I save the world each day at work in obvious (and not so obvious) ways. For the sake of space & time, I'll elaborate on the "obvious" bit. I work for a company that provides near-real time (updated with new data every 5-15 minutes) information of how well paramedics, call takers, and dispatchers do their job compared to medically sound protocols. By "protocols", I'm referring to things like the Medical Priority Dispatch System (which has peer-reviewed articles backing it up), those created by the medical director for a given ambulance system/911 call center (unfortunately, not everyone's custom protocols are that great), and comparisons against basic expected requirements for doing a task (e.g. after sticking in a breathing tube, did the paramedics check to make sure the patient started getting oxygen?).
In addition to providing a constantly updated view, we also send e-mail/text message alerts when things look weird (e.g. lots of respiratory related problems all of a sudden) or when things aren't doing so well (e.g. an ambulance took longer than 15 minutes to arrive).
Finally, we even deal with the allocation of dollars (or, as LW would put it, "utilions"). Bluntly put, ambulances and doctors require money and less money = less/worse services. So, when we help people get paid, we increase the number of utilions floating around for providing patient care.
I have built at least 50+ such things and am working on improving the map that is used to display the information (which affects all our triggers and alerts). Unfortunately, I don't know of a neat easy formula for converting that to lives saved.
Since my company has customers in nearly every state in the USA (including Alaska and Hawaii) + several provinces in Canada, I guess that's the geographic scope of my work too.
How are you saving the world? Please, let us know!
Whether it is solving the problem of death or teaching rationality, one of the correlated phenomena of being less wrong is making things better. Given the value many of us place on altruism, this extends beyond just ourselves and into that question of, “How can I make The Rest better?” The rest of my community. The rest of my country. The rest of my species. The rest of my world. To word it in a less other-optimizing way: How can I save the world?
So, tell us how you are saving the world. Not how you want to save the world. Not how you plan to. How you are, actively, saving the world. It doesn’t have to be “I invented a friendly AI,” or “I reformed a nation’s gender politics” or “I perfected a cryonics reviving process.” It can be a simple goal (“I taught a child how to recognize when they use ad hominen” or "I stopped using as much water to shower") or a simple action as part of a larger plan (such as “I helped with a breakthrough on reducing gas emissions in cars by five percent”).
If we accept this challenge of saving the world, then let us be open and honest with our progress. Let us put our successes on display and our shortcomings as well, so that both can be recognized, recommended, and, if need be, repaired.
If you are not doing anything to save the world, even something as simple as “learning about global risks” or “encouraging others to research a topic before deciding on it”? Then find something. Find a goal and work for it. Find an act that needs doing and do it.
Then tell us about it.