Harvard Effective Altruism: an event today, Michael Kremer on Sept. 10, and a fellowship opportunity

A message from Harvard Effective Altruism:

On Saturday, Sept. 6 at 3pm in Sever 111, we are holding a giving game / donation discussion and an information session for Harvard students interested in our organization. We’ll explain what effective altruism is and what HCEA does here on campus. If you’re new to HCEA, you should definitely check it out!

Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 4:30pm in Science Center Hall A: Prof. Michael Kremer – a development economist at Harvard – will give a talk entitled “How can individuals reduce global poverty?” He’ll discuss the ways that individuals can use both their money and their careers to contribute to poverty reduction and international development.

All semester long! HCEA is hosting its third Philanthropy Fellowship program for Harvard undergrads and graduate students. Fellows will attend talks from speakers like Harvard professor Steven Pinker, Rob Mather of the Against Malaria Foundation, and Center for Applied Rationality president Julia Galef; learn about effective altruism at weekly dinners with other fellows and speakers; get to know likeminded students at discussions and social events; and fundraise for effective charities! You can find more information and apply on our website before 11:59pm on Sunday, Sept. 14th.

We hope to see soon! Altruistically yours,
Ales and John

Art Caplan: The Real Reasons for Worrying About Ebola

Art Caplan has a new opinion piece on NBC News responding to the recent media coverage of Ebola. He makes the case that although this has been the worst recorded outbreak of the disease, citizens of developed countries have little reason to panic:

Ebola is not going to run amok in downtown Boston, Cape May or Myrtle Beach or anywhere else in the U.S. It is running amok in poor African nations because local authorities did not have the will or the resources to respond quickly, because no one confronted local funeral customs that expose people to Ebola, mainly because the world did not care much if hundreds died in poor, politically insignificant nations.

The harsh ethical truth is the Ebola epidemic happened because few people in the wealthy nations of the world cared enough to do anything about it.

Read the full article.

Trials of HIV Treatment-as-Prevention: Ethics and Science. Friday, March 7

High hopes for overcoming the HIV epidemic rest to a large extent on HIV Treatment-as-Prevention (TasP). Large cluster-randomized controlled trials are currently under way to test the effectiveness of different TasP strategies in general populations in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, however, international antiretroviral treatment (ART) guidelines have already moved to definitions of ART eligibility including all – in the US guidelines – or nearly all – in the WHO guidelines – HIV-infected people. In this panel, we are bringing together the leaders of three TasP trials in sub-Saharan Africa, bioethicists, and public health researchers to debate the tension between the policy intentions expressed in these guidelines and the historic opportunity to learn whether TasP works or not. Please join us in considering different options to resolving this tension.

  • Till Bärnighausen, Harvard School of Public Health, and Wellcome Trust Africa Centre for Health and Population Science
  • Max Essex, Harvard School of Public Health
  • Deenan Pillay, Wellcome Trust Africa Centre for Health and Population Science, and University College London
  • Velephi Okello, Swaziland National AIDS Programme, Ministry of Health
  • Dan Wikler, Harvard School of Public Health
  • Nir Eyal, Harvard Medical School

 

Moderator: Megan Murray, Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School

 

Friday, March 7th, 10am-12pm

Kresge G3, Harvard School of Public Health

Wednesday @ 8pm – Thomas Pogge: Effective Altruism or Mobilization for Institutional Reform?

Harvard High-Impact Philanthropy presents

Effective Altruism or Mobilization for Institutional Reform?

a lecture by Thomas Pogge

Director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs, Yale University

Wednesday, October 9, 8 PM Sever 214

Professor Pogge will discuss whether some institutional reform efforts may be as effective or more effective than “effective altruism” and also whether effectiveness is the only standard by which such alternative ways of protecting people are to be compared.

Thomas Pogge is the Director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University. Additionally, he is the Research Director of the Centre for the Study of the Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo; a Professorial Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University; and Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Central Lancashire’s Centre for Professional Ethics. He is also an editor for social and political philosophy for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Planning on coming? RSVP here