• Giving What We Can: There is hardly a decision in recent years that felt better than taking the Giving What We Can pledge, an organization which is part of the effective altruism movement. By taking this pledge, we committed to spend at most 90% of my income on conventional expenses and savings. The rest is donated to the most effective charities. Being public about our pledge is not to make ourselves look like generous people (which the meagre fraction of our undeserved abundance which we donate puts into question anyway) but rather because we think that passing on money to those who have a right to it and can make better use of it should lose its touch of saintliness and sacrifice. It should rather be seen as what it is, something plain normal and beautiful.  

• Voting: My vow for the coming national elections: "I will only vote for candidates  whose  website (or similar public material which describes their overall stance)  can plausibly be interpreted to be at least as much concerned with   

  • the >8,000 million non-Swiss

  • the >8,000,000 million future people  

  • the >8,000,000,000 million animals

as with us, the 8 million currently living Swiss. After all, Swiss political decisions have an even bigger impact on these non-voting groups than they have on us."

• My wonderful companions: Miriam, Cem, Mael, and Fionn: