This is a special post for quick takes by timunderwood. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
Comment Permalink
I just noticed that I am very confused about what precise object level thing we think we are arguing about when we argue about the Bostrom apology.
Do we think we are arguing about whether the community should distance itself now from Bostrom, despite the apology?
Do we think we arguing about whether the original email was very offensive? Plus it was stupid to bring up all of that stuff about race and eugenics in an 'apology'?
Do we think we are arguing about whether it is evil to be a person who says 'they don't know whether there is a genetic component to the differences in racial outcomes' instead of saying 'there definitely is no possible genetic component to the differences in racial outcomes'.
Do we think we are arguing about whether these genetic drivers of behavioral differences actually exist?
etc.
I can come up with more.
I'm pretty sure different people think they are arguing about different things.
What I think I'm arguing about is first: That the community should accept as a member in good standing someone who says that they honestly don't know whether genetic differences are an important cause of black/white outcome differences in the United States.
And second: While the community probably should distance itself from someone who regularly goes around sasying what was said in the orginal post from the 90s, there is no reason to exclude someone who wrote that once, and then realized that w it hat they'd just written was dumb and a mistake.
Is this what you all think you are arguing about?
Does anyone know about research on the influence of fiction on changing elite/public behaviors and opinions?
The context of the question is that I'm a self published novelist, and I've decided that I want to focus the half of my time that I'm focusing on less commercial projects on writing books that might be directly useful in EA terms, probably by making certain ideas about AI more widely known. I at some point decided it might be a good idea to learn more about examples of literature actually making an important difference beyond the examples that immediately came to my mind -- which were Uncle Tom's Cabin, Atlas Shrugged, Methods of Rationality and the way the LGBTQ movement probably gained a lot of its present acceptance through fictional representation.
I've found some stuff through academia.edu searches (like this journal article describing the results of a survey of readers of climate change fiction), but it seems like there is a good chance that the community might be able to point me in useful directions that I won't quickly find on my own.
Curated and popular this week
·
Note: I am not a malaria expert. This is my best-faith attempt at answering a question that was bothering me, but this field is a large and complex field, and I’ve almost certainly misunderstood something somewhere along the way.
Summary
While the world made incredible progress in reducing malaria cases from 2000 to 2015, the past 10 years have seen malaria cases stop declining and start rising. I investigated potential reasons behind this increase through reading the existing literature and looking at publicly available data, and I identified three key factors explaining the rise:
1. Population Growth: Africa's population has increased by approximately 75% since 2000. This alone explains most of the increase in absolute case numbers, while cases per capita have remained relatively flat since 2015.
2. Stagnant Funding: After rapid growth starting in 2000, funding for malaria prevention plateaued around 2010.
3. Insecticide Resistance: Mosquitoes have become increasingly resistant to the insecticides used in bednets over the past 20 years. This has made older models of bednets less effective, although they still have some effect. Newer models of bednets developed in response to insecticide resistance are more effective but still not widely deployed.
I very crudely estimate that without any of these factors, there would be 55% fewer malaria cases in the world than what we see today. I think all three of these factors are roughly equally important in explaining the difference.
Alternative explanations like removal of PFAS, climate change, or invasive mosquito species don't appear to be major contributors.
Overall this investigation made me more convinced that bednets are an effective global health intervention.
Introduction
In 2015, malaria rates were down, and EAs were celebrating. Giving What We Can posted this incredible gif showing the decrease in malaria cases across Africa since 2000:
Giving What We Can said that
> The reduction in malaria has be
·
> How the dismal science can help us end the dismal treatment of farm animals
By Martin Gould
----------------------------------------
Note: This post was crossposted from the Open Philanthropy Farm Animal Welfare Research Newsletter by the Forum team, with the author's permission. The author may not see or respond to comments on this post.
----------------------------------------
This year we’ll be sharing a few notes from my colleagues on their areas of expertise. The first is from Martin. I’ll be back next month. - Lewis
In 2024, Denmark announced plans to introduce the world’s first carbon tax on cow, sheep, and pig farming. Climate advocates celebrated, but animal advocates should be much more cautious. When Denmark’s Aarhus municipality tested a similar tax in 2022, beef purchases dropped by 40% while demand for chicken and pork increased.
Beef is the most emissions-intensive meat, so carbon taxes hit it hardest — and Denmark’s policies don’t even cover chicken or fish. When the price of beef rises, consumers mostly shift to other meats like chicken. And replacing beef with chicken means more animals suffer in worse conditions — about 190 chickens are needed to match the meat from one cow, and chickens are raised in much worse conditions.
It may be possible to design carbon taxes which avoid this outcome; a recent paper argues that a broad carbon tax would reduce all meat production (although it omits impacts on egg or dairy production). But with cows ten times more emissions-intensive than chicken per kilogram of meat, other governments may follow Denmark’s lead — focusing taxes on the highest emitters while ignoring the welfare implications.
Beef is easily the most emissions-intensive meat, but also requires the fewest animals for a given amount. The graph shows climate emissions per tonne of meat on the right-hand side, and the number of animals needed to produce a kilogram of meat on the left. The fish “lives lost” number varies significantly by
I just noticed that I am very confused about what precise object level thing we think we are arguing about when we argue about the Bostrom apology.
Do we think we are arguing about whether the community should distance itself now from Bostrom, despite the apology?
Do we think we arguing about whether the original email was very offensive? Plus it was stupid to bring up all of that stuff about race and eugenics in an 'apology'?
Do we think we are arguing about whether it is evil to be a person who says 'they don't know whether there is a genetic component to the differences in racial outcomes' instead of saying 'there definitely is no possible genetic component to the differences in racial outcomes'.
Do we think we are arguing about whether these genetic drivers of behavioral differences actually exist?
etc.
I can come up with more.
I'm pretty sure different people think they are arguing about different things.
What I think I'm arguing about is first: That the community should accept as a member in good standing someone who says that they honestly don't know whether genetic differences are an important cause of black/white outcome differences in the United States.
And second: While the community probably should distance itself from someone who regularly goes around sasying what was said in the orginal post from the 90s, there is no reason to exclude someone who wrote that once, and then realized that w it hat they'd just written was dumb and a mistake.
Is this what you all think you are arguing about?