“People are given the information resources to realize that a lot of us are metaphorically in that position that the Rockefeller Foundation was in a while ago. [T]oday there’s a lot of people that may be considered by others just normal middle class people. [W]hen you start comparing your life situation and living standards to the past or to the rest of the world, you realize that you actually have a huge amount of resources, power and information, [that] there’s people who have much less of these things, and that you can find them, you can understand things about them and you can find ways of how to help them – that’s all within your power. The combination of wealth, inequality and interconnectedness is increasing, so I believe we’ll see a world where more people will come up with this realization: “Wow, I’m really fortunate, I’m really powerful and I’m informed enough to do something with that power and make a positive difference.””

— Holden Karnofsky, Effective Altruism Summit 2013 speech