What is this blog?

Academics have spent thousands of hours grappling with complex questions related to our mission to do the most good possible—but this research is often difficult to access without a technical background in multiple fields and a large time investment. This blog will provide simple explanations of research papers to help you keep up to date with the latest global priorities research.

What kind of research will you cover?

This blog will cover topics that are important for understanding our values and making the world a better place. The focus will be more academic than practical. For example, I might cover research that estimates the probability that we live in a simulation—this is highly speculative, but perhaps has important implications.

As the name suggests, this blog will likely skew towards longtermism—the view that one of our priorities should be helping future generations to survive and flourish. For example, I might cover research into whether future people matter, predicting and impacting the future, and how important we are relative to other people throughout history.

Who should read it?

This blog is most focused on helping motivated students to understand key research about how to do good effectively, although it should also be helpful to anyone interested in global priorities research.

Who writes it?

Riley Harris works at the global priorities institute at Oxford University where he works on research communications. Before that, he was an award winning student in economics and philosophy, and blogged about language learning and mental health.

How can I help?

This is a tiny project, so if you know someone who would find it valuable, I’d really appreciate it if you sent them a link!

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