All of Chriswaterguy's Comments + Replies

Will MacAskill appears to be ignoring these questions. E.g. he was interviewed about FTX recently by Sam Harris¹ and made zero mention of any whistleblowing in his account. He also gave the impression that he barely knew SBF, describing only a few fairly shallow interactions (not at all the impression I'd received while SBF was still in favour).

The interview portion of the episode was 80 min, so it wasn't for lack of time.

I've been waiting for a response from Will – a full explanation and (if things are as they seem) a sincere mea culpa. I would expect no ... (read more)

The "«" and "»" suggestion is one that could be done mostly with a search-and-replace – having the more at the top of the appendix is not enough if it also applies to the post itself. This significantly affects how trustworthy I would consider the post to be (and I say that as someone sympathetic to your situation).

Strong agree with Nathan. This is a completely valid use of an anonymous account. I'm glad that you shared. I hope that the answers and support offered here will help you on your path.

Good work. One disagreement:

I assume that if this PPE was developed, it would “catch on”, in the sense that governments would stockpile sufficient quantities and/or commercial producers would be prepared to scale up production sufficiently quickly for this PPE to be effective in a pandemic.

It's very optimistic to assume governments would behave so competently and rationally.

In a more detailed version of the plan it would be good to see strategies for promoting and lobbying.

Upvoted: you're pointing to an important tension (truth-telling vs inclusiveness).

However I don't believe this requires the movement to split. There are more and less skilful ways to tell the truth and there are more and less skilful ways to be inclusive.

Both are important to our mission. We can continue to improve at both.

We can't simply aim to maximise one or the other, though. E.g. Even if someone valued truth-telling above all else, a lack of inclusiveness would keep the movement small, controversial and marginalised.

This post with its comments is a valuable discussion.

The post on its own with its lack of cautions and provisos is potentially harmful to many readers, and high upvotes may lead readers to trust it too much. Strong downvote for these reasons.

I wouldn't want anyone to have the impression that Kathy wasn't given extensive support, or that she wasn't offered appropriate help. She definitely was, repeatedly and over a long period of time.

Could more effective help have been given? I honestly don't know, but it was well beyond my ability and capacity at the time.

It was a painful and heartbreaking situation. I think that's as much as I can say publicly.

For the record, I knew Kathy for several years, initially through a local Less Wrong community, and considered her a friend for some time. I endorse Scott's assessment, but I'll emphasise that I think she believed the accusations she made.

Relevant to this post: Many people tried to help Kathy, from 3 groups that I'm aware of. People gave a lot of time and energy. Speaking for myself and what I observed in our local community, I believe we prioritised helping her over protecting our community and over our own wellbeing.

In the end things went poorly on all t... (read more)

Perhaps these posts could start with a note on "assumed context", similar to the "epistemic status" notes.

(A downside might be if it discourages someone from reading a post that they actually would have got value from, even if they didn't understand everything. So the choice of wording would be important.)

It's worth noting that being outside in sunshine gives much more intense light exposure than any mainstream SAD treatment. (My personal experience is that it can give a large boost in alertness, and probably helps my sleep significantly. But I'm in Sydney – I can't speak for northern Europe or Canada.)

5-HTP is a precursor to serotonin, which is a precursor to melatonin. I imagine that this would have a much slower and less predictable effect, less suitable for helping to go to sleep in a particular time range.

I share the concerns about possible overuse of melatonin, though I've found out helpful at times. I try to adjust light exposure (morning and night) as a higher priority than melatonin.

I may also go back to using low dose melatonin, though, as it's been helpful in the past and may be needed in modern technological society.

My favourite is Ten Percent Happier – it's very accessible and it has a lot of meditations and teachings by Joseph Goldstein, who also appears in the lectures in Waking Up. I've also found some value from Sam Harris's meditations, especially the early ones he released long before the app. Ten Percent Happier don't have the free option AFAIK, but they do have an 8-part free intro. And they have significant discounts at times through the year.

What's the story with Eat Just selling cultured chicken bites in Singapore – are they being sold at a loss, and/or does the product only contain a small amount of the chicken product?

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/more-cultured-chicken-products-approved-for-sale-in-singapore

I've read elsewhere that the initial version wasn't quite 100% vegan, but they later eliminated the need for fetal blood.

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos gets a full 8 hours.

Another data point: IIRC, Will MacAskill says he gets 9 hours or he doesn't function at his best. (I think I heard that in his Tim Ferriss interview.)

Some things that have helped me to sleep, in case they help you:

• 10 minutes of sunlight within 2 hours of your average wake time, preferably within 30 minutes. In practice I like to get more sun than this, as it makes me more alert.
• Soft lights at night. E.g. I have a lamp with a 5W LED (and an extra paper shade to stop flare from the top); and right before bed I

"Mini-summit"? Less elegant, but maybe more fitting.

Thanks for the analysis.

A point of disagreement: "if cultured meat is at least as expensive as farmed animal meat, it is doubtful that a substantial fraction of consumers would substitute, given the current unwillingness to replace animal products with similar vegan substitutes."

Not at all comparable. I have yet to find plant-based meat substitutes that I want to eat. They either taste disappointing compared to meat, leave me with pains in the gut, fail to meet my nutritional expectations, or a combination of the three. I actually prefer tofu or... (read more)

Thanks – helpful feedback (and from Owen also). In hindsight I would probably have kept the word "cultish" while being much more explicit about not completely endorsing the feeling.

I read "active" to mean actually involved in things, whether socially, online, finding, or campaigning.

The word "activist" has a stronger connotation in spite of the same root.

That's an important distinction, and acting against that (trying to act as the EA community's representative) doesn't automatically mean banning from the movement.

I deliberately said "My System 1 doesn't like this." and "that feels cultish" – on an intuitive level, I feel uncomfortable, and I'm trying to work out why. I do see value in having effective gatekeepers.

I'm not even sure what it means to be "banned" from a movement consisting of multiple organisations and many individuals. It may be that if the process is clearly defined, and we know who is making the decision, on whose behalf, I'd be more comfortable with it.

I'd suggest that we should be more trusting that when someone in the community criticises someone else not in the community, they're doing it for good reasons. However, writing that out is almost self-refuting - that's what all insular communities are doing.

Yes, insofar communities do that, but typically in emotive and highly biased ways. EA at least has more constructive norms for how these things are discussed. It's not perfect, and it's not fast, but here I see people taking pains to be as fair-minded as they can be. (We achieve that to different deg... (read more)

I played a small part in helping EAGx Melbourne to happen two weeks ago, by volunteering for the weekend. The team and the speakers and facilitators did a great job, there were lots of interesting and engaged people, and it was definitely a case of doing good while having fun.

Also at the conference, I facilitated a discussion group on Effective Environmentalism. It went fairly well - I'm still learning to facilitate and there are things I will do differently next time, but the discussion raised a bunch of important issues, and we got to meet others who are concerned about this.

At first I assumed that "risks" was autocorrected to "foods", but then I got to the part at the end on "Feeding Everyone No Matter What" by you and Joshua Pearce. I know Joshua and I love that you've done this. For anyone interested, there's some more about it on Appropedia.

Great article.

"We are running out of uranium" – we have 200 years supply at current rates, and if we started using a lot more and prices went up then that would make breeder reactors, for example more financially viable. These use less than 1 % of the uranium needed for current LWRs. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-will-global-uranium-deposits-last/

Financially viable thorium reactors would be awesome, but we don't have to wait for that. Uranium is not running out – at least not in the simple and obvious meaning of "running out".

I'm against segregating EAs, and if we ever have separate water fountains or bus seats for different classes of EA, I will protest. (EDIT: Looking back on this, I was using something of a strawman here. I apologise. My intent was to distinguish between segregation and categorisation.)

Categorisation, however, is something that we inevitably do and which is sometimes useful to do.

If categorisation makes people feel minimised or relegated to second class status, it's a problem. In line with some other comments here, I'm in favour of a term such as hardcore o... (read more)

Update: my friend signed the pledge, and watched Peter Singer's TED Talk on EA with their mother. It apparently has pushed them both to be more strategic about their altruism.

I was careful not to badger them about it at any point - they came to me about it. I would have liked to sign up more friends during the pledge drive, but I started late, and I think I want to continue working in this way, engaging without being pushy.

EA hasn't been a major personal focus for me, yet, and my achievements are more modest.

I was one of the volunteers at the EA Global Summit in Melbourne. The summit would have gone on fine without me, but the things I helped with seemed to make people happy (and I enjoyed it). Creating positive experiences around EA seems valuable.

I've been posting a bit about the Giving What We Can pledge on Facebook, including in a group that I run (Self-Improvement for Nerds). That has led to some positive comments, including a friend saying that they really liked what ... (read more)

My impression was that the purpose of InIn was to promote rationality, and that EA was a natural aspect of that. This sounds like EA and the values of EA are much more central than that. Could you clarify this, Gleb?

I like the fact that there's an active, strategic effort to engage in outreach, and I'm impressed with the media reach achieved to date. Also with how accessible it is, and how palatable, bypassing issues of tribal affiliation to get to the core principles and how to implement them.

I plan to get involved myself (both to contribute and to learn).

UPDATE, Oct 2017: I ended up not being involved for long. While I still appreciate InIn's intentions and a number of aspects of their work, I didn't feel completely comfortable and didn't have the personal resources (esp time) to dedicate.