What we can all do right now to save a life

To celebrate the 10^th anniversary of Innovators Magazine in 2025, every month this year we will publish some of our milestone moments: the stories, podcasts, initiatives, projects and partners that have shaped our journey so far. Here’s a podcast from 2021 with the father of effective altruism.

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(this article was first published in 2021):

The Life You Can Save is a book millions worldwide use to do just that. It is the goto text for effective altruism (EA) the act of doing the most good, and its author, Peter Singer, regarded as one of the world’s most influential moral philosophers, and the father of effective altruism, is my guest on Inside Ideas.

Global movement

The ebook and audio versions of a book, which tells people how to lift people out of poverty, are available free through the Life You Can Save charity, thanks to Professor Singer’s decision to buy the rights. Among the celebrity audiobook narrators are Stephen Fry and Kristen Bell.

I think we can get to a better world that isn’t imperilled like the one we’re living in now is.

Peter Singer

“We have a whole movement called effective altruism that talks about how to be the most effective altruists. Not only in terms of giving away money and doing some good but in making sure you are getting the best value for everything that you give. And that kind of idea applied to global poverty is in the book. It recommends and talks about some of these charities and directs you to our website where you can get the latest updated recommendations plus – you don’t have to pay.”

There are also lots of EA groups worldwide from ‘small social groups to larger professional networks’ – find one near you.

Animal suffering

Labelled by PETA a ‘philosophical bombshell which forever changed the conversation about our treatment of animals’, Singer’s book, Animal Liberation, included by Time in its 2011 all-time top 100 best nonfiction books published in English, speaks to one of the key priorities for the EA movement.

“There are a lot of really bad things we are doing to animals, but – there’s an opportunity here, to eat less meat, as it is one of the easiest ways we could do to take out 15% of the greenhouse gas emissions that are going into the atmosphere right now without sacrificing anything,” said Singer. “It would be much better than some of the other things we think about and is a win-win for everyone.”

For more win-wins, watch my podcast with one of the greatest philosophical thinkers of our time.