All of Sammy's Comments + Replies

I read the whole post, and though I saw a lot of good points about why sexual violence is bad, I didn't see much about how efficacious the interventions you suggested were. It might be the case that things which increase EA productivity in a cost-effective manner are EA causes - though it seems a little strange to consider something like "getting enough sleep" to be an EA cause - but I don't think you've really made the case that these interventions do have a particularly high effectiveness.

3
Kathy_Forth
6y
"There are a lot of options that have a chance to succeed. The impact could be many times greater than the effort it takes to use the options explored herein. Testing is needed to determine the effectiveness of the options. Given the human rights concerns and the potential for a large productivity impact, testing options could turn out to be very worthwhile." - from my conclusion section. This is my honest conclusion, which I made as accurate as possible. We do not know how effective all the methods are, but it looks like it's worth testing them to find out. Having this information is a valid kind of progress.

First of all, thanks for making this extremely detailed post that addresses a tough issue in a diligent fashion. I especially admire your evenhanded tone.

I do have two points to make:

Firstly, when we discuss impact the effectiveness of an intervention, we are usually discussing things which effect huge numbers of people - perhaps all people who will ever exist - or interventions which effect hundreds of thousands of people at a very low per-person cost, like deworming. Here you're discussing this for an intervention that targets just EAs, which is a very ... (read more)

1
Zeke_Sherman
6y
The second point is irrelevant - what statistic is changed by the prevalence of false rape accusations? The Lisak and Miller study cited for the 6% figure do a survey of self-reports among men on campus.
0
Kathy_Forth
6y
There are a lot of ways in which sexual violence has an impact on effective altruism, so reducing sexual violence will help us reach our effective altruism goals in various different ways. Because it will help us do more effective altruism, and the cost-benefit ratio looks good, I believe that gives it a lot of potential to be an effective altruism cause. It seems like you may not have read the entire impact section. Here is a table of contents for the impact section: Impact Estimating the number of sexually violent people. * Why we should not assume that effective altruism repels sex offenders: * About 6% of men are rapists and an unknown percentage of women. * A rough estimate of rapists in EA: Sexual violence reduction as a life saver: * Sexual violence reduction as suffering reduction: Sexual violence reduction for diversity and disadvantage reduction: * Comparing sexual violence rates by gender: * Greatly multiplied risk to women due to the gender ratio in EA: * Gay and bisexual people have around twice the sexual violence risk: * List of specific disadvantages that EA women, bisexuals and homosexuals face: Potential of sexual violence reduction to prevent productivity loss: * The low estimate: * The high estimate: Sexual violence reduction as part of movement building: * The male sex offenders studied are shockingly prolific: * Sex offenders increase turnover in workplaces: Sexual violence reduction for lawsuit prevention: