment and effectiveness.

Author(s):  
Claradina Soto ◽  
Toni Handboy ◽  
Ruth Supranovich ◽  
Eugenia L. Weiss

This chapter describes the impact of colonialism on indigenous women with a focus on the experience of the Lakota women on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota. It explores the experiences of indigenous women as related to history, culture, intrapersonal violence, and internalized oppression. A case study of a Lakota woman is provided as an example of strength and triumph in overcoming adversity and being empowered despite the challenges of marginalization faced by many Native Americans in the United States and indigenous women throughout the world. The chapter discusses how readers can be advocates and actively engage in decolonizing and dismantling systems of oppression to protect future generations and to allow indigenous communities to heal and revitalize.


Elements ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kitsy Smith

As China's coffers have swelled over the past three decades, its citizens' waistlines have also expanded. Western goods and lifestyles habits are consistently being imported into the Asian giant, including the obesity epidemic. Chinese children are particularly susceptible and future generations face tremendous health risks despite medical advances. States and international bodies such as the World Health Organization are alarmed at the damage obesity is already producing. The price tag to treat the health problems associated with obesity and the rsulting loss in economic productivity is staggering. While this essay uses China as a case study to examine the causes of obesity and its consequences, social and economic health, the grim reality is that this pattern is occurring worldwide as countries develop and their people adopt Western "nutritional" norms.


Author(s):  
Salyha Zulfiqar Ali Shah ◽  
Imran Sharif Chaudhry ◽  
Fatima Farooq

Countries across the world have acknowledged that poverty alleviation has to be of critical importance among the objectives of economic development. This paper sheds light on the Multan division, as one the important division of Southern Punjab, Pakistan. The primary data was collected through a household survey during the year 2019.The study concluded that occupation of the household head in the primary sector and household size are significant and positively associated with household poverty. However, human capital of the household is found to be significant and negatively related to household poverty in the Multan division. Economic development or per capita income of the households are found to be significant and positively related with human capital of the households.


Author(s):  
Olivier Benyessaad ◽  
Diane Ruf

The development of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) offshore industry is viewed as a major improvement in the exploitation of the world’s energy resources. Most energy analysts agree that significant increases in Natural Gas (NG) demand is expected in the next decades due to relatively low prices and an important gas quantity worldwide. In order to develop the use of this resource, many innovative offshore floating installations have been developed and are currently deployed all over the world. However, hazards linked to LNG and due to hydrocarbon releases are not always so well understood or controlled. Thus, in order to quantify and understand these risks associated to LNG treatment or containment as well as their consequences, a number of different types of risk and reliability engineering techniques can be used at different stages of the project. The following will present specific analyses that have been performed on innovative LNG Offshore floating units to provide a qualitative and quantitative hazard assessment by predicting the consequences and the frequencies of these hazards, while improving the reliability of the installation and its availability. The paper will first introduce the LNG offshore industry outlining the different installations possibilities and the associated hazards. Then, based on recent projects, it will detail the risk-based methodology applied to ensure the safety and the profitability of such innovative installations when no rules are able to frame fully the development of these projects. Finally, after having pointed out the ins and outs of risk studies, a case study using most of the methods presented previously will be developed.


A contemporary overview of festival activity from around the world based on over 30 case studies drawn from every continent. Through its case-study focus it examines different types and genres of festival across the world; considers in detail specific festivals in specific contexts; looks at management and organisational issues in festival provision, and illustrates debates and theories pertaining to festivals throughout the world.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 3237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Nocera ◽  
Rosa Caponetto ◽  
Giada Giuffrida ◽  
Maurizio Detommaso

Sicily is characterized by rural buildings, Palmenti, destined to wine production, which are scattered along the countryside and part of the local historical heritage. There are different types of rural buildings, but all have in common the use of ancient and well-established bioclimatic techniques for wine conservation and aging. Most of them were built with the double function of living space for the owner and productive spaces for all the activities correlated to the cultivations. Indeed, many rural houses, destined to the wine production, are characterized by wineries and wine cellars (the first for the wine production, the second to store the wine for the aging process). The growing production of high-quality Sicilian wines, very appreciated all over the world, leads to upgrade the ancient Palmenti to seek optimal hygrothermal conditions and, therefore, to guarantee high performance of the produced and stored wines. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the retrofit measures taken to comply with the energy regulations could affect the thermal behavior of a wine cellar constructed with consolidated bioclimatic technics. The results show the importance of not insulating the solid ground floor for maintaining suitable temperatures for the fermentation and aging of wine. This study can be useful for future analysis when comparing the optimal hygrothermal conditions of wine cellars located in homogeneous viticultural areas (with same climate, geology, soil, physical features, and height) in other parts of the world.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Gerald Chan

Has China embraced global poverty reduction? To what extent has it done so? China faces three paradoxes in trying to alleviate poverty: first, the country is on the whole getting richer, becoming one of the largest economies in the world, yet huge pockets of extreme poverty exist in the country. Second, it wants to be taken seriously as a responsible member of the international community. It would therefore like to be treated as a normal aid giver helping the poor in the developing world. Yet its own people are crying out loud for better social services at home. Third, while it wants to be respected by others in the world, it has been accused by other countries of ignoring, if not abusing, human rights in the Third World in its relentless search for natural resources, trade and investments. This paper aims to unravel these paradoxes by examining China’s foreign aid and its adherence or otherwise to the UN Millennium Development Goals. In so doing, the paper assesses China’s unilateral approach as well as its multilateral approach to poverty alleviation. It argues that China’s overall approach has become more multilateral in nature but the change has been slow and incremental. Its influence in global poverty reduction, though increasing, is still limited.


2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Rafael Jiménez-Mejía ◽  
Ricardo I. Medina-Estrada ◽  
Santos Carballar-Hernández ◽  
Ma. del Carmen Orozco-Mosqueda ◽  
Gustavo Santoyo ◽  
...  

Plants and their microbiomes, including plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB), can work as a team to reduce the adverse effects of different types of stress, including drought, heat, cold, and heavy metals stresses, as well as salinity in soils. These abiotic stresses are reviewed here, with an emphasis on salinity and its negative consequences on crops, due to their wide presence in cultivable soils around the world. Likewise, the factors that stimulate the salinity of soils and their impact on microbial diversity and plant physiology were also analyzed. In addition, the saline soils that exist in Mexico were analyzed as a case study. We also made some proposals for a more extensive use of bacterial bioinoculants in agriculture, particularly in developing countries. Finally, PGPB are highly relevant and extremely helpful in counteracting the toxic effects of soil salinity and improving crop growth and production; therefore, their use should be intensively promoted.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document