The most important decision for your life

1. This is your most important decision

I had never thought of it that way: «Your choice of career is the most important ethical decision of your life.»

80’000 Hours is a non-profit that helps people figure out how they can best use their career to help solve the world’s most pressing problems. In this new article, they offer a framework anyone can use to make career decisions. Four factors define your impact:

1. How pressing (or neglected) the problems you focus on are.
2. How effective the solutions you pursue are.
3. The amount of leverage you can apply to those solutions.
4. Your personal fit for the path

This is your most important decision

You have about 80,000 hours in your career: 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, for 40 years. This makes your choice of career the most important ethical decision of your life. From adulthood, you’ll spend almost half your waking hours on your career — more than the time you’ll spend eating, on ho…

80,000 Hours

2. How we fixed the ozone layer

«The most impressive example of international cooperation on any challenge in history» — What can we learn from how humanity dealt with the depleted ozone layer for tackling the climate crisis? The historical perspective provides valuable insights. However, as the author points out, there is one key difference: Just like with the climate crisis, rich countries contributed most to causing the problem. Unlike with the climate crisis, they also had the most to lose if it didn’t get fixed. Honi soit qui mal y pense…

How we fixed the ozone layer - Works in Progress

The story behind humanity’s greatest environmental success is too rarely told and too often taken for granted. This is how humanity fixed the ozone layer and why it matters.

Works in ProgressAnton Howes

3. How To Be A Girl: The Medical Stuff

Longtime subscribers might remember this wonderful podcast: The story of a six-year-old child, born as a boy, who knew she was a girl from the age of three. Regular updates ended in early 2019, but now there’s an update. On the onset of puberty and what that means for a transgender child.

Episode XXXII: The Medical Stuff

For years, people have asked me what I would do when my daughter hit puberty. Was I going to let her do... “the medical stuff?” Well, right after the pandemic struck, so did puberty. And this is what my daughter (and her mother) decided to do.

How to Be a GirlEpisode XXXII: The Medical Stuff

4. To protect the world’s wildlife we must improve crop yields – especially across Africa

The bad news: If things remain unchanged, by 2050 we need additional cropland the size of India and Germany combined to feed a world population of then ~10 billion people. The habitats of thousands of species would be destroyed. The good news: With the right measures taken, we can feed 10 billion people while reducing current land use for crops by the area of India and Germany combined. Insightful analysis.

To protect the world’s wildlife we must improve crop yields – especially across Africa

Habitat loss is the biggest threat to the world’s animals. Without improvements in crop yields, thousands of species could see much of their habitat lost to farmland.

Our World in DataHannah Ritchie

5. We Need to Talk About Qatar

«F***. We woke up too late. I woke up too late.» A remarkable essay by Tim Sparv, captain of Finland’s men’s soccer team.

We Need to Talk About Qatar | By Tim Sparv

Please keep talking about the Qatar World Cup.

The Players' TribuneTim Sparv

Bonus: Was wir wirklich über gesundes Essen wissen

In German, but you can always try Google Translate. Über Essen und Ernährung zu lesen ist meistens frustrierend: Ständig neue Ratschläge, die auf wackliger Evidenz stehen, in der Summe nur verwirren und einem jede Freude am Essen nehmen. Nicht so dieser Zweiteiler: Ich hab mich selten so gut informiert gefühlt und gleichzeitig Lust zu kochen (und essen!) bekommen. Teil 1, Teil 2.

What else?

• A good reason to be excited about the future.
• Love this idea: Read one book from every country on Earth, write a newsletter about it.
• The Economist’s estimate for the pandemic’s true death toll: currently ~15.4 million (vs. 4.6 million officially reported)
• Probably the funniest guy on TikTok right now (especially if you love linguistics and hate the English language).
• «All work looks easier at distance.» — Michael Lopp
• «It's impossible to please everyone. The question is whether you're disappointing the right people.» — Adam Grant

Thanks for reading. Have a nice weekend!

— David 👋