I sell fentanyl six days a week under the El at Kensington and Somerset, and every bag I sell is net life-positive. Each bag carries a small but real chance of killing whoever buys it. Each bag also sends $1.80 to the Against Malaria Foundation, which GiveWell estimates saves a child’s life for about $5,500. My customers die at a rate of roughly one per 4,000 bags. Four thousand bags at $1.80 buys nets for 1.3 children. Every death on my corner is offset, with a third of a toddler left over, and I’d like that number in the conversation the next time somebody calls me a murderer out the window of a passing Kia.

I arrived here the way most people in effective altruism arrive at their careers: by asking where my comparative advantage was largest. I spent four years as a quantitative trader at Jane Street. I was good, but I was replaceable, and so was every dollar I made there. Earning to give tells you to take the highest-paying work you can stomach and donate the difference. I took the Giving What We Can pledge in 2019. I have simply taken the “highest-paying” half more seriously than the people who sign it between sessions at EA Global. My customer base is the most price-inelastic in North America, my overhead is a fanny pack, and my plug in Fairhill has never once asked me to attend an offsite.