Driving change through broad societal improvements

By Probably Good @ 2025-04-30T14:29 (+21)

We’ve just published a new profile on broad societal improvements!

This is a wide-ranging cause area that covers various large-scale (and often systemic) changes to how society functions that could bring about far-reaching positive consequences.  

While the specific issues within broad societal improvements can seem quite different, they share a common goal: they focus on building systems that are better equipped to address a wide array of important problems and risks.

The profile is far from exhaustive but primarily explores four major areas:

• Public institutions – improving how governments, intergovernmental organizations, and regulatory bodies function, with a focus on strengthening their ability to recognize important problems and make well-informed decisions.
• Scientific research – addressing bottlenecks in how research is conducted, shared, and applied, as well as practices that reduce the reliability of scientific output.
• Misinformation and disinformation – understanding and mitigating the harms of widespread false or misleading information. 
• Societal values – exploring how cultural norms and moral ideas affect our ability to recognize important moral issues.

As with any cause area, not all efforts in this space are equally promising. We expect this cause area to be less tractable and neglected than most on average, so it’s important to seek out particularly promising opportunities within it. Working in this area is likely most relevant for people with a high tolerance for uncertainty and a strong personal fit. But for those drawn to shaping the bigger picture, we think this is an area well worth exploring.

If there are promising sub-areas or opportunities you think we should include, especially ones that might not be on our radar, we’d love to hear your thoughts!