WEBVTT 00:00:00.868 --> 00:00:04.473 There's something that I'd like you to see. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:04.473 --> 00:00:06.957 (Video) Reporter: It's a story that's deeply unsettled 00:00:06.957 --> 00:00:09.011 millions in China: 00:00:09.011 --> 00:00:10.891 footage of a two-year-old girl 00:00:10.891 --> 00:00:15.443 hit by a van and left bleeding in the street by passersby, 00:00:15.443 --> 00:00:18.683 footage too graphic to be shown. 00:00:18.683 --> 00:00:21.363 The entire accident is caught on camera. 00:00:21.363 --> 00:00:24.171 The driver pauses after hitting the child, 00:00:24.171 --> 00:00:28.083 his back wheels seen resting on her for over a second. 00:00:28.083 --> 00:00:32.028 Within two minutes, three people pass two-year-old Wang Yue by. 00:00:32.028 --> 00:00:35.712 The first walks around the badly injured toddler completely. 00:00:35.712 --> 00:00:39.035 Others look at her before moving off. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:41.540 --> 00:00:42.807 Peter Singer: There were other people 00:00:42.807 --> 00:00:45.134 who walked past Wang Yue, 00:00:45.134 --> 00:00:46.853 and a second van ran over her legs 00:00:46.853 --> 00:00:50.069 before a street cleaner raised the alarm. 00:00:50.069 --> 00:00:55.270 She was rushed to hospital, but it was too late. She died. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:55.270 --> 00:00:59.078 I wonder how many of you, looking at that, 00:00:59.078 --> 00:01:02.761 said to yourselves just now, "I would not have done that. 00:01:02.761 --> 00:01:04.965 I would have stopped to help." 00:01:04.965 --> 00:01:08.865 Raise your hands if that thought occurred to you. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:08.865 --> 00:01:11.741 As I thought, that's most of you. 00:01:11.741 --> 00:01:13.708 And I believe you. I'm sure you're right. 00:01:13.708 --> 00:01:16.947 But before you give yourself too much credit, 00:01:16.947 --> 00:01:18.609 look at this. 00:01:18.609 --> 00:01:22.785 UNICEF reports that in 2011, 00:01:22.785 --> 00:01:26.734 6.9 million children under five 00:01:26.734 --> 00:01:32.186 died from preventable, poverty-related diseases. 00:01:32.186 --> 00:01:34.448 UNICEF thinks that that's good news 00:01:34.448 --> 00:01:37.626 because the figure has been steadily coming down 00:01:37.626 --> 00:01:41.679 from 12 million in 1990. That is good. 00:01:41.679 --> 00:01:44.783 But still, 6.9 million 00:01:44.783 --> 00:01:50.107 is 19,000 children dying every day. 00:01:50.107 --> 00:01:52.893 Does it really matter 00:01:52.893 --> 00:01:55.798 that we're not walking past them in the street? 00:01:55.798 --> 00:02:01.016 Does it really matter that they're far away? 00:02:01.016 --> 00:02:04.434 I don't think it does make a morally relevant difference. 00:02:04.434 --> 00:02:06.842 The fact that they're not right in front of us, 00:02:06.842 --> 00:02:09.003 the fact, of course, that they're of a different nationality 00:02:09.003 --> 00:02:12.978 or race, none of that seems morally relevant to me. 00:02:12.978 --> 00:02:14.498 What is really important is, 00:02:14.498 --> 00:02:18.763 can we reduce that death toll? Can we save 00:02:18.763 --> 00:02:23.729 some of those 19,000 children dying every day? NOTE Paragraph 00:02:23.729 --> 00:02:27.347 And the answer is, yes we can. 00:02:27.347 --> 00:02:29.890 Each of us spends money 00:02:29.890 --> 00:02:32.071 on things that we do not really need. 00:02:32.071 --> 00:02:34.003 You can think what your own habit is, 00:02:34.003 --> 00:02:36.568 whether it's a new car, a vacation 00:02:36.568 --> 00:02:39.248 or just something like buying bottled water 00:02:39.248 --> 00:02:41.271 when the water that comes out of the tap 00:02:41.271 --> 00:02:43.801 is perfectly safe to drink. 00:02:43.801 --> 00:02:45.448 You could take the money you're spending 00:02:45.448 --> 00:02:47.343 on those unnecessary things 00:02:47.343 --> 00:02:49.709 and give it to this organization, 00:02:49.709 --> 00:02:52.636 the Against Malaria Foundation, 00:02:52.636 --> 00:02:55.208 which would take the money you had given 00:02:55.208 --> 00:02:58.911 and use it to buy nets like this one 00:02:58.911 --> 00:03:02.450 to protect children like this one, 00:03:02.450 --> 00:03:06.746 and we know reliably that if we provide nets, 00:03:06.746 --> 00:03:10.148 they're used, and they reduce the number of children 00:03:10.148 --> 00:03:12.604 dying from malaria, 00:03:12.604 --> 00:03:15.412 just one of the many preventable diseases 00:03:15.412 --> 00:03:19.364 that are responsible for some of those 19,000 children 00:03:19.364 --> 00:03:23.012 dying every day. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:23.012 --> 00:03:25.196 Fortunately, more and more people 00:03:25.196 --> 00:03:27.710 are understanding this idea, 00:03:27.710 --> 00:03:31.028 and the result is a growing movement: 00:03:31.028 --> 00:03:33.684 effective altruism. 00:03:33.684 --> 00:03:38.068 It's important because it combines both the heart and the head. 00:03:38.068 --> 00:03:39.779 The heart, of course, you felt. 00:03:39.779 --> 00:03:42.922 You felt the empathy for that child. 00:03:42.922 --> 00:03:46.956 But it's really important to use the head as well 00:03:46.956 --> 00:03:51.749 to make sure that what you do is effective and well-directed, 00:03:51.749 --> 00:03:56.083 and not only that, but also I think reason helps us 00:03:56.083 --> 00:03:59.852 to understand that other people, wherever they are, 00:03:59.852 --> 00:04:03.443 are like us, that they can suffer as we can, 00:04:03.443 --> 00:04:06.116 that parents grieve for the deaths of their children, 00:04:06.116 --> 00:04:07.919 as we do, 00:04:07.919 --> 00:04:12.137 and that just as our lives and our well-being matter to us, 00:04:12.137 --> 00:04:15.380 it matters just as much to all of these people. 00:04:15.380 --> 00:04:18.448 So I think reason is not just some neutral tool 00:04:18.448 --> 00:04:19.943 to help you get whatever you want. 00:04:19.943 --> 00:04:24.573 It does help us to put perspective on our situation. 00:04:24.573 --> 00:04:26.452 And I think that's why 00:04:26.452 --> 00:04:31.458 many of the most significant people in effective altruism 00:04:31.458 --> 00:04:33.842 have been people who have had backgrounds 00:04:33.842 --> 00:04:38.580 in philosophy or economics or math. 00:04:38.580 --> 00:04:40.045 And that might seem surprising, 00:04:40.045 --> 00:04:41.378 because a lot of people think, 00:04:41.378 --> 00:04:45.191 "Philosophy is remote from the real world; 00:04:45.191 --> 00:04:49.134 economics, we're told, just makes us more selfish, 00:04:49.134 --> 00:04:52.665 and we know that math is for nerds." 00:04:52.665 --> 00:04:55.423 But in fact it does make a difference, 00:04:55.423 --> 00:04:57.359 and in fact there's one particular nerd 00:04:57.359 --> 00:05:01.579 who has been a particularly effective altruist 00:05:01.579 --> 00:05:03.496 because he got this. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:03.496 --> 00:05:06.775 This is the website of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 00:05:06.775 --> 00:05:10.571 and if you look at the words on the top right-hand side, 00:05:10.571 --> 00:05:14.498 it says, "All lives have equal value." 00:05:14.498 --> 00:05:16.367 That's the understanding, 00:05:16.367 --> 00:05:19.989 the rational understanding of our situation in the world 00:05:19.989 --> 00:05:22.250 that has led to these people 00:05:22.250 --> 00:05:26.931 being the most effective altruists in history, 00:05:26.931 --> 00:05:29.603 Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:29.603 --> 00:05:35.736 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:35.736 --> 00:05:39.905 No one, not Andrew Carnegie, not John D. Rockefeller, 00:05:39.905 --> 00:05:42.563 has ever given as much to charity 00:05:42.563 --> 00:05:45.811 as each one of these three, 00:05:45.811 --> 00:05:48.563 and they have used their intelligence 00:05:48.563 --> 00:05:52.643 to make sure that it is highly effective. 00:05:52.643 --> 00:05:55.731 According to one estimate, the Gates Foundation 00:05:55.731 --> 00:05:59.539 has already saved 5.8 million lives 00:05:59.539 --> 00:06:02.697 and many millions more, people, getting diseases 00:06:02.697 --> 00:06:04.224 that would have made them very sick, 00:06:04.224 --> 00:06:07.475 even if eventually they survived. 00:06:07.475 --> 00:06:10.075 Over the coming years, undoubtably the Gates Foundation 00:06:10.075 --> 00:06:12.739 is going to give a lot more, 00:06:12.739 --> 00:06:16.714 is going to save a lot more lives. 00:06:16.714 --> 00:06:20.956 Well, you might say, that's fine if you're a billionaire, 00:06:20.956 --> 00:06:23.380 you can have that kind of impact. 00:06:23.380 --> 00:06:26.328 But if I'm not, what can I do? 00:06:26.328 --> 00:06:29.652 So I'm going to look at four questions that people ask 00:06:29.652 --> 00:06:33.100 that maybe stand in the way of them giving. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:33.100 --> 00:06:35.467 They worry how much of a difference they can make. 00:06:35.467 --> 00:06:38.692 But you don't have to be a billionaire. 00:06:38.692 --> 00:06:42.356 This is Toby Ord. He's a research fellow in philosophy 00:06:42.356 --> 00:06:44.382 at the University of Oxford. 00:06:44.382 --> 00:06:47.970 He became an effective altruist when he calculated 00:06:47.970 --> 00:06:50.245 that with the money that he was likely to earn 00:06:50.245 --> 00:06:52.645 throughout his career, an academic career, 00:06:52.645 --> 00:06:59.312 he could give enough to cure 80,000 people of blindness 00:06:59.312 --> 00:07:01.358 in developing countries 00:07:01.358 --> 00:07:03.631 and still have enough left 00:07:03.631 --> 00:07:08.355 for a perfectly adequate standard of living. 00:07:08.355 --> 00:07:10.352 So Toby founded an organization 00:07:10.352 --> 00:07:14.438 called Giving What We Can to spread this information, 00:07:14.438 --> 00:07:18.364 to unite people who want to share some of their income, 00:07:18.364 --> 00:07:21.077 and to ask people to pledge to give 10 percent 00:07:21.077 --> 00:07:23.188 of what they earn over their lifetime 00:07:23.188 --> 00:07:26.509 to fighting global poverty. 00:07:26.509 --> 00:07:28.948 Toby himself does better than that. 00:07:28.948 --> 00:07:33.348 He's pledged to live on 18,000 pounds a year -- 00:07:33.348 --> 00:07:36.092 that's less than 30,000 dollars -- 00:07:36.092 --> 00:07:39.492 and to give the rest to those organizations. 00:07:39.492 --> 00:07:45.066 And yes, Toby is married and he does have a mortgage. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:45.066 --> 00:07:48.711 This is a couple at a later stage of life, 00:07:48.711 --> 00:07:51.707 Charlie Bresler and Diana Schott, 00:07:51.707 --> 00:07:53.234 who, when they were young, when they met, 00:07:53.234 --> 00:07:56.388 were activists against the Vietnam War, 00:07:56.388 --> 00:07:58.367 fought for social justice, 00:07:58.367 --> 00:08:01.251 and then moved into careers, as most people do, 00:08:01.251 --> 00:08:04.860 didn't really do anything very active about those values, 00:08:04.860 --> 00:08:07.699 although they didn't abandon them. 00:08:07.699 --> 00:08:10.078 And then, as they got to the age at which many people 00:08:10.078 --> 00:08:13.484 start to think of retirement, they returned to them, 00:08:13.484 --> 00:08:16.648 and they've decided to cut back on their spending, 00:08:16.648 --> 00:08:21.793 to live modestly, and to give both money and time 00:08:21.793 --> 00:08:26.671 to helping to fight global poverty. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:26.671 --> 00:08:29.713 Now, mentioning time might lead you to think, 00:08:29.713 --> 00:08:33.337 "Well, should I abandon my career and put all of my time 00:08:33.337 --> 00:08:36.542 into saving some of these 19,000 lives 00:08:36.542 --> 00:08:38.205 that are lost every day?" 00:08:38.205 --> 00:08:40.907 One person who's thought quite a bit about this issue 00:08:40.907 --> 00:08:43.730 of how you can have a career that will have 00:08:43.730 --> 00:08:47.451 the biggest impact for good in the world is Will Crouch. 00:08:47.451 --> 00:08:50.107 He's a graduate student in philosophy, 00:08:50.107 --> 00:08:54.459 and he's set up a website called 80,000 Hours, 00:08:54.459 --> 00:08:56.133 the number of hours he estimates 00:08:56.133 --> 00:08:58.505 most people spend on their career, 00:08:58.505 --> 00:09:00.717 to advise people on how to have the best, 00:09:00.717 --> 00:09:02.697 most effective career. 00:09:02.697 --> 00:09:04.911 But you might be surprised to know 00:09:04.911 --> 00:09:07.932 that one of the careers that he encourages people to consider, 00:09:07.932 --> 00:09:10.197 if they have the right abilities and character, 00:09:10.197 --> 00:09:14.864 is to go into banking or finance. 00:09:14.864 --> 00:09:18.675 Why? Because if you earn a lot of money, 00:09:18.675 --> 00:09:21.014 you can give away a lot of money, 00:09:21.014 --> 00:09:23.060 and if you're successful in that career, 00:09:23.060 --> 00:09:25.674 you could give enough to an aid organization 00:09:25.674 --> 00:09:30.604 so that it could employ, let's say, five aid workers 00:09:30.604 --> 00:09:33.896 in developing countries, and each one of them 00:09:33.896 --> 00:09:35.740 would probably do about as much good 00:09:35.740 --> 00:09:37.274 as you would have done. 00:09:37.274 --> 00:09:40.284 So you can quintuple the impact 00:09:40.284 --> 00:09:44.405 by leading that kind of career. 00:09:44.405 --> 00:09:46.925 Here's one young man who's taken this advice. 00:09:46.925 --> 00:09:48.266 His name is Matt Weiger. 00:09:48.266 --> 00:09:52.028 He was a student at Princeton in philosophy and math, 00:09:52.028 --> 00:09:55.747 actually won the prize for the best undergraduate philosophy thesis 00:09:55.747 --> 00:09:58.126 last year when he graduated. 00:09:58.126 --> 00:10:01.352 But he's gone into finance in New York. 00:10:01.352 --> 00:10:02.957 He's already earning enough 00:10:02.957 --> 00:10:07.223 so that he's giving a six-figure sum to effective charities 00:10:07.223 --> 00:10:10.952 and still leaving himself with enough to live on. 00:10:10.952 --> 00:10:14.823 Matt has also helped me to set up an organization 00:10:14.823 --> 00:10:17.876 that I'm working with that has the name taken 00:10:17.876 --> 00:10:19.503 from the title of a book I wrote, 00:10:19.503 --> 00:10:21.401 "The Life You Can Save," 00:10:21.401 --> 00:10:24.142 which is trying to change our culture 00:10:24.142 --> 00:10:27.875 so that more people think that 00:10:27.875 --> 00:10:29.592 if we're going to live an ethical life, 00:10:29.592 --> 00:10:33.423 it's not enough just to follow the thou-shalt-nots 00:10:33.423 --> 00:10:35.803 and not cheat, steal, maim, kill, 00:10:35.803 --> 00:10:38.690 but that if we have enough, we have to share some of that 00:10:38.690 --> 00:10:42.043 with people who have so little. 00:10:42.043 --> 00:10:44.822 And the organization draws together people 00:10:44.822 --> 00:10:46.506 of different generations, 00:10:46.506 --> 00:10:48.351 like Holly Morgan, who's an undergraduate, 00:10:48.351 --> 00:10:49.868 who's pledged to give 10 percent 00:10:49.868 --> 00:10:51.817 of the little amount that she has, 00:10:51.817 --> 00:10:53.870 and on the right, Ada Wan, 00:10:53.870 --> 00:10:56.597 who has worked directly for the poor, but has now 00:10:56.597 --> 00:11:01.099 gone to Yale to do an MBA to have more to give. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:01.099 --> 00:11:02.624 Many people will think, though, 00:11:02.624 --> 00:11:06.606 that charities aren't really all that effective. 00:11:06.606 --> 00:11:08.399 So let's talk about effectiveness. 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:10.389 Toby Ord is very concerned about this, 00:11:10.389 --> 00:11:13.276 and he's calculated that some charities 00:11:13.276 --> 00:11:16.065 are hundreds or even thousands of times 00:11:16.065 --> 00:11:18.123 more effective than others, 00:11:18.123 --> 00:11:20.959 so it's very important to find the effective ones. 00:11:20.959 --> 00:11:25.990 Take, for example, providing a guide dog for a blind person. 00:11:25.990 --> 00:11:28.802 That's a good thing to do, right? 00:11:28.802 --> 00:11:30.824 Well, right, it is a good thing to do, 00:11:30.824 --> 00:11:33.741 but you have to think what else you could do with the resources. 00:11:33.741 --> 00:11:37.985 It costs about 40,000 dollars to train a guide dog 00:11:37.985 --> 00:11:40.481 and train the recipient so that the guide dog 00:11:40.481 --> 00:11:43.865 can be an effective help to a blind person. 00:11:43.865 --> 00:11:48.137 It costs somewhere between 20 and 50 dollars 00:11:48.137 --> 00:11:51.143 to cure a blind person in a developing country 00:11:51.143 --> 00:11:53.153 if they have trachoma. 00:11:53.153 --> 00:11:56.224 So you do the sums, and you get something like that. 00:11:56.224 --> 00:11:57.970 You could provide one guide dog 00:11:57.970 --> 00:12:00.315 for one blind American, 00:12:00.315 --> 00:12:03.191 or you could cure between 400 00:12:03.191 --> 00:12:06.962 and 2,000 people of blindness. 00:12:06.962 --> 00:12:10.559 I think it's clear what's the better thing to do. 00:12:10.559 --> 00:12:14.074 But if you want to look for effective charities, 00:12:14.074 --> 00:12:16.306 this is a good website to go to. 00:12:16.306 --> 00:12:21.190 GiveWell exists to really assess the impact of charities, 00:12:21.190 --> 00:12:23.155 not just whether they're well-run, 00:12:23.155 --> 00:12:25.455 and it's screened hundreds of charities 00:12:25.455 --> 00:12:28.754 and currently is recommending only three, 00:12:28.754 --> 00:12:32.987 of which the Against Malaria Foundation is number one. 00:12:32.987 --> 00:12:35.610 So it's very tough. If you want to look for other recommendations, 00:12:35.610 --> 00:12:38.620 thelifeyoucansave.com and Giving What We Can 00:12:38.620 --> 00:12:40.986 both have a somewhat broader list, 00:12:40.986 --> 00:12:44.322 but you can find effective organizations, 00:12:44.322 --> 00:12:48.498 and not just in the area of saving lives from the poor. 00:12:48.498 --> 00:12:51.074 I'm pleased to say that there is now also a website 00:12:51.074 --> 00:12:54.506 looking at effective animal organizations. 00:12:54.506 --> 00:12:56.510 That's another cause that I've been concerned about 00:12:56.510 --> 00:12:59.114 all my life, the immense amount of suffering 00:12:59.114 --> 00:13:00.640 that humans inflict 00:13:00.640 --> 00:13:04.897 on literally tens of billions of animals every year. 00:13:04.897 --> 00:13:07.223 So if you want to look for effective organizations 00:13:07.223 --> 00:13:09.296 to reduce that suffering, 00:13:09.296 --> 00:13:12.297 you can go to Effective Animal Activism. 00:13:12.297 --> 00:13:15.336 And some effective altruists think it's very important 00:13:15.336 --> 00:13:19.093 to make sure that our species survives at all. 00:13:19.093 --> 00:13:22.523 So they're looking at ways to reduce the risk of extinction. 00:13:22.523 --> 00:13:25.166 Here's one risk of extinction that we all became aware of 00:13:25.166 --> 00:13:29.323 recently, when an asteroid passed close to our planet. 00:13:29.323 --> 00:13:32.329 Possibly research could help us not only to predict 00:13:32.329 --> 00:13:34.300 the path of asteroids that might collide with us, 00:13:34.300 --> 00:13:37.092 but actually to deflect them. 00:13:37.092 --> 00:13:39.756 So some people think that would be a good thing to give to. 00:13:39.756 --> 00:13:41.998 There's many possibilities. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:41.998 --> 00:13:43.709 My final question is, 00:13:43.709 --> 00:13:46.740 some people will think it's a burden to give. 00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:48.373 I don't really believe it is. 00:13:48.373 --> 00:13:50.553 I've enjoyed giving all of my life 00:13:50.553 --> 00:13:51.871 since I was a graduate student. 00:13:51.871 --> 00:13:54.704 It's been something fulfilling to me. 00:13:54.704 --> 00:13:57.135 Charlie Bresler said to me that he's not an altruist. 00:13:57.135 --> 00:14:00.509 He thinks that the life he's saving is his own. 00:14:00.509 --> 00:14:04.436 And Holly Morgan told me that she used to battle depression 00:14:04.436 --> 00:14:06.668 until she got involved with effective altruism, 00:14:06.668 --> 00:14:10.214 and now is one of the happiest people she knows. 00:14:10.214 --> 00:14:11.987 I think one of the reasons for this 00:14:11.987 --> 00:14:15.254 is that being an effective altruist helps to overcome 00:14:15.254 --> 00:14:18.125 what I call the Sisyphus problem. 00:14:18.125 --> 00:14:21.318 Here's Sisyphus as portrayed by Titian, 00:14:21.318 --> 00:14:24.341 condemned by the gods to push a huge boulder 00:14:24.341 --> 00:14:26.020 up to the top of the hill. 00:14:26.020 --> 00:14:29.070 Just as he gets there, the effort becomes too much, 00:14:29.070 --> 00:14:32.311 the boulder escapes, rolls all the way down the hill, 00:14:32.311 --> 00:14:35.615 he has to trudge back down to push it up again, 00:14:35.615 --> 00:14:38.034 and the same thing happens again and again 00:14:38.034 --> 00:14:40.416 for all eternity. 00:14:40.416 --> 00:14:43.431 Does that remind you of a consumer lifestyle, 00:14:43.431 --> 00:14:46.113 where you work hard to get money, 00:14:46.113 --> 00:14:48.358 you spend that money on consumer goods 00:14:48.358 --> 00:14:51.930 which you hope you'll enjoy using? 00:14:51.930 --> 00:14:54.661 But then the money's gone, you have to work hard 00:14:54.661 --> 00:14:57.561 to get more, spend more, and to maintain 00:14:57.561 --> 00:15:00.568 the same level of happiness, it's kind of a hedonic treadmill. 00:15:00.568 --> 00:15:03.934 You never get off, and you never really feel satisfied. 00:15:03.934 --> 00:15:06.926 Becoming an effective altruist gives you 00:15:06.926 --> 00:15:08.416 that meaning and fulfillment. 00:15:08.416 --> 00:15:12.607 It enables you to have a solid basis for self-esteem 00:15:12.607 --> 00:15:16.732 on which you can feel your life was really worth living. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:16.732 --> 00:15:19.288 I'm going to conclude by telling you 00:15:19.288 --> 00:15:21.421 about an email that I received 00:15:21.421 --> 00:15:26.345 while I was writing this talk just a month or so ago. 00:15:26.345 --> 00:15:29.372 It's from a man named Chris Croy, who I'd never heard of. 00:15:29.372 --> 00:15:33.791 This is a picture of him showing him recovering from surgery. 00:15:33.791 --> 00:15:36.325 Why was he recovering from surgery? NOTE Paragraph 00:15:36.325 --> 00:15:39.882 The email began, "Last Tuesday, 00:15:39.882 --> 00:15:43.740 I anonymously donated my right kidney to a stranger. 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:45.825 That started a kidney chain 00:15:45.825 --> 00:15:50.494 which enabled four people to receive kidneys." NOTE Paragraph 00:15:50.494 --> 00:15:52.933 There's about 100 people each year in the U.S. 00:15:52.933 --> 00:15:55.651 and more in other countries who do that. 00:15:55.651 --> 00:15:57.815 I was pleased to read it. Chris went on to say 00:15:57.815 --> 00:16:01.187 that he'd been influenced by my writings in what he did. 00:16:01.187 --> 00:16:04.610 Well, I have to admit, I'm also somewhat embarrassed by that, 00:16:04.610 --> 00:16:10.872 because I still have two kidneys. 00:16:10.872 --> 00:16:13.138 But Chris went on to say that he didn't think 00:16:13.138 --> 00:16:15.818 that what he'd done was all that amazing, 00:16:15.818 --> 00:16:19.325 because he calculated that the number of life-years 00:16:19.325 --> 00:16:21.873 that he had added to people, the extension of life, 00:16:21.873 --> 00:16:24.682 was about the same that you could achieve 00:16:24.682 --> 00:16:30.518 if you gave 5,000 dollars to the Against Malaria Foundation. 00:16:30.518 --> 00:16:34.594 And that did make me feel a little bit better, 00:16:34.594 --> 00:16:38.148 because I have given more than 5,000 dollars 00:16:38.148 --> 00:16:40.995 to the Against Malaria Foundation 00:16:40.995 --> 00:16:45.898 and to various other effective charities. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:45.898 --> 00:16:47.332 So if you're feeling bad 00:16:47.332 --> 00:16:51.414 because you still have two kidneys as well, 00:16:51.414 --> 00:16:54.048 there's a way for you to get off the hook. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:54.048 --> 00:16:55.248 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:55.248 --> 00:17:01.402 (Applause)