Athena Aktipis

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1,334 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 9 Jan

Athena Aktipis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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80,000 Hours Podcast · #144 Classic episode – Athena Aktipis on why cancer is a fundamental universal phenomena · 9 Jan 2026 podcast

And that's not to put it all on individual households to do this because really we should all be thinking about how can we help everyone in our communities

be able to weather a storm, supporting all households in being able to have what they need to, for example, shelter in place.

Just to take one example of the kinds of things that

that we can do.

So that's one.

And then the other one is, you know, kind of building these networks where we can get help in times of need, ask for help.

Those often spontaneously emerge in disasters.

But, you know, having some, you know, networks already set up ahead of time before things get really bad is, it's an easy way to manage risk by sort of doing what people call

limited risk pooling where it's like, yeah, if you're in need and I'm available, you know, I have enough to help, then I'll just help you without expecting to get paid back.

Yep, flooding, massive power outages in the winter or the summer, right?

There are a lot of...

Absolutely.

Yeah.

This kind of then opens up like this whole other area of my work, which is really about looking at cooperation in human society.

So we have this project called the Human Generosity Project, where we've looked at almost a dozen projects.

small-scale societies around the world now and how they help each other, how people within those societies help each other in times of need.

And we have found that, you know, if you kind of look at the risk management strategies that people are using, that need-based transfers, it's like, you know, hey, if I'm in need, I will only ask for help if I'm genuinely in need.

And then if you receive a request, you will help if you're able to without going below what you need.

So we see this in pretty much every society.

The one society where they don't use it as much as this society I was telling you about in Mongolia where they have these, you know, winters that are just horrible.

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