Daily Blog Day 4 -- Effective Altruism

Happy Thursday from me and Obi! I'm watching my sister's dog for a few hours while she and her boyfriend pack for their move to Colorado Springs in a couple days. 

As I mentioned yesterday, I want to write a little bit about one of my biggest interests at the moment, effective altruism. Simply put, effective altruism (EA) is an idea and growing community centered around serving others in the most effective way(s) possible -- the homepage of the website linked above says, it's "about doing good better." Rather than explain much further, I'll share my motivations for becoming an aspiring effective altruist.

My path to discovering EA was slow-burning before the Ulman Foundation dumped gasoline on me. Fortunately and serendipitously, I took a class last semester called "Sport for Development", taught by Dr. Mower, an unofficial mentor of mine (are mentors ever official?). Because of Dr. Mower and that class, I became increasingly aware of the complexities of charity work and the unfortunate reality that despite what we may believe, many good-intentioned charitable organizations are very ineffective and some are even harmful. Although grateful to have this new awareness, it troubled me that so many organizations and programs that I thought were doing great work, could be doing much much better. Then, earlier this year the stars began to align as I decided -- with little, if any, conscious thought -- to listen to Peter Singer on the Rich Roll Podcast and immediately listened to his free audiobook, "The Life You Can Save". Each day my interest in EA grows and I feel magnificently fortunate to have the privilege to strive for the most ethical life possible in which I can hopefully alleviate the unnecessary suffering of a few people and animals. Something that has been occurring alongside my EA journey is what I've decided to call my quest to un-cumulate. This will be my topic for tomorrow's post :)

Thanks for reading!

Hayden