Shortform Content [Beta]
The old debate over "giving now vs later" is now sometimes phrased as a debate about "patient philanthropy". 80,000 Hours recently wrote a post using the term "patient longtermism", which seems intended to:
- focus only on how the debate over patient philanthropy applies to longtermists
- generalise the debate to also include questions about work (e.g., should I do a directly useful job now, or build career capital and do directly useful work later?)
They contrast this against the term "urgent longtermism", to describe the view that favours doing more donations a
... (read more)Yes, Trammell writes:
We will call someone “patient” if he has low (including zero) pure time preference with respect to the welfare he creates by providing a good.
And I agree that a person with a low or zero pure time preference may still want to use a large portion of their resources now, for example due to thinking now is a much "hingier"/"higher leverage" time than average, or thinking value drift will be high.
You highlighting this makes me doubt whether 80,000 Hours should've used "patient longtermism" as they did, whether they should've used "patient
... (read more)How pressing is countering anti-science?
Intuitively, anti-science attitudes seem like a major barrier to solving many of the world's most pressing problems: for example, climate change denial has greatly derailed the American response to climate change, and distrust of public health authorities may be stymying the COVID-19 response. (For instance, a candidate running in my district for State Senate is campaigning on opposition to contact tracing as well as vaccines.) I'm particularly concerned about anti-economics attitudes because they lead to bad economi
... (read more)I think a more general, and less antagonizing, way to frame this is "increasing scientific literacy among the general public," where scientific literacy is seen as a spectrum. For example, increasing scientific literacy among climate activists might make them more likely to advocate for policies that more effectively reduce CO2 emissions.
Wayne Hsiung, the co-founder of Direct Action Everywhere (DxE) is running for mayor of Berkeley: https://www.wayneformayor.com/
He's running on a left-leaning platform that doesn't explicitly discuss animals, but he will likely focus on animal-friendly policies. For example, he wants to create a "solar powered, pedestrian-only, and plant-based Green District."
DxE has been fairly controversial in the animal advocacy world, but setting aside questions of their particular tactics, having someone so animal friendly in government could be ve... (read more)
That's the kind of source I was looking for; thanks for letting me know when it came up.
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 examp... (read more)
**Would some moral/virtue intuitions prefer small but non-zero x-risk?**
[Me trying to lean into a kind of philosophical reasoning I don't find plausible. Not important, except perhaps as cautionary tale for what kind of things could happen if you wanted to base the case for reducing x-risk on purely non-consequentialist reasons.]
(Inspired by a conversation with Toby Newberry about something else.)
The basic observation: we sometimes think that a person achieving some success is particularly praiseworthy, remarkable, virtuous, or similar if they could h... (read more)
Nice post. I’m reminded of this Bertrand Russell passage:
“all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins ... Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.” —A Free Man’s Worship, 1903
I take Russell as arguing
... (read more)Some thoughts on stage-wise development of moral circle
Status: Very rough, I mainly want to know if there's already some research/thinking on this.
- Jean Piaget, a early childhood psychologist from the 1960s, suggested a stage sequential model of childhood developemnt. He suggesting that we progress through different levels of development, and each stage is necessary to develop to the next.
- Perhaps we can make a similar argument for moral circle expansion. In other words: you cannot run when you don't know how to walk. If you ask someone to believ
Yeah I think you're right. I didn't need to actually reference Piaget (it just prompted the thought). To be clear, I wasn't trying to imply that Piaget/Kohlberg's theories were correct or sound, but rather applying the model to another issue. I didn't make that very clear. I don't think my argument really requirs the empirical implications of the model (especially because I wasn't trying to imply moral judgement that one moral circle is necessary better/worse). However I didn't flag this. [meta note: I also posted it pretty quickly, didn't think it t
... (read more)<medium-term lurker, first time poster; also, Epistemic Status = spitballing>
Has anyone encountered the idea of 'direct payment' philanthropy in the form of investment portfolios?
Some background:
- this idea is acknowledged to be out of scope in terms of the central question of maximizing altruistic impact, in the traditional EA sense;
- also, while inspired in part by the 'Direct Payment' model of poverty reduction, the notion is on a fundamentally different tack and would clearly not address profound poverty directly. It might hope
Is anyone aware of/planning on doing any research related to the expected spike in interest for pandemic research due to COVID?
It would be interesting to see how much new interest is generated, and for which types of roles (e.g. doctors vs researchers). This could be useful to a) identify potential skilled biosecurity recruits b) find out what motivated them about COVID-19 c) figure out how neglected this will be in 5-10 years
I'd imagine doing a survey after the pandemic starts to die down might be more valuable than right now (maybe after the
In the UK could you access application numbers with a Freedom of Information request?
This announcement of a World Economic Forum meeting on "The Great Reset"
sounds very intriguing, and possibly hopeful, but it was hard for me to get a clear sense of whether this is going to mitigate x-risks from e.g. climate change all that much, or whether it's mostly just about providing more robust safety nets against major disasters. It wasn't clear to me from reading this whether it's (significantly) net-positive in terms... (read more)
Table test - Markdown
| Column A | Column B | Column C |
|---|---|---|
| Cell A1 | Cell B1 | Cell C1 |
| Cell A2 | Cell B2 | Cell C2 |
| Cell A3 | Cell B3 | Cell C3 |
Seems to work surprisingly well!
I had an idea for a potential way for EA to gain more prominence among people who are likely to be productive in the movement. I do high school debate and in high school debate, debaters go very deep into literature around arguments that are useful in debates. For example, baudrillard is pretty obscure, yet debaters go incredibly in depth doing hours and hours of research about baudrillard specifically. The current debate topic in the event where there's the most in depth research is "The United States federal government should enact substanti... (read more)
I like this! I would recommend polishing it into a top level post.
I'd like feedback on an idea if possible. I have a longer document with more detail that I'm working on but here's a short summary that sketches out the core idea/motivation:
Potential idea: hosting a competition/experiment to find the most convincing argument for donating to long-termist organisations
Brief summary
Recently, Professor Eric Shwitzgebel and Dr Fiery Cushman conducted a study to find the most convincing philosophical/logical argument for short-term causes. By ‘philosophical/logical argument’ I mean an argument that ... (read more)
If you're looking at where to direct funding for U.S. criminal justice reform:
List of U.S. states and territories by incarceration and correctional supervision rate
On this page, you can sort states (and U.S. territories) by total prison/jail population, incarceration rate per 100,000 adults, or incarceration rate per 100,000 people of all ages - all statistics as of year-end 2016.
As of 2016, the 10 states with the highest incarceration rates per 100,000 people were:
- Oklahoma (990 prisoners/100k)
- Louisiana (970)
- Mississippi (960)
- Georgia (880)
- Alabama (840
Have there been any efforts from EAs to look into increasing the speed of space colonization. It seems potentially desirable in terms of serving as a bullwark against existential threats.
Here's an EA Global talk on the subject. I find it uncompelling. It's extraordinarily expensive, and does little to protect against the X-risks I'm most concerned about, namely AI risk and engineered pandemics.
[Is pleasure ‘good’?]
What do we mean by the claim “Pleasure is good”?
There’s an uncontroversial interpretation and a controversial one.
Vague and uncontroversial claim: When we say that pleasure is good, we mean that all else equal, pleasure is always unobjectionable, and often it is desired.
Specific and controversial claim: When we say that pleasure is good, what we mean is that, all else equal, pleasure is an end we should be striving for. This captures points like:
- that pleasure is in itself desirable,
- that no mental st
I agree that pleasure is not intrinsically good (i.e. I also deny the strong claim). I think it's likely that experiencing the full spectrum of human emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, etc.) and facing challenges are good for personal growth and therefore improve well-being in the long run. However, I think that suffering is inherently bad, though I'm not sure what distinguishes suffering from displeasure.
Graphic Design / Communications Specialist: Hi everyone! I'm an EA and graphic designer who would like to start doing work for EA orgs. I am flexible and open to volunteer or paid work. I have extensive experience in Adobe Creative Suite as well as photography, videography, basic web design, infographics, newsletters, etc. My portfolio is www.CarlyKemp.com. If anyone has a need or knows of an organization that has a need please let me know! Thank you!
[Takeaways from Covid forecasting on Metaculus]
I’m probably going to win the first round of the Li Wenliang forecasting tournament on Metaculus, or maybe get second. (My screen name shows up in second on the leaderboard, but it’s a glitch that’s not resolved yet because one of the resolutions depends on a strongly delayed source.)
With around 52 questions, this was the largest forecasting tournament on the virus. It ran from late February until early June.
I learned a lot during the tournament. Next to claiming credit, I want to share so... (read more)
I know it might not be what you're looking for, but congratulations!
[I’m an anti-realist because I think morality is underdetermined]
I often find myself explaining why anti-realism is different from nihilism / “anything goes.” I wrote lengthy posts in my sequence on moral anti-realism (2 and 3) about partly this point. However, maybe the framing “anti-realism” is needlessly confusing because some people do associate it with nihilism / “anything goes.” Perhaps the best short explanation of my perspective goes as follows:
I’m happy to concede that some moral facts exist ... (read more)
I think if you concede that some moral facts exist, it might be more accurate to call yourself a moral realist. The indeterminacy of morality could be a fundamental feature, allowing for many more acts to be ethically permissible (or no worse than other acts) than with a linear (complete) ranking. I think consequentialists are unusually prone to try to rank outcomes linearly.
I read this recently, which describes how moral indeterminacy can be accommodated within moral realism, although it was kind of long for what it had to say. I think expert agreement (o... (read more)
[Are underdetermined moral values problematic?]
If I think my goals are merely uncertain, but in reality they are underdetermined and the contributions I make to shaping the future will be driven, to a large degree, by social influences, ordering effects, lock-in effects, and so on, is that a problem?
I can’t speak for others, but I’d find it weird. I want to know what I’m getting up for in the morning.
On the other hand, because it makes it easier for the community to coordinate and pull things in the same directions, there's a sense in which underdetermined values are beneficial.
[EA's focus on marginal individual action over structure is a poor fit for dealing with info hazards.]
I tend to think that EAs sometimes are too focused on optimizing the marginal utility of individual actions as opposed to improving larger-scale structures. For example, I think it'd be good if there was much content and cultural awareness on how to build good organizations as there is on how to improve individual cognition. - Think about how often you've heard of "self improvement" or "rationality" as opposed to things l... (read more)