“Effective altruists” aim to change the world from a Blackpool hotel

“EFFECTIVE altruists” are a community of people who dedicate their lives to helping others, using evidence and reason to do so as effectively as possible. The movement began in academia—Peter Singer, an Australian philosopher, is often described as its intellectual father—and has a small but growing following. One problem devotees face is that everyday life, such as cooking, washing up and holding down a job, can get in the way of doing good. As Greg Colbourn, a 3D-printing entrepreneur turned effective altruist, asked in a recent post on an online forum, “Do you long to be free from material needs and be able to focus on the real work you want to do?”

He went on to propose an unusual solution. Using profits from successful cryptocurrency investments, he had bought a 17-room hotel in Blackpool, in the north of England, for £130,000 ($170,000). The forum post invited effective altruists to live there free of charge for up to two years, to work on improving the world. The inspiration, he wrote, was the Chelsea Hotel in New York, which “produced billions of dollars’ worth of art, despite many guests not paying rent.”