All of Devin Kalish's Comments + Replies

I think "morality" as we discuss it and as I use it has many realish properties - I think things would be good or bad whether or not moral agents had ever come to exist (so long as moral patients did), I think we can be uncertain about which theory of ethics is "right" to begin with, and I don't think the debate to resolve this uncertainty is ultimately semantic. I think ethics has most of the stuff real things have except for the "being real" part.

I'm not super confident on this, but I note that most sorts of explanations of what ethics is either fa... (read more)

Overall I care more about preventing the worst scenarios than promoting the very best. While I am worried about scenarios worse than extinction, and most of my ambivalence comes from the possibility of these, I would count extinction as a scenario that I care about substantially more about than bringing about very positive futures.

While there's less work on improving the longer term future, I also find what work there is not that promising by comparison to the preventing extinction work - and the longer we survive, the more likely I find it that we are ab... (read more)

Thanks for the response, I appreciate it!

YES

Thanks! It's actually almost the other way around - the original essay this was based on was specifically about environmental restoration, but I've been thinking about expanding it to touch on the issue of terraforming for a little while, a concern of some consequentialists in the wild animal welfare community like Brian Tomasik. This draft touches on this idea briefly, but when I make the final draft, it will likely include a section more dedicated to the topic.

Sorry I wasn't able to show up, I was looking forward to it but woke up with a real nasty stomach bug. Will there be any more sessions like this?

Topic from last round:

Okay, so, this is kind of a catch all. Out of the possible post ideas I commented last year, I never posted or wrote “Against National Special Obligation”, “The Case for Pluralist Evaluation”, or “Existentialist Currents in Pawn Hearts”. So, this is just the comment for “one of those”.

Mid-Realist Ethics:

I occasionally bring up my meta-ethical views in blog posts, but I keep saying I’ll write a more dedicated post on the topic and never really do. A high level summary includes stuff like: “ethics” as I mean it has a ton of features that “real” stuff has, but it lacks the crucial bit which is actually being a real thing. The ways around this tend to fall into one of two major traps – either making a specific unlikely empirical prediction about the view, or labeling a specific procedure “ethics” in a way that has no satisfying difference f... (read more)

Observations on Alcoholism Appendix G:

This would be another addition to my Sequence on Alcoholism – I’ve been thinking in particular of writing a post listing out ideas about coping strategies/things to visualize to help with sobriety. I mention several in earlier appendices in the sequence – things like leaning into your laziness or naming and yelling at your addiction – but I don’t have a neat collection of advice like this, which seems like one of the more useful things I could put together on this subject.

Cosmological Fine-Tuning Considered:

The title’s kind of self-explanatory – over time I’ve noticed the cosmological fine-tuning argument for the existence of god become something like the most favored argument, and learning more about it over time has made me consider it more formidable than I used to think as well.

I’m ultimately not convinced, but I do consider it an update, and it makes for a good excuse for me to talk more about my views on things like anthropic arguments, outcome pumps, the metaphysics of multiverses, and interesting philosophical consi... (read more)

Moral problems for environmental restoration:

A post idea I’ve been playing with recently is converting part of my practicum write-up into a blog post about the ethics of environmental restoration projects. My practicum was with the “Billion Oyster Project”, which seeks to use oyster repopulation for geoengineering/ecosystem restoration, and I spent a big chunk of my write-up worrying about the environmental ethics of this, and I’ve been thinking this worrying could be turned into a decent blogpost.

I’ll discuss welfare biology briefly, but lots of it will s... (read more)

I've been commenting too much on this post so I'm cutting myself off here, but if you want to continue the dialogue in DMs, feel free to message me.

I have finally gotten around to reading the paper, and it looks like I was wrong about almost every cited example of public opinion. On euthanasia and non-human/human tradeoffs bioethicists seem to have similar views to the public, and on organ donor compensation the general public seems to be considerably more aligned with the EA consensus than bioethicists. The public view on IVF wasn't discussed and I would guess I am right about this (though considering the other results, not confidently). The only example I gave that seems more or less right is treatm... (read more)

I guess to elaborate a bit: The non-identity problem means that even choices that intuitively seem very morally dire when it comes to the kind of life you give your child can turn out to be morally neutral if the choice simultaneously changes the identity of the child you bring into existence. Because the results of biting the bullet on this seem so absurd to so many people, most papers in reproductive ethics kind of treat all choices about which child you bring into existence as though they are instead choices being made for the life of a single child. The reasons given vary a good deal, and there is more consensus that this is how you ought to treat these cases than why.

I think basically all bioethicists who answered this combination will say that the "loophole" you discovered counts as the same category as embryo selection morally. True it is a version of having an abortion, but it isn't the central case that the question "is it permissible to have an abortion" brings to mind, and these questions don't provide fine-grained enough possible answers to nuance your view. Again I think this style of response fails anyway, but it's difficult to produce a theory that doesn't involve cramming these different decisions into categ... (read more)

This seems very simple to me:

If you think fetuses are not of moral concern but grown persons are, then abortion is just birth control, and embryo selection affects the full life of a moral patient (because presumably the fetus will be born and become one).

I disagree on both counts, the first because while I am pro-choice, I think fetuses are worthy of moral concern by some point in pregnancy, and on embryo selection I think the non-identity problem bites and most attempts to rescue a more restrictive reproductive ethics based on things like intention and r... (read more)

I'm not sure, again I haven't really spoken with my professor about this, and agree with Leah that the numbers are likely inflated. On the one hand Some ways of spelling out this position just seem to imply that yes, these deaths are as important to prevent. On the other hand, speaking less generously and more meta-philosophically for the moment, my impression is that people most likely to be comfortable with the age-neutral position in the first place also tend to be the ones willing to weave arbitrarily elaborate networks of moral cruft for themselves in order to avoid biting almost any bullet.

I'm not sure I even share your definition here, I think "disadvantaged" doesn't refer to a lack of compensation or anything else so specific, just overall whether you are below the relevant threshold of advantages. This seems very straightforward and I don't think I need a definition of disadvantage that specifically references compensation anywhere, just one that doesn't discount a level of advantage if it turns out compensation was involved in getting it. I also kind of disagree that you can just rely on "this is what words mean" anyway. I have taken ver... (read more)

Hm, something like this confusion could be boosting numbers, but I do have a professor who holds a position like this (I haven't spoken to her about it, so I don't know her exact justification). I find the position extremely implausible, but my steelman is probably something like this:

It is better to give someone twenty more years of life rather than two more years of life, but it is also better to give someone a million more dollars rather than a thousand.

We don't think, however, that it is right to give preferential treatment to saving a millionaire's li... (read more)

I think a complication is that some people answering might have a theory of justice wherein a fully just world by definition corrects/compensates any disadvantages that come with being blind. I think this view still raises concerns for people who either think that the loss of a major personal capability isn't something that is fungible with any social compensation for reasons basic to their theory of autonomy/flourishing, or people who think that justice will not demand fully compensating disadvantages like this at all. Still, I doubt 40% of respondents think the less plausible interpretation of this answer is true.

Thanks for doing this research Leah! I've been hoping to see something like this for a while. Most of the results aren't that surprising to me (paid organ donation and non-medical embryo selection are a little surprising to me, I expected them to be controversial, not so one-sided). On my overall views on the field I reserve judgement - these look relatively normal for what I expect to see in the general public with a few exceptions, which is more or less what I expected. I unfortunately don't seem to have institutional access to the paper diving into this question more and I still don't know how to use sci-hub, so I'll have to figure that part out later. Again, thanks for running more formal research on this subject!

I never met Marissa, in fact I never even heard of her until today. But this is an incredibly tragic end to an incredible life – that she died so young, and that what she suffered through was enough to make her think death was worth it. But this suffering and this death is part of the fight she joined us in, with great dedication. When things like this happen within the community I can’t help but think of a quote from Yudkowky’s writing on his own brother’s death,

“When Michael Wilson heard the news, he said: ‘We shall have to work faster.’ Any similar cond... (read more)

Thank you so much for writing this! I hope this isn't considered too off topic, but I run the Effective Altruism Addiction Recovery Group which I am maintaining but is still fairly slow at the moment. If you are reading this and are worried about your own addictive behaviors, feel free to join the server, or if you would rather not, feel free to reach out to me directly, and I would be happy to meet/help any way you think will be most useful. You should be able to join through this link:

https://discord.gg/W8sFnNEbdT

Pinea did complain about how many dimensions I wanted in my ethics...

Thanks, I see what you’re saying now. I can see value in positive reinforcement at least, but I guess I have a few reactions to some of the more specific points here:

1. Insofar as people can find reference classes they don’t fit that predict alcoholism, they can do the same for not drinking. Muslims, some other conservative theists, people with physical health conditions, people who are recovering alcoholics, people who rarely hang out with friends. I think you are at high risk if you are say a young atheist socialite in somewhere like NYC, and you can als

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you mean here:

"I meant for the stat of non-drinkers to be a positive signal for the general population to choose not to drink and still feel normie."

Could you rephrase? As for my stats, this is an example that's been helpful. I definitely agree that most people can eventually recover and stop drinking pretty much for good (or less reliably, in moderation). I'm currently sober for about two months, and hope to fully recover myself. What I meant is that even if you do eventually recover, there are huge costs that are... (read more)

Yeah, I’m getting the impression that one of the big things I ought to do with a final draft is expand my discussion of this change in my position, and possibly spin it off into its own appendix. For what it’s worth if this is true it means the risk from drinking is even higher than apparent, as even when you control for the portion of non-drinkers who are alcoholics or former alcoholics (depending on your preferred nomenclature), a quite significant portion of the people who don’t become alcoholics just don’t drink anyway (how much depends in large part on how many of these people used to drink a good deal and stopped, but never became alcoholics).

Thanks, this a decent gloss and I hope it will be helpful (I apologize again for the difficulty of the outline as currently written)

Worth adding though that alcoholism can get gradually worse over long periods, and many alcoholics spend decades in denial, so if you are trying to rule yourself into this class, you really should look at this much more objective criteria rather than sorta vibing "I've done this forever and I'm not an alcoholic".

This seems right to me.

I mean, people aren’t given “future alcoholic” cards. I think there are circumstances under which you can be sure drinking is especially risky, such as being a recovering alcoholic or having history with a different addiction or having a decent amount of recent family history with addiction, but I’m not aware of a ton of factors you can reference to be confident you won’t be one.

I don’t think your odds are more than half, but I do think they’re around one in ten if you’re an average American (if you’re drinking enough that cutting alcohol is a significant ... (read more)

If anyone knows how to insert this table in my post, I would be very appreciative. I don't know if it's obvious or something, but I haven't seen any instructions for it and I am not technically skilled.

-Response to "Welfare and Felt-Duration"

I seriously doubt I'll have anything ready for this by draft amnesty week (maaaaybe a rough outline if I can post that), but it could be one of the most useful things for me to get feedback on, as it is what I'm planning to write for my thesis (not with that title, though if I adapt and shorten it into a blog post after writing it, it might have a title like that in the way this earlier post does):

https://www.thinkingmuchbetter.com/main/meat-veggies-response/

Essentially, it's on the topic of the issues subjective exp... (read more)

-Existentialist Currents in Pawn Hearts

Unlike the others here, I probably won't post this one, either for draft amnesty, or on the forum, at all, as it isn't sufficiently relevant (though I did make a related post on the forum which uh, remains my lowest karma post):

https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fvqRCuLm4GkdwDgFd/art-recommendation-childlike-faith-in-childhood-s-end

But it's a post I am strongly thinking of putting on my own blog. Like my most recent blog post:

https://www.thinkingmuchbetter.com/main/fun-home/

This is one that I would be adapting ... (read more)

-The Case for Pluralist Evaluation

This is another one I started and never finished. I actually specifically started it as an intended draft amnesty entrant last year, but I think it is in even rougher shape, and I also haven't looked at it in a long time. Basically this was inspired by the controversy a little while ago over ACE evaluating their movement grants on criteria other than impact on animal welfare. I don't defend this specific case but rather make a general argument against this type of argument. Basically the idea is that most EA donors (especi... (read more)

-Against National Special Obligation

I started a draft on this one a while ago, but haven't looked at it again for a while, and probably won't post it. The idea is pretty simple and I think relatively uncontroversial amongst EAs: we do not have special obligations to help people in the same country as us. This is not just also true, but especially true in political contexts. I see the contrary opinion voiced by even quite decent people, but I think it is an extremely awful position when you investigate it in a more thorough and on-the-ground way rather than noticing where it matches common sense.

On the topic of hopepunk (and to an extent Secular Solstice since that came up in another comment), I want to mention the Mary Ellen Carter by Stan Rogers, which is quite important to me for similar reasons.

Oh my god I am so excited for this, I've been trying to put together a thesis paper on this exact subject! I have had such a hard time finding prior relevant work.

Fair, fair, and fair. I do think there are mitigating responses to all of these points as well, but I’ll concede the point that these are cases on the fringes of convenience for him. I was personally more thinking about IQ if I had to think of an example - he seems to place more importance on it than most people, but as I think he pointed out in a blog post I can’t find now, this leads just an awful lot of people to really statist and quasi or outright fascist views, so even if it doesn’t actually imply fascism, it’s an area where adopting a view closer to the average would be more convenient, provide an additional reason he could give against such people.

Thanks, these are interesting examples (and if I’m commenting too much someone please tell me, I can do that sometimes I think), but I range from somewhat to very skeptical on them as counterexamples:

1. This is the most plausible one I think, it really does seem like it lends support for greater intervention on certain views. However, it’s hard to find a view of population ethics/population sciences that does not have some population it prefers, or that gives a good account of why incentives will produce it naturally. My impression is that most people eith

I think any question that attempts to get at the heart of the strongest objection to a public figure's worldview is going to sound like an accusation, because in a way it is, mostly I hope it's taken as an ultimately good natured, curious, and productive accusation. On the point of libertarianism being a "good lens", I mean libertarianism as a policy suggestion. I am voicing suspicion that there isn't a plausible lens behind this policy view that generalizes so well in both philosophy and the real world that it doesn't leave Caplan's slate of opinions looking suspicious, but for what it's worth my second question was basically asking him to propose one.

Part of my second question is that I think in order to beat these two challenges, the best he can do is say that there is one fairly simple principle that is behind anarcho-capitalism, and that it generalizes so robustly, both when thrown into the real world, and when thrown into philosophical controversies, that it causes all of them to conveniently point in a similar direction. It would have to be one he believed in from a young age and saw vindicated more and more over time in practice, and it needs to be remarkably unpopular to, despite having unusuall... (read more)

Two reasons I disagree:

1. It is suspicious to just happen to have a whole bunch of views that support one's pre-existing politics, but it is only a little less suspicious to have a whole bunch of not that related views that all conveniently support one coherent political view
2. I'm taken to understand that Caplan has been a libertarian since he was a kid, and an ancap almost as long. Insofar as he considers most of or many of the listed positions to come from careful academic reflection, most of the arguments he makes about them are probably ones he didn't have when he first became sympathetic to his current politics

Forgot mental illness, which again is suspiciously convenient, and maybe on the lower end of the plausibility spectrum among his views.