Sometimes, when the forecast says there’s a 1% chance of rain, it still rains. Andrew Snyder-Beattie, head of the biosecurity programme at Open Philanthropy, argues that we’re facing a 1–3% chance of human extinction via biological catastrophe in our lifetime. 

Fortunately, there are some low-tech and cheap ways we can prepare humanity for possibly catastrophic pandemics. Snyder-Beattie called them ‘four pillars’:

1. PPE: Stockpile elastomeric respirators—highly effective masks that can protect entire populations from an airborne pandemic for 50 cents per person. 
2. Biohardening buildings: Propylene glycol vapour (which was new to me) is a human-safe vapour which kills airborne pathogens. The US already produces enough, for use in vapes and smoke machines, to cover all industrial buildings, as well as most residential. Snyder-Beattie discusses other low-tech solutions for extreme situations, like a powerful air filtration system built from household insulation and a leaf blower. 
3. Early detection: ‘Stealth pandemics’, which can infect many people before their deadly effects show, are particularly dangerous: by the time we can react, many of us are already infected. To fight these, early detection, via wastewater sequencing, is extremely important.
4. Medical countermeasures (vaccines, treatments): We are fast at building vaccines, but not fast enough for the worst pandemics (or worse, for many at once). The other three pillars reduce the risk of pandemics, and buy us time to build medical countermeasures in the worst case. 

Good news—we have a plan. Bad news—fewer than 100 people are working on preventing worst-case biological catastrophes full time. You could increase that number by 1%: express your interest to work on biosecurity, Open Philanthropy reads every response.   

GiveDirectly, a charity which gives cash to people in extreme poverty, is entering the next phase of a >5 year project to (a) directly help people in extreme poverty in Malawi and (b) test the effectiveness of large-scale cash transfers. They’ve just finished an experiment where they gave $550 to each adult in the Khongoni subdistrict. That’s 72,000 people, the same amount as live in Gosport, UK, where my Nan lives. 

In Khongoni, unlike in Gosport, $550 (on average) doubled the annual income of the recipients. Before the transfer, 18% of adults in Khongoni lived on more than $3 a day. Three months after the transfer, 90% of them did. Recipients started businesses, bought livestock, planted crops, rebuilt their homes with water-proof roofs, etc… 

What about inflation? Did businesses raise their prices to take advantage of the windfall, as you might expect? In this case, no. Vendors knew that the money was a one-off, and they wanted to maintain trust by not raising prices. Recipients were also able to visit different markets, meaning that vendors were still in competition. Overall, inflation rose by about 1%, and had fallen to zero after five months. 

GiveDirectly is now planning to deliver $550 to every adult across an entire district, aiming to reach 185,000 people in Chiradzulu by early 2027 (15K more than the population of Oxford, where I’m writing from). 

GiveDirectly can always use more funding. You can read more about their work in Malawi, and donate, here. 

In the spirit of CEA’s stories campaign, I’m featuring the Lives Well Lived podcast by Peter Singer and Kasia de Lazari-Radek, which this week profiles two very effective altruists: Julia van Boven, co-founder of the School for Moral Ambition and Sjir Hoeijmakers, CEO of Giving What We Can. 

The School for Moral Ambition supports professionals who want to switch into impactful career paths. Giving What We Can encourages people to donate 10% (or more) of their income to highly effective charities. 

In this episode, Julia and Sjir discuss how they got to the jobs they have, and how they think about doing good. I was particularly interested in Julia’s story of how she set up a sustainable finance desk at a major Dutch bank, and I was struck by Sjir’s unusual birthday request: he asked his friends to give him 30 minutes to pitch them on effective giving. 

If you’d like to learn more:

• You can listen to the podcast here,
• Check out the School for Moral Ambition.
• Or read about Giving What We Can. 

Ambitious Impact (AIM)

• Recruitment Manager (London, UK preferred / Remote, GBP £40K–£50K, apply by October 26th)
• Research Managers (London, UK preferred / Remote, GBP £40K–£50K, apply by October 26th)

Anthropic

• Research Engineer / Scientist, Model Welfare (Hybrid in San Francisco, CA, USD $315K–$340K)

Evidence Action

• Director, Institutional Philanthropy (Remote (US), USD $140K–$155K)
• Global (Senior) Director, Accelerator (Remote, USD $130K–$180K)

Fish Welfare Initiative

• Exploratory Programs Lead (Remote-friendly with ≥3h overlap with IST; 4 months/year in Eluru, India, USD $40K–$80K, apply by November 9th)

Forethought

• Research Fellows (remote / Oxford or Berkeley preferred, GBP £80K–£150K, apply by November 2nd)

Givewell

• Program Associate (Remote, USD $98.6K–$108.8K)
• Office and Events Manager (Hybrid in Oakland, CA, USD $105K)
• Research Analyst (Remote (Oakland, CA / Brooklyn, NY / London, UK), USD $98.6K–$108.8K)
• Philanthropy Associate (Remote within US, USD $117K–$129.2K)
• Senior Technology & IT Specialist (Remote within US, USD $118.1K–$130.2K)

Impact Ops

• Chief of Staff (Remote, GBP £60K–£75K, apply by November 1st)

Kairos

• Founding Generalist (Remote, USD $90K–$150K, apply by November 4th)
• SPAR Part-Time Contractor (Remote (Part-time), USD $25–$45/hour, apply by November 4th)

Open Philanthropy

• Policy Advisor / Senior Policy Advisor, AI Governance and Policy (Hybrid in Washington, D.C., USD $184K–$224.6K, apply by October 26th)

We hope you found this edition useful!

If you’ve taken action because of the Newsletter and haven’t taken our impact survey, please do — it helps us improve future editions.

Finally, if you have any feedback for us, positive or negative, let us know!

– Toby, for the Effective Altruism Newsletter