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All of Aditya Vaze's Comments + Replies

Should GMOs (e.g. golden rice) be a cause area?
Aditya Vaze2y7
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I'm really glad to see this post, but I do believe that the direct nutritional benefit from Golden Rice is only the tip of the iceberg. The stigmatization of GMOs is perhaps the largest factor limiting innovation in food tech, agritech, and biotech. Fixing this would have massive implications for farmed animal welfare, climate change, food security, biodiversity, and longevity.

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mariushobbhahn
2y
I tend to agree, but it seems like a hard problem to fix. Like I described in the post, you have environmental activists, farmers, the general public and politicians against you in most countries. I'm really not sure what the best path to victory is, but I think we should copy successful strategies of the animal welfare movement.  I was especially impressed by Leah Garcé's on turning adversaries into allies and assume that similar approaches could work for GMOs, e.g. when talking to farmers. 
Seeking Math + Programming Accelerated Learning Advice
Answer by Aditya VazeJan 17, 20223
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I've also been self-teaching myself similar topics. Reading books and working through the exercises works much better for me personally than watching videos. For Python, I recommend Think Python 2e, which is freely available here, and Charles Severance's Python for Everybody on FreeCodeCamp. For Machine Learning, the gold standard is An Introduction to Statistical Learning. The exercises are in R, but I think you can find Python versions somewhere on the internet.

For Statistics and Probability I used OpenIntro, but I've also got Pishro-Nik's Introduction t... (read more)

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Some quick notes on "effective altruism"
Aditya Vaze3y2
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Strongly agree. The potential benefits of selection effects are underrated in these discussions.

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In diversity lies epistemic strength
Aditya Vaze3y3
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Are you saying ethnic minorities in the West are less likely to be WEIRD and hence underrepresented in EA, or that ethnic minorities who are WEIRD are underrepresented in EA? The former wouldn't surprise me at all, given the significant disparities in income and educational opportunity between ethnic minorities in the West. The latter would surprise me, but I'm not sure how you would go about proving it, since it would require you to already have an estimate of demographics of true WEIRDs, and I'm not sure how you'd go about collecting that. Unless the assumption that any educated person from a Western Developed country is WEIRD, which I would disagree with.

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AGB
3y
I'm claiming the latter, yes. I do agree it's hard to prove, but I place high subjective credence (~88%) on it. Put simply, if I can directly observe factors that would tend to lower the representation of WEIRD ethnic minorities, I don't necessarily need to have an estmate of the percentages of WEIRD people who are ethnic minorities, or even of the percentage of people in EA who are from ethnic minorities. I only need to think that the factors are meaningful enough to lead to meaningful differences in representation, and not being offset by comparably-meaningful factors in the other direction. Some of these factors are innocuous, some less so.  But if you're interested in public attempts to take the direct comparison route, which I fully acknowledge would be stronger evidence if done well, you might find this post of relevance. (Note I'm not necessarily advocating for the concrete suggestions in the post, mostly linking for the counts at the start.)
In diversity lies epistemic strength
Aditya Vaze3y7
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Hi Lukas, thanks for your kind words! I agree with you on most points - my analysis was mostly regarding ethnic identities rather than those relating to gender, sexuality or political orientation, since the former is what I have experience with. I do of course think that EA would benefit from more equal representation of these groups, and my intuition is that it's more tractable as well (relative to religious or ethnic minorities). I'm not entirely sure why women are underrepresented in EA or even if that is indeed the case. If it is, I'd imagine it's rela... (read more)

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AGB
3y
FWIW, I don’t think your argument goes through for ethnic diversity either; EA is much whiter than its WEIRD base. I agree aiming to match the ethnic diversity of the world would be a mistake. (Disclaimer: Not white)
In diversity lies epistemic strength
Aditya Vaze3y69
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TL;DR Underrepresented groups are underrepresented because they self-select into EA circles at lower rates due to divergent values. Concerted initiatives to increase diversity are strongly biased towards the values of the people running the initiative. Communities are exclusionary by necessity.

I hope as one of the rare developing world EAs, my perspective is useful here. This post is a nice thought, but like many nice thoughts relating to diversity I believe it collapses on deeper consideration of how it would be implemented. There is a reason EA mainly co... (read more)

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LukasRos
3y
Aditya, thank you for your perspective! I think you have raised some excellent points, especially that movements are by definition exclusive as they would just be the "mainstream" otherwise, and that EA values align with a WEIRD background. I also agree that many people think of diversity as a box to tick and they don't actually want to engage with a set of truly diverse people. And honestly, I think everyone (including myself) should meditate on their motivations for increasing diversity (e.g. wanting more women in EA to extend one's dating pool might be a natural instinct but it's the worst possible driver for a gender diversity initiative). On the other hand, over 50% of WEIRD people are women (academic participation and success of women now outnumbers men), probably 10% are LGBTQ, a significant number are People of Color and an also significant number vote for conservative parties. If these people don't show up in the EA community, I think it's valid to ask ourselves "Why?". Do we drive them away with sexist and racist behavior? If they are not privileged enough to show up, should we think of raising  their privileges as an important cause area? If they don't share our values, can we be confident that we have the right values or should we open ourselves up to their perspective and reevaluate our values afterwards? It doesn't mean we have to accept diluting our values, but it would be irrational not to consider the possibility. I like your idea of surveying people to determine the main differences in values between EA-aligned people and the rest of societies. My only concern, which I've voiced in other comments under this post, is that such a survey might already be biased. Which means, we'd already need a somewhat diverse (both intellectual and demographic) panel to get started.