Michael: Imagine a brilliant invention: a children's merry-go-round that pumps clean water for a village with every single spin. It’s a beautiful, elegant idea, right? Kids play, and life-saving water flows. It won development awards, it got millions of dollars in funding, and it was praised by world leaders and celebrities. There’s just one tiny problem: it was a catastrophic failure. It left women exhausted, children sometimes injured, and many villages with less reliable water than they had before. Kevin: And that single story, from William MacAskill's book Doing Good Better, holds the key to a massive, and frankly, uncomfortable question: what if our good intentions are not just ineffective, but at times, actively harmful? What if the entire way most of us think about charity, about being a good person, is fundamentally broken? Michael: Today, we're going to re-engineer how we think about making a difference. We'll dive deep into this from three perspectives. First, we'll explore why our hearts can sometimes be our worst guides for doing good, using that incredible story of the failed water pump. Kevin: Then, we'll uncover the astonishing math that proves you might be a secret philanthropic superhero, capable of doing one hundred times more good than you currently believe is possible. Michael: And finally, we'll challenge some of the most common advice you've ever heard about how to live an ethical life, from the career you choose to the things you buy. This isn't just about doing good; it's about learning how to do good better.

Michael: So let's start with that merry-go-round, Kevin. It was called the PlayPump, and its story is the perfect cautionary tale for the age of feel-good altruism. It began in the late 1980s when an advertising executive named Trevor Field saw this invention at a fair. He was captivated. He thought, "African kids have almost nothing—not even playground equipment—and access to water is a huge problem. This is the best idea I’ve ever seen." Kevin: And you can see why. It’s a story. It’s visual, it’s emotional. It’s something you can put on a brochure. It’s not a spreadsheet, it’s a solution that feels like a poem. Michael: Exactly. And the world agreed. Field founded an organization, PlayPumps International. He won a World Bank award. The Case Foundation, founded by the co-founder of AOL, got on board. First Lady Laura Bush awarded the project a $16.4 million grant. Jay-Z and Bill Clinton were promoting it. The goal was to install 4,000 of these pumps across Africa by 2010. It was the darling of the development world. Kevin: A Hollywood movie couldn't have written a better script. The hero's journey for a water pump. Michael: But then, reality hit. Reports from UNICEF and other independent groups started trickling in. They found that the PlayPump was, to put it mildly, a disaster. First, it wasn't fun. To meet the water needs of a village, the merry-go-round had to be spun for 27 hours a day. It wasn't play; it was grueling, relentless work. Children got tired, bored, or dizzy. So who ended up pushing it? The women. The very people it was meant to liberate from the chore of pumping water. One woman in Mozambique was quoted saying, "From five A.M., we are in the fields, working for six hours. Then we come to this pump and have to turn it. Your arms start to hurt. The old hand pump was much easier." Kevin: So the "PlayPump" was actually the "Forced-Labor-Pump-That-Looks-Like-a-Toy." Michael: Precisely. And it got worse. The pumps were four times more expensive than traditional, effective hand pumps. They broke down constantly, and because the technology was unique, local mechanics couldn't fix them. So villages were left with a broken, multi-thousand-dollar piece of playground equipment and no water at all. The US arm of the organization shut down, a complete and total failure despite the best intentions on Earth. Kevin: It's the perfect trap, isn't it? The PlayPump is a beautiful, marketable story. It’s easy to understand, it feels innovative. Now, contrast that with the other story MacAskill tells—the Deworm the World Initiative. Michael: Right. This is the anti-PlayPump. It was started by economists Michael Kremer and Rachel Glennerster. They weren't looking for a sexy idea; they were looking for what worked. They went to Kenya and used randomized controlled trials—the same method used to test new medicines—on development aid. They tested giving schools more textbooks. The result? No significant improvement in test scores. They tested providing flip charts. Nothing. Kevin: This is the boring part of science that nobody wants to fund. The part where you find out all your favorite ideas are wrong. Michael: But then they tested something else. They noticed many kids were infected with parasitic worms, which are incredibly common and make children sick and anemic. So they ran a trial giving kids a simple, cheap deworming pill that costs less than fifty cents. The results were staggering. School absenteeism dropped by 25%. It was, by far, the most cost-effective way to increase school attendance they found. And the long-term benefits were even more incredible. Years later, the kids who were dewormed were working more hours and earning 20% more income. Kevin: And let's be honest, "deworming" is, as one person in the book says, "probably the least sexy development program there is." You can't put that on a holiday card. There’s no celebrity endorsement for intestinal parasites. But it works. Michael: And that’s the core lesson. MacAskill's point is that the charity world lacks the brutal feedback mechanism of the free market. If the PlayPump were a business selling a bad product, it would go bankrupt. But in the world of charity, it can thrive for years on good intentions and a compelling story alone. We are drawn to the story of the PlayPump, but the data screams that we should be funding the deworming pills. It’s a battle between our heart and our head. Kevin: And effective altruism is the argument that, when it comes to helping others, our head needs to be in charge. Our heart can point us in the direction of compassion, but our brain has to drive the car. Because if it doesn't, we might just drive right off a cliff.

Kevin: And this leads to the book's most mind-bending and empowering idea. If some charities are hundreds of times more effective than others, what does that really mean for us, as individuals? The answer starts with a fact that might make you a bit uncomfortable: if you earn more than $52,000 a year, you are, on a global scale, the 1%. Michael: That number is always shocking. We think of the 1% as people with yachts and private jets. But globally, because of extreme income disparity, a typical professional in a wealthy country is among the world's super-rich. Even someone earning just $11,000 a year in the US—below the poverty line—is still richer than 85% of the world's population. Kevin: And this isn't just a guilt trip. It's the setup for what MacAskill calls the "100x Multiplier." The logic is based on a simple economic principle: the diminishing marginal utility of money. Think of it this way: if you're dying of thirst, the first bottle of water is a lifesaver. The tenth bottle of water is... just another bottle of water. The water is the same, but its value to you has plummeted. Michael: So a dollar is like that bottle of water. For us, an extra dollar might buy a slightly fancier coffee. It's nice, but it doesn't fundamentally change our day. For someone living on less than $2 a day, that same dollar can mean the difference between eating or not eating, or buying essential medicine for their child. Kevin: MacAskill estimates that, because of this effect, a dollar can benefit someone in extreme poverty at least one hundred times more than it can benefit you. This means you have a superpower. You have the ability to do at least 100 times as much good for others as you can for yourself. Your money is more powerful when you give it away effectively. Michael: That's a complete paradigm shift. It's not just about giving; it's about strategic investment in human well-being. The idea that my dollar is 100 times more powerful in one place than another feels like discovering a secret ability I never knew I had. Kevin: But to wield that superpower, you have to ask the right questions. The book outlines five, but two are especially crucial for shaking up our thinking. The first is: What would have happened otherwise? This is about thinking in counterfactuals. He tells the story of the eradication of smallpox, one of the greatest achievements in human history. Most people credit D.A. Henderson, the American who led the WHO's campaign. And he was a hero. Michael: But MacAskill argues the real hero might be an unknown Ukrainian virologist named Viktor Zhdanov. In 1958, at the height of the Cold War, Zhdanov stood before the World Health Assembly and did something no one had done before: he proposed a concrete, funded plan for the global eradication of smallpox. It was his push that set the entire multi-decade process in motion. Kevin: So the counterfactual question is: if Henderson hadn't led the campaign, someone else probably would have. The momentum was there. But if Zhdanov hadn't made that initial, audacious proposal, would the campaign have ever started? Maybe not. His impact, the difference he made, was arguably greater because he was the spark. The true measure of your good is the difference between what happens with you, and what would have happened without you. Michael: That’s a humbling thought, especially when you apply it to careers. You might become a doctor and save lives, but if you just took a spot that another qualified person would have filled, your net impact is only the difference in skill between you and them, which might be very small. Kevin: Exactly. And the second key question is: Is this area neglected? This is about diminishing returns. The book uses the example of disaster relief. In 2011, the Tōhoku earthquake in Japan killed 15,000 people. In 2010, the earthquake in Haiti killed over 150,000 people. Japan is a very wealthy country; Haiti is the poorest in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, international aid to both disasters was roughly the same—about $5 billion each. Michael: Why? Media attention. Japan was all over the news. But a dollar given to Haiti, a deeply impoverished and neglected country, would have gone infinitely further than a dollar given to Japan, which actually stated it didn't require external assistance. Kevin: It shows our donations follow the spotlight, not the need. Effective altruism argues we should do the opposite: run towards the neglected problems, because that's where our dollar, our superpower, has the most leverage. But it also feels like a huge responsibility, doesn't it? Once you know this, you can't unknow it.

Michael: So if we have this superpower, and we know we need to think with our heads, how do we use this beyond just writing a check? MacAskill argues we need to apply this same ruthless logic to our biggest life choices, starting with one of the most cherished pieces of advice you'll ever hear. Kevin: He comes right out and says it: "Don't follow your passion." He calls it terrible advice. And his reasoning is threefold. First, a study of college students found that while 84% had a passion, 90% of those passions were in sports, music, and art. But only 3% of jobs are in those fields. The math just doesn't work. Michael: Second, our passions change. What you love at 22 is probably not what you'll love at 42. And third, and most importantly, research on job satisfaction shows that passion isn't the cause of a great job; it's often the effect. Kevin: Right. Job satisfaction comes from specific features of the work: things like autonomy, a sense of completion, variety, feedback from your work, and feeling like you're contributing. Steve Jobs didn't start Apple because he had a lifelong passion for electronics; he was into Zen Buddhism. He got into electronics to make some cash, the business took off, he got good at it, and the passion grew from his success and engagement. So instead of looking for a job that matches your passion, MacAskill says, look for a job with the features that create passion, and where you can have a big impact. Michael: And this counter-intuitive logic extends to our shopping carts and our ethical consumerism. This is probably the most uncomfortable part of the book for many people. He makes a moral case for sweatshop goods. Kevin: It sounds completely backwards, but the logic is pure effective altruism. It’s all about the counterfactual: what is the alternative? When we boycott a company that uses sweatshops, we imagine the workers leaving that factory for a better job. But in many of the poorest parts of the world, the alternative isn't a better job. The book tells the story of Pim Srey Rath, a Cambodian woman scavenging for plastic in a sweltering, toxic garbage dump. Her dream? To get a job in a factory. To her, the sweatshop, with its shade and steady pay, was a massive step up. Michael: And there's hard evidence for this. In 1993, the threat of a US bill banning child labor goods caused garment factories in Bangladesh to fire 50,000 children. A UNICEF study followed up to see what happened to them. They didn't go back to school. Most ended up in far worse situations: working in unregistered workshops with worse conditions, or even worse, street hustling and prostitution. The "ethical" action had devastating, unintended consequences. Kevin: The point isn't that sweatshops are good. They're not. The point is that they are often the lesser of two evils, and a crucial rung on the ladder of economic development that virtually every wealthy country, including the US, had to climb. The solution isn't to boycott and kick away the ladder, but to donate to effective charities that accelerate that country's development, so no one needs that rung anymore. Michael: It forces you to separate the emotional reaction from the logical outcome. It feels good to buy the "sweatshop-free" t-shirt. It might do more good to buy the cheaper shirt and donate the difference to an effective development charity. Kevin: And that leads to the ultimate application of this logic: a career path called "Earning to Give." This is the idea that for some people, the most ethical career path might be to become a highly-paid software engineer or investment banker, live modestly, and donate a huge portion of their income to the most effective charities in the world. The doctor who takes a job in a rural clinic might save a few lives directly. The banker who donates half their salary could fund the saving of hundreds of lives. It's not as romantic, but the math can be undeniable.

Kevin: So, when you pull it all together, it all comes back to a fundamental shift in mindset. It’s a move from the heart to the head. It's about evolving from asking "What feels good?" or "What's a good story?" to asking the much harder, more important question: "What does the most good, according to the evidence?" Michael: It's a framework that applies everywhere. With the PlayPump, it was asking for the data, not just the brochure. With our own wealth, it's recognizing the superpower of the 100x multiplier. With our careers, it's questioning whether "following our passion" is really the most impactful path. Kevin: It’s about treating charity with the same seriousness we'd treat a major financial investment. You wouldn't invest your life savings based on a company's heartwarming commercial; you'd look at their performance, their numbers, their track record. MacAskill is just asking us to give the project of improving the world that same level of respect and rigor. Michael: And he leaves us with this powerful idea that we are living in a unique historical moment. We have access to unprecedented wealth and information. The question is no longer if we can make a difference, but how much of a difference we are willing to make. So the next time you think about donating, or choosing a job, or making an ethical choice, don't just ask if it's a good cause. Ask yourself: Is this the most effective thing I can do? The answer could change a life. It might even save one.