All of jayquigley's Comments + Replies

The vague term "great" gets used a lot in this post. If possible, wielding more precise concepts regarding what you're looking for—what counts as "great" in the sense you're using the term—could be helpful moving forward. By honing in on the particular kind of skill you're seeking, you'll help identify those who have those skills. And you may help yourselves confirm which specific skills are truly are essential to the position you're seeking to fill. 

(Also, I think there are more ways to be a "great" software engineer than being able to write a substa... (read more)

Any updates here? I share Devon's concern: this news also makes me less likely to want to donate via EA Funds.  At worst, the fear would be this: so much transparency is lost that donations go into mysterious black holes rather than funding effective organizations. What steps can be taken to convince donors that that's not what's happening?

• What is your stance regarding aiming your output at an EA audience vs. a wider audience? (Academic & governmental audiences, etc.?)
• It seems that a large portion of output begins on your blog and in EA Forum posts. What other venues do you aim at, if any?
• To what extent do you regard tailoring your work to academic journals with "peer-review" as counterfactually worthwhile?

California bans fur! https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/style/fur-ban-california.html

For the cross-referencing, did they ask your permission first? Hopefully so. Otherwise, there can be the awkward situation where one does not actually want to work at the organization to which one has been referred.

Amazing idea! I'll be thinking and talking more about this, including with the animal-issue lobbying organizations I've worked with here in the US and California.

For the animal advocacy space, my anecdata suggest that the talent gap is in large part a product of funding constraints. Most animal charities pay rather poorly, even compared to other nonprofits.

Thanks for your engaging insights!

this sounds like you're talking about a substantive concept of rationality

Yes indeed!

Substantive concepts of rationally always go under moral non-naturalism, I think.

I'm unclear on why you say this. It certainly depends on how exactly 'non-naturalism' is defined.

One contrast of the Gert-inspired view I've described and that of some objectivists about reasons or substantive rationality (e.g. Parfit) is that the latter tend to talk about reasons as brute normative facts. Sometimes it seems they have no story to tell ... (read more)

So you know who's asking, I happen to consider myself a realist, but closest to the intersubjectivism you've delineated above. The idea is that morality is the set of rules that impartial, rational people would advocate as a public system. Rationality is understood, roughly speaking, as the set of things that virtually all rational agents would be averse to. This ends up being a list of basic harms--things like pain, death, disability, injury, loss of freedom, loss of pleasure. There's not much more objective or "facty" about rationality than the... (read more)

One thought is that if morality is not real, then we would not have reasons to do altruistic things. However, I often encounter anti-realists making arguments about which causes we should prioritize, and why. A worry about that is that if morality boils down to mere preference, then it is unclear why a different person should agree with the anti-realist's preference.

What do you think are the implications of moral anti-realism for choosing altruistic activities?

Why should we care whether or not moral realism is true?

(I would understand if you were to say this line of questions is more relevant to a later post in your series.)

Just want to second that interested readers visit Khorton's very helpful link. It's a great article with a very helpful decision tree produced by 80,000 Hours & the Global Priorities Project.

The idea behind trying to end factory farming for animals' sake is that animals who spend their whole lives on factory farms are enduring lives that are not worth living. It is better not to bring creatures into existence who would live net negative lives.

You're right that extinction is a (very) extreme case. It's more likely that even with a drastic reduction in factory farming, a small fraction of descendants of farmed species would be preserved--either for farming, or in zoos or similar institutions. After all, they're easy to domesticate, having been bred over the centuries for precisely those purposes.

Another useful, well-writtten statement of this argument is in Brian Tomasik's "Does Vegetarianism Make a Difference?":

Suppose that a supermarket currently purchases three big cases per week of factory-farmed chickens, with each case containing 25 birds. The store does not purchase fractions of cases, so even if several surplus chickens remain each week, the supermarket will continue to buy three cases. This is what the anti-vegetarian means by "subsisting off of surplus animal products that would otherwise go to waste": the three cas

Joey, do you think you would adjust this for different circumstances---say, if living in a more expensive region, facing medical hardship, or having to support an elderly family member? For example, assuming you're renting a room for $440 USD, rents in the Bay Area would be anywhere from 200% to 500% more. If for some reason you wound up here, would you take the price difference into account, or still try to go with the global average?

Your point is well taken. Indeed, the goal is a world where everyone's interest is given the same weight as equivalent interests, regardless of species.

It is probable that lofty philosophical visions motivate and inspire people, just as you indicate.

I suppose the reason we don't always lead with that kind of messaging is that it can scare away opponents who aren't ready to dare challenging the "meat" industry and worry about slippery slopes. Including lawmakers whose constituents include scores of entrepreneurs who sell animal bodies as food.

If BCA were a major animal protection organization such as HSUS or PETA, I would mostly agree with you. But we are an all-volunteer force of around 4 dedicated members in one of the very most progressive cities in the U.S. What we should prioritize is not the building of awareness but rather the accumulation of inspiring legislative victories which will help mobilize the rest of those who are already aware of animal issues.

Rather than "run[ning] around and try[ing] to do something about every incidence of suffering [we] see", we are prioritizing ... (read more)

Speaking specifically for Fur Free Berkeley, and speculating on behalf of Fur Free West Hollywood, the reasons for focusing on banning fur were that it was:

• attainable yet challenging

• a meaningful step in an incremental progression toward further, more all-encompassing reforms

• a farmed animal issue with which the general public has substantial sympathy

• an industry wherein welfare misdeeds are egregious and relatively well-understood

• an issue on which both welfare reformers and staunch abolitionists can agree (because it is a form of outright prohibiti

I worry that SI will delineate lots of research questions usefully, but that it will be harder to make needed progress on those questions. Are you worried about this as well, and if so, are there steps to be taken here? One idea is promoting the research projects to graduate students in the social sciences, such as via grants or scholarships.

Classic!

Lila, thanks for sharing. You've made it clear that you've left the EA movement, but I'm wondering whether and, if so, why, your arguments also have pushed you away from being committed to "lowercase effective altruism"---that is, altruism which is effective, but isn't necessarily associated with this movement.

Are you still an altruist? If so, do you think altruism is better engaged in with careful attention put to the effectiveness of the endeavors?

Thanks in advance.

The larger point---that film can be a compelling vehicle for important ideas---stands regardless whether Cowspiracy was fully accurate or unbiased in its selection of figures.

That said, I agree that we should be cautious about endorsing Cowspiracy in particular, since certain key numbers on which it rests its arguments and emphases are disputed (good discussion and links on wikipedia). That said, it's a bit unfortunate if discussion surrounding the film centers only around fact checking--e.g., 15% vs. 51%--when in most any case there is an important, oft-overlooked environmental rationale for a shift toward cutting livestock out of the world's food system.

Which McMahan and MacAskill articles?

Percentages:

• Direct charity / nonprofit work: 190 / 2352 = 8%
• Earning to give: 512 / 2352 = 22%
• Research: 362 / 2352 = 15%
• None of these: 375 / 2352 = 16%
• Didn't answer: 913 / 2352 = 39%

2) People should definitely watch and try to screen the film Unlocking the Cage (website, trailer), which documents the ongoing fight in the US for legal personhood for primates.

3.1) AI safety and existential risk are obvious topics on which stimulating documentaries could be impactful.

4) My impression is that Cowspiracy was independently screened scores of times across the world, especially privately by the vegan and animal rights communities. I'd love to know more details. The trailer currently has 1.1 million views.

5.1) Cost: If a documentary mostly inv... (read more)

Here is a provocative piece that challenges people to think outside of the box of merely earning-to-give long term: https://80000hours.org/2015/07/80000-hours-thinks-that-only-a-small-proportion-of-people-should-earn-to-give-long-term/

@cdc482 I share your concerns, suspect many others to as well, and appreciate the honesty of this post.

I think a lot of whether it's worth taking higher-risk-higher-reward paths toward doing good depends on a lot of specifics. Specifics such as those covered in 80K's framework (https://80000hours.org/articles/framework/).

In particular, the question about earning vs. working on the front lines has to do with what sort of needs your cause has, and your would-be 'role impact'. Is the cause more funding-constrained, research-constrained, talent-constrained i... (read more)

We should avoid the temptation to think it's an all-or-nothing between direct work now until retirement and earning-to-give from now until retirement. (Not saying that was exactly your view.)

Here's one example of something in between these extremes. One can work at for-profit jobs as a means of skilling up such that your talents can be used for direct work projects during non-work hours and/or later on in one's career. And meanwhile one can earn-to-give in the short term, remaining agnostic about the long-term path.

Peter Hurford has an interesting profile ... (read more)

FWIW, the links at the top of this take me to the google doc rather than to anchors within this page.

Finally I've realized:

My future giving could potentially be greatly aided by an accountant.

Get it peer reviewed.

1-3 and 9-11 seem to be criticisms of EAs, not EA.

To 4-8, I want to say, of course, the biggest problems in the universe are extremely hard ones. Are we really surprised?

Number 12 is easily the most important criticism. The more we professionalize and institutionalize this movement, the more fractured, intransigent, and immobile it will become.

On the side of optimism, the Open Philanthropy Project shows signs of one important institution rigorously looking into broad cause effectiveness.

Admittedly, some people may be more motivated by 'be a superdonor' than 'be a mega-lifesaver'. Different strokes can be expected to motivate different folks.

I agree, and had actually thought about that.

(Just to reiterate, the point of my suggestion for an improved slogan was to motivate more by appealing more to recipients' needs than to donors' sense of being a hero.)

It would be nice to have a slogan that could capture all types of causes. Let's keep thinking...

If we cannot find such a slogan, something about lifesaving or difference-making may be a good proxy.

After all, preventing there from being more farmed animals in the future is in a sense 'saving' lives, at least in the roundabout sense that prevent... (read more)

"Be a Superdonor" sounds like one is being encouraged to rack up a high score or become a superhero. That's okay. And maybe it sublty would help people think about effectiveness. But it doesn't put focus on the individuals people are helping. Any old local charity could ask us to be the same.

By contrast, what about "Be a Mega-Lifesaver"? This makes effective altruism out to be about the thrilling task of literally saving lives and life-years. That's why I'm an EA. One problem is that this phrase is slightly more cumbersome.

You might consider italicizing the word "most" in the phrase "whichever organisations can most effectively use it". This might guard somewhat against ineffective or complacent giving.