Theory of Change: #1: How Alexander Berger weighs the world's biggest problems
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How do you rationally decide which global problems deserve billions of dollars? Alexander Berger's framework reveals the cold calculus behind effective altruism's most powerful funder.
Theory of ChangeEffective AltruismCause PrioritizationExpected Value Theory
Theory Briefing
- Coefficient Giving, one of the world's largest effective-giving funders, is expanding after its biggest funding year ever, raising the stakes of every allocation decision.
- Berger applies a Theory of Change framework to rank global problems by tractability, scale, and neglectedness — turning moral intuition into structured prioritization.
- The interview exposes a core tension in effective altruism: how to weigh near-certain smaller wins against speculative but potentially civilization-scale interventions.