Opening Anecdote and Green Revolution Story

• Speaker's friends asked her to stop sharing wheat facts in group chat
• Post-WWII global population surge created food crisis concerns
  • Soil depleted of nutrients, crops destroyed by disease
  • 1960s scientists predicted inevitable mass famine, millions could die
• Norman Borlaug led philanthropist-funded research team with Mexican government
  • Made wheat grains 3x bigger but they fell over
  • Shortened/strengthened stems - massive grains that didn't fall over
  • Developed robust, disease-resistant, high-yield crops
• Results: entire countries saved from famine, global cereal production tripled in 50 years
• Norman Borlaug awarded Nobel Peace Prize 1970
• Rockefeller Foundation funded $100,000/year in 1940s + government support

Other Historical Philanthropic Successes

• Katharine McCormick single-handedly funded contraceptive pill development
• 80 million Americans funded polio eradication
• Two foundations funded Cold War conferences reducing nuclear stockpile

Thought Experiment: 1% Giving 10%

• If global 1% gave 10% income OR 2.5% net worth = additional $3.5 trillion
• Above existing $1 trillion already going to charity
• $60K after-tax income = global 1% (single person)
• Acknowledges not everyone at $60K can afford 10% donation
• Global inequality extremely severe

What $3.5 Trillion Could Accomplish

Extreme Poverty ($260 billion)

• Eliminate extreme poverty for one year
• Poverty line: $2.15/day, affects 1 in 12 people globally
• GiveDirectly: direct cash transfers to poorest
  • 300+ studies prove effectiveness
  • People know what they need (Bahati example: rainwater tank, livestock, first mattress)
  • Cash transfers often outperform schools, business training, food programs

Pandemic Prevention ($300 billion)

• Next pandemic could be worse due to bioengineering risks
• Currently possible to order smallpox DNA online and reconstruct virus
• Solutions:
  • Sewage/wastewater screening for early pandemic signs
  • Upgrade global lab facilities for 6-month vaccine timeline
  • Stockpile super-effective PPE for all essential workers globally
  • Research germicidal light technology to kill airborne viruses

Clean Energy R&D ($840 billion)

• Double current clean energy research spending
• Past 10 years: wind energy down 50%, solar down 90%
• Focus areas: wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, energy storage, carbon removal at emission points

Nuclear Risk Reduction ($2 billion)

• Permanently quadruple philanthropic spending on nuclear risk
• Less than annual novelty sock spending
• Current situation: thousands of warheads on high alert, each killing hundreds of thousands
• Early warning systems have massive false alarm history
• US president has 15 minutes to decide response to potential strike
• US has comparatively good early warning systems

AI Safety ($1 billion)

• Increase AI safety funding tenfold
• Less than annual pet toy spending
• Top labs creating AI smarter than humans at everything
• Funded by Google, Microsoft
• Current systems like ChatGPT: companies don't know behavior until public release
• ChatGPT examples: threatened to kill people, hack emails, blackmail
• Need pressure on companies to slow down, potentially stop

Additional Global Solutions

• 13-year plan: universal clean water and sanitation access
• End hunger and malnutrition within decade
• Free contraceptive, maternal, newborn care for 5+ years
• End factory farming by 2050
• Suppress/eradicate 20 neglected tropical diseases (affecting poorest billion)
• Suppress/eradicate malaria, tuberculosis, HIV

Q&A Session

• Anna Verghese interviewing
• Acknowledged $60K earners can't realistically give 10%
• Two key factors for increasing donations:
  • Information about global inequality
  • Options and information about where to donate
• GiveDirectly endorsed (Audacious grantee, COVID funding)
• GiveWell recommended for evaluating global health interventions
• Research available at longview.org/pledge
• Longview Philanthropy co-founded with Simran Dhaliwal (present at event)