Today's episode of Rationally Speaking is sponsored by Givewell.

Givewell takes a data-driven approach to identifying charities where your donation can make a big impact.

Givewell spends thousands of hours every year vetting and analyzing nonprofits so that it can produce a list of charity recommendations that are backed by rigorous evidence.

The list is free and available to everyone online.

The New York Times has

referred to Givewell as, quote, the spreadsheet method of giving. Givewell's recommendations are

for donors who are interested in having a high altruistic return on investment in their giving.

Its current recommended charities fight malaria, treat intestinal parasites, provide vitamin A supplements,

and give cash to very poor people.

Check them out at give well.org.

Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.

I'm your host, Julia Galef, and my guest today is Professor Rob Riech.

Rob is a political science professor at Stanford, and he has no relation to Professor Robert Reich at Berkeley.

Rob Riech, my guest, is the author of the recently published book Just Giving,

Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better.

It's a very timely book as we're increasingly seeing billionaires,

especially tech billionaires, get involved in philanthropy. Jeff Bezos announced its intention to give away billions of dollars earlier this

year, Mark Zuckerberg, the year before. And there's just been a lot of increased scrutiny

of large-scale philanthropists, especially their influence on politics in the recent

election and afterwards, and just sort of their general influence on society.

So the conversation about philanthropy and democracy is kind of a part of that larger conversation.

Rob, welcome to rationally speaking.

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