This may be a bit of a conceptual vs purpose difference, but I would certainly not put insects as a good alternative even on simple moral grounds. Eg, it is likely not the type of alternative protein I'd be looking for.

I don’t know about other folks but I think this is my first criticism of them as long as I can remember, both online and offline. In general I think they have been fairly responsible with AI safety, or as responsible as I would expect a company to be. But even if I did criticise them a lot, I think it would still be a valid criticism. After all, as a non American I feel quite unease about this, even if they are arguably not the main actor. In any case, I think liberal democracies should oppose mass surveillance in general.

Worth noting that the mass surveillance friction point is only about domestic mass surveillance. Thus, does Anthropic believes mass surveillance of non-Americans is just fine?

Do we also have a reference for what numbers are typically good in other interventions?

But AGI provides a clear mechanism of erosion of democracy (as a country you need less of your population) and a destabilising wave due to the difference in capabilities of countries.

I’m pretty confident the EA community is underdiscussing on how to prevent global AGI powered autocracy, especially if the US democracy implodes under AGI pressure. There are two key questions here: (I) How to make the US more resilient, and (ii) how can we make the world less dependent on the US democracy resilience.

I don't know what SAD means, probably worth defining it early on in the post.

I agree. A reason why it may be easier is that the average age of farmers is high, close to 60. This may be sufficiently high, and population sufficiently small, that standard national support schemes could bear with it.

On alternative proteins: I think the EA community could aim to figure out how to turn animal farmers into winners if we succeed with alternative proteins. This seems to be one of the largest social risks, and it's probably something we should figure out before we scale alternative proteins a lot. Farmers are typically a small group but have a large lobby ability and public sympathy.

I have thought about it for a few minutes, and while I agree with all you say -- talking to people from advocates "in their own camp" will certainly lower the social cost -- it will still frame refraining from animal consumption as a cost. I think it would make change much easier if going vegan provided back something people sought, not just moral satisfaction. Those things can be money, pleasure, social status... but I think we need to provide something back; and something they want.