by Lukas Gloor and Adriano Mannino The previous posts in this series have outlined some of the ways poker benefits people. The first post centered on poker’s economic contributions to society, the second one on a comparison between poker and tennis – both activities that can be done as a hobby or professionally. What has […]
Read more
This is part III of a series on the importance of rationality and applied rational decision-making (see part I, part II). Why we have biases We have biases because our brain-design dates back to the stone age. Our intuitive decision-making consists of shortcuts, heuristics, that led to successful gene-copying more often than not in our […]
Read more
This is part II of a little series on the importance of rationality and applied rational decision-making (click here for part I). Optimal decision-making Perhaps the misconception that rationality is associated with e.g. robot-like Mr. Spock comes from having unrealistic standards. The normative model of rationality describes ideal decision-making. Humans are far from ideal thinkers, […]
Read more
On December 26th, 1983, the Soviet early-warning system for nuclear attacks reported a missile being launched from the United States. Shortly after, the system reported four more missiles underway. Stanislas Petrov, the sole officer on duty, was confronted with a monumental decision: Should he follow proper procedure and raise alarm, alerting the highest military officials […]
Read more
Start here for part I on splitting. If people have several motivations for donating to charity, sometimes it might make sense to split donations in order to optimize the outcome for each motivation separately. Our previous post looked at splitting one’s donation budget from the perspective of wanting to achieve the most in terms of […]
Read more
Should we put all our dollars into one charity, or does it make more sense to diversify our charitable investment? The answer to this question depends on both the personal goals that motivate one’s donations, as well as on the specifics of the charities in question. 1. The goal: helping others Let’s first consider the […]
Read more
Raising for Effective Giving seeks to promote a new way of thinking about charity. Our approach is best characterized by two main features: 1. Unusual cost-effectiveness 2. Unusual commitment Neither of the two is in itself new or revolutionary, but combined and applied in the domain of charity, these two principles distinguish REG from more […]
Read more