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Results of a survey of international development professors on EA

This is excellent work. I certainly think you should have included more detail!

Forgive my ignorance, but what is an international development professor? Are they political scientists who specialise in international development? Are they economists? Are they a separate track? What were their PhDs in? [Edit: I retract this, you already answered it in a different comment]

I think the simplest explanation for these results is that most university professors are staggeringly innumerate. This is analogous to the surveys that show that if you ask the average perso... (read more)

ryancbriggs

Thanks for the kind words and thoughts. I wanted to keep the post short, but if you want more detail there is lots more in the link at the end. I agree that that Q2 has some issues, but what makes Q2 is valuable is that other people have used it and so I have a collection of answers to the question from other samples (the public and experts). That's why I used it (and why I also added my own question, Q1). There are a lot of economists in my sample, and at least in the US political scientists get a lot of quant methods training so their numeracy tends to be high (in the UK and Canada this varies from place to place). I don't think the issue is pure innumeracy. I also phrased the question so as to avoid some of the more common misinterpretations. This was the actual question: "Consider a charity whose programs are among the most cost-effective ways of saving the lives of children. In other words, thinking across all charities that currently exist, this one can save a child’s life for the smallest amount of money. Roughly what do you think is the minimum amount of money that you would have to donate to this charity in order to expect that your money has saved the life of one child?”

Launching the SERI Summer Research Fellowship

Sam Enright2y2

The website looks great! It is worth noting that the applications are only open to people with the legal right to work in the US, as I understand it?

1[anonymous]2y

Updated, thanks!

A New Book to Introduce People to Ethical Vegetarianism

Sam Enright2y4

Thanks for the comment.

I agree that not eating meat is a small part of one's potential impact. However, we had fellows in our fellowship who thought eating meat was ok. It seems quite important to argue against this to improve their moral reasoning and get them to take arguments seriously.

I am not sure which curricula include Animal Liberation, but I would think any context in which that is appropriate, this is also.

Bryan Caplan meets Socrates

Sam Enright2y2

Cutting that out now, I thought it might have been used in some of the dialogues because it was popular around the time of the first translation into English, which is presumably where we get the turns of phrase from.

To be clear, this is a heavily fictionalised account so I'm not trying to accurately depict anyone's views (except Caplan's). What I was going for there was, in a sense, making Caplan's point for him: that there are major limitations on the extent to which philosophy makes you a better person.

Vaughn Papenhausen

Idk, I've not read tons of Plato or anything, it's certainly possible that early translations would have used "pray tell". Probably just an artifact of the particular translations I've read that it sounded out of place to me. Oh! I see, you were trying to imply that just because Socrates had done lots of philosophy didn't improve his moral views about women and slaves. I still kind of like the interpretation where, in this alternate timeline, Socrates gets his (for the time) progressive views about the education of women and slaves from a conversation with a time-traveller, even if it's not what you initially intended. (Although again, that means the dinner conversation Caplan went to can't be the conversation depicted in the Republic, not sure if you were intending it to be. The details that made me think you were implying that are: 1. The fact that Socrates says that at dinner he talked about his views on the tripartite soul, which come up in the Republic---I think they're introduced there, though it's possible they're first mentioned in an earlier dialogue I haven't read; and 2. The fact that Thrasymachus says everyone is familiar with his views on justice, which again come up in the Republic---though I suppose his views would probably be known before the conversation in the Republic.)

Liberty in North Korea, quick cost-effectiveness estimate

Sam Enright2y1

I don't at all understand point #7. Are you saying that people who unsuccessfully try to escape NK get sterilised?

The net effect is: there are fewer North Koreans within the country, but more North Korean diaspora? It seems very likely to me that having escaped North Koreans would do much more to damage the regime than having the average rebelliousness of the population go slightly down, since advocacy is driven by escapees (e.g. Yeonmi Park).

What is the relevance of population ethics? That slightly more future people will exist under this intervention?

MichaelStJules

I was thinking captured escapees (and possibly their families) would be imprisoned (or executed) and so have fewer children in expectation as a result. By rescuing them, you may allow people living in NK to have more children in NK. I expect the NK diaspora to increase. It's not clear what the effect is on the population of NK. Yes, although it might not be a small effect; it could be more than the number of rescues, considering their descendants.

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