All of Chris Lonsberry's Comments + Replies

To pile on: a local Mexican chain also consistently puts less of PMAs into their tacos than they do meat. 

I'm generally a "hit the 1.6g/kg/day target" kind of guy and have been ignoring BCAAs. The effect of branched-chain amino acids supplementation in physical exercise: A systematic review of human randomized controlled trials - ScienceDirect suggests that's still a valid strategy, but I'm open to learning more.

2
Jamie E
I can't access to look at the specific studies but unfortunately most exercise science is like nutrition science generally (very hard to control, considerable participant variability) but with even smaller samples/statistical power, and insufficiently long periods to observe effects. They also rarely target vegetarian or vegans, so this combination is even less known about. The 1.6-2g/kg/day target is reasonable and supported, but there is an interesting body of research about BCAAs and in particular mechanistic work on the 'leucine threshold' for stimulating muscle protein synthesis, with suggestions to bump up leucine when taking plant-based proteins for maximal triggering of MPS. I'm not 100% convinced such work is correct, but enough to implement elements of it. Whether it is completely proven or not my concern raised above was that many plant-based advocates might not be aware that there is even something to consider beyond just protein or macros. Happy to discuss further but cognizant of hijacking the discussion with something not actually related to the interesting report the authors provided!

Truly shocked by the research above. Another reminder of just how far one drifts from the norm when getting enthusiastic about a particular topic. I really thought (despite personal experience to the contrary) that everyone knows cottage cheese is high protein and peanut butter has some protein, but not great macros (high fat:protein ratio). 

I think we've drifted well away from the habits of normal consumers now, but I will add say that there seems to be some agreement that protein intake up to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight per day (g/kg/day) ... (read more)

2
Seth Ariel Green 🔸
I wonder what the optimal protein intake is for trying to increase power to mass ratio, which is the core thing the sports I do (running, climbing, and hiking) ask for. I do not think that gaining mass is the average health/fitness goal, nor obviously the right thing for most people. I'd bet that most Americans would put losing weight and aerobic capacity a fair bit higher.

I'll share my view on this as a consumer. Almost every time I see a PMA on a menu, I expect to get the following things if I order that option:

- Smaller quantity
- Worse macros (That is, I expect that the PMA will have a higher fat/carb:protein ratio than chicken breast)
- Often, an upcharge to boot

This expectation might be irrational on my part; an aftereffect of being vegetarian in the 1990s before the current generation of PMAs was released. When I was a full-time vegetarian, I frequently observed restaurant meals for vegetarians contained both less calor... (read more)

2
Seth Ariel Green 🔸
Hi Chris, a few thoughts about this: 1. On the macro front, I sometimes wonder if the PMA companies shouldn't amp up the fiber content in their products and try to emphasize that as an under appreciated macro. (Personally I pay very little attention to my net macros so long as I'm generally eating healthy, real foods. When I'm thru-hiking it's a different story -- I tally my daily protein intake -- but also in that context I eat way, way more sugar.) 2. Upcharge was addressed by our study design because prices were kept constant (re: zero) but it's possible some folks held that assumption. This is an element of experimental realism because some people will also believe that if ordering online Chipotle for real. 3. Regarding nutrition parity, what if PMAs were more nutritious? I am guessing that this is a hard problem and also that we don't have clear, agreed-on metrics for healthy. But I'm also reminded of a friend saying like 15 years ago that legalization of weed would usher in a whole new era of genentically modified superstrains that could have all sorts of add-on effects, and that never materialized. It's easy to fantasize about the amazing potential of material sciences for those of us who don't actually work in it 😃 4. I agree with you about restaurants vs supermarkets; much easier to find animal welfare certifications on a tin than a restaurant's website, for instance. Which is why it's a downer that many conscientious reducetarians/flexitarians eat more meat out than at home. I think what's happening there is that convenience trumps abstract ethical reasoning when the two come into conflict. Byran Caplan would not find this surprising.

I removed the Blue Dot AISF link.

> We no longer maintain an AI safety job board.

Copying my comment from the EA Forum version of this thread

Mentorship is one of the most frequently requested services that AI Safety Quest sees when conducting Navigation calls. I hope this service can help bridge the gap between "I want to do something about AI safety" and "I'm working on a meaningful AIS project". Many thanks to you both for making this happen.

Does anyone have a link to the slides? I could use more zoom 😅

This was posted to lesswrong 4 days ago; consider checking out the comments to the lesswrong version. There are 18 comments at the time I'm writing this.

"but why hasn't EA done this already?"

still seems like a fair question. I think the underlying problem you're pointing to might be that people will then give up on their projects or ideas without having come up with a good answer. An "EMH-style" mindset seems to point to an analytical shortcut: if it hasn't already been done, it probably isn't worth doing. Which, I agree is wrong. 

I still think EMH has no relevance in this context and that should be the main argument against applying it to EA projects. 

I had to use Wikipedia to get a concise definition of EMH, rather than rely on my memory:

The efficient-market hypothesis (EMH) is a hypothesis in financial economics that states that asset prices reflect all available information. A direct implication is that it is impossible to "beat the market" consistently on a risk-adjusted basis since market prices should only react to new information. [1]

This appears to me to apply exclusively to financial (securities) markets and I think we would be taking (too) far out of its original context in trying to use ... (read more)

1
Eli Rose🔸
What I'm talking about tends to be more of an informal thing which I'm using "EMH" as a handle for. I'm talking about a mindset where, when you think of something that could be an impactful project, your next thought is "but why hasn't EA done this already?" I think this is pretty common and it's reasonably well-adapted to the larger world, but not very well-adapted to EA.
2
Lizka
Hi Chris, thanks for suggesting this! I'll add it. 

I don't see the connection between EMH and EA projects. Can you elaborate on how those two intersect?

2
Eli Rose🔸
EMH says that we shouldn't expect great opportunities to make money to just be "lying around" ready for anyone to take. EMH says that, if you have an amazing startup idea, you have to answer "why didn't anyone do this before?" (ofc. this is a simplification, EMH isn't really one coherent view) One might also think that there aren't great EA projects just "lying around" ready for anyone to do. This would be an "EMH for EA." But I think it's not true.

What is the relationship between this handbook and the one hosted at https://www.effectivealtruism.org/handbook/ ?

The handbook at the above link is available in epub, mobi, and pdf formats, which seems to answer the requests in the comments here. Is it an older version? The cover indicates that it is the second edition, but sadly does not include a revision date.

2
Aaron Gertler 🔸
Thanks for asking!  Your link goes to the previous version, which was pitched at a slightly more advanced audience than was probably ideal (and covers a lot less ground overall). We've added a redirect that sends people from that page to this page.