Frugality vs ambition, longtermism, and mental health under pressure | Will MacAskill (2022)

Book Production and Rigor

• Will MacAskill spent approximately 2020–2021 (roughly two years) exclusively writing What We Owe the Future, treating the pandemic as a unique opportunity to dedicate 90% of his time to the project.
• The book production involved a "small army" of collaborators, including a chief of staff (Luisa Rodriguez, later Max Daniel), full-time researchers with specific topic expertise (e.g., John Halstead for climate change, Steven Claire for great power war), and a dedicated fact-checker.
• MacAskill estimates that fact-checking alone consumed nearly one year of effort, highlighting a systematic rigor that far exceeds the industry norm where only a tiny percentage of non-fiction books undergo professional fact-checking.
• The rigorous process led to the removal of interesting but unsubstantiated claims, including discussions on "citation chains to nowhere" such as the historical misinterpretation of the "five-micron rule" in airborne disease transmission.
• The book aims to address "value lock-in" and the contingency of moral values, challenging the assumption that modern values will inevitably converge to the "right" answer in the long-term future.

Moral Contingency and Historical Examples

• MacAskill argues that moral values are highly contingent on historical accident rather than inevitable convergence, using the "Happy Birthday" melody and neckties as analogies for arbitrarily selected norms that persist due to path dependence.
• A central thesis is that the abolition of slavery was not economically inevitable (contrary to the "Eric Williams" thesis that industrialization made slavery obsolete) but was the result of a specific, contingent abolitionist campaign originating with Quakers in Pennsylvania.
• MacAskill suggests that without this specific campaign, slavery might have persisted for centuries or never ended, citing that the slave trade was booming and sugar consumption (and profits) were at their peak in Britain at the time of abolition.
• The conversation explores "suffering-focused ethics," noting that under moral uncertainty, one might assign higher weight to avoiding existential suffering (S-risks) than creating existential happiness, though a mixed view assigning extra weight to downsides is preferred over prioritizing suffering exclusively.

Future Fund Operations and Strategy

• MacAskill serves as an advisor to the Future Fund, a grant-making vehicle backed by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and Nick Beckstead, with an initial focus on scaling effective altruism (EA) projects.
• The Future Fund received 1,800 applications in its first open call, with 90% of recipients responding within 14 days, and is currently working through complex judgments on the remaining applications.
• A strategic shift in grant-making involves moving from "cost-effectiveness" (benefit per dollar) to "total impact" (benefit minus cost), prioritizing "massively scalable projects" (or "mega projects") that can absorb large sums of capital, even if they are slightly less cost-effective per dollar than existing marginal projects.
• The fund is prioritizing areas like bio-risk reduction (e.g., physical countermeasures like far-UV radiation), forecasting training, and "EA criticism" to encourage independent research into core EA beliefs, though MacAskill notes surprisingly low uptake for the latter despite explicit funding offers.
• MacAskill expresses support for "patient philanthropy" but argues that due to the massive scale of assets (which have grown significantly), the fund must scale giving rapidly now to avoid missing high-impact opportunities and to build movement momentum, which yields higher returns than financial compounding.
• Decisions on bio-risk funding favor physical countermeasures over biomedical ones due to dual-use risks and the likelihood that worst-case pathogens could bypass medical countermeasures.

Culture of Ambition and Risk-Taking

• MacAskill advocates for a "culture of ambition" within EA, urging individuals to aim for high-risk, high-reward career paths (e.g., starting companies, entering high-level politics) rather than "safe" careers, based on the fat-tailed distribution of impact.
• He argues that the expected value of altruism comes from the best-case outcomes, which are disproportionately large, making "swinging for the fences" the rational choice even if the probability of success is low (e.g., SBF's 20% success estimate for FTX still yielded higher expected value than staying at a quantitative trading firm).
• The influx of capital creates a risk of "mission drift" and reduced evolutionary pressure to shut down ineffective projects; MacAskill highlights the importance of celebrating organizations that voluntarily shut down (e.g., No Lean Season) and creating "exit grants" for honorable failures.
• There is a tension between maintaining "moral seriousness" (e.g., frugal lifestyle, low salaries) as a signal of virtue and the practical need to invest in personal productivity (e.g., business class travel, good equipment) to maximize output in high-stakes roles.

Personal Well-being and Career Advice

• MacAskill, who suffered from depression as a teenager and undergraduate, attributes his current happiness (estimating himself 5–10 times happier than 13 years ago) to specific mental health interventions: therapy, medication, meditation, and learning to override the "self-flagellation" instinct.
• He emphasizes the importance of having a "portfolio" of identities outside of work (e.g., music, friendships from school) to prevent burnout and ensure resilience when work efforts fail or face setbacks.
• MacAskill discusses the "perverse incentive" where successful altruists face increasing pressure to work harder as their potential impact grows, contrasting this with the "retirement" logic of maximizing personal wealth.
• He expresses a desire to focus on "weird MacAskill" research: broad, deep investigations into fundamental worldviews (like AI takeoff speeds or the nature of value) rather than narrow case studies, potentially through a new research institute or university model.

Specific Grants and Projects

• MacAskill highlights the "Lead Exposure Elimination Project" in Malawi as a concrete win, where a small team convinced the government to enforce existing regulations against lead paint, a highly cost-effective intervention for health and brain development.
• He points to the "Shrimp Welfare Project" as an example of EA groups tackling ignored animal welfare issues (crustaceans) with potential for economic efficiency.
• The "Media" project, led by Natalie Cargill and involving Joseph Gordon-Levitt, aims to produce documentaries and fiction that influence public discourse on existential risk, leveraging the cultural impact of media like Don't Look Up or Ghost Fleet.

Future Directions and Disagreements

• MacAskill anticipates focusing on career advising for young people, viewing the cultivation of "morally serious and intellectually curious" individuals as a top priority.
• He notes a key disagreement with Nick Beckstead regarding grant evaluation: MacAskill prioritizes past track records and personnel, while Beckstead places more weight on future plans and strategies.
• MacAskill disagrees with Nick Beckstead on "convergence" vs. "contingency" of values, aligning more with Sam Bankman-Fried in believing that the long-term future is highly sensitive to who is in charge during critical junctures.
• He mentions a personal interest in the history of the potato, noting its role as a "superfood" that catalyzed population growth and urbanization in Europe, though this content was largely cut from his book due to space constraints.
• Correction note: MacAskill initially mentioned the Jain religion originating around 4000 BC, but transcript corrections indicate the origin is more likely 500–800 BC.