Iâm not sure if I agree with you or not, but I donât know why you were getting so downvoted for this comment (before I strong up-voted, just to balance things out).
I thought the karma system was supposed to be independent of agreement/âdisagreement? I want to see your side of the discussion explored in the comments. I donât think people should be downvoting this kind of objection!
Your point 1 seems like a very good question to me, and I would be interested to read the authorâs reply.
Your second point also seems like a reasonable response to the piece, and Iâm sure represents what a lot of people would feel, especially if not familiar with EA. The author did a good job of anticipating and responding to lots of potential objections, but I donât think directly addressed this âdoesnât this lead to absurd conclusions?â objection.
The whole argument does feel like it resembles a Pascalâs mugging, in the same vein as strong-longtermism. When you try to do expected value maximization using Bayesian subjective probabilities (e.g. around extinction risk or likelihood of insect sentience or intensity of insect experience), and then start considering situations with huge amounts of potential value, it does seem like a recipe for decision paralysis: âbut look how big these numbers are, you canât be that certain they donât matter, surely??â
FWIW, while I didnât downvote the comment, I can see how folks would consider âWhy stop at X?â a lazy âgotchaâ argument or appeal to absurdity heuristic, which seems worth discouraging.
If yes: Guess what? I am a sorcerer from a parallel universe who has the ability to conjure arbitrary numbers of sentient beings into existence at will, and subject them to extreme torture. You tell me how unlikely you think this claim is. I will then threaten 10x the reciprocal of that number, unless you give me ÂŁ100. I can send you my details and we can arrange the transfer.
If no: How do you explain this other than by an appeal to absurdity? I would love to know the solution to this problem.
Unless or until we have a better solution to this problem than âthatâs absurdâ, then I think we have to allow appeals to absurdity, especially when used against an argument that bears some resemblance to this pascal mugger example, at least superficially.
Haha, ok, fair enough, I was not expecting that response!
Your solution (and Karnofskyâs) sound very interesting to me. But Iâll need to read both links in more depth to properly wrap my head around it.
A few questions though:
Karnofskyâs worked example for applying their multi-model technique leads with: âdoes this action deviate greatly from ânormality?ââ Why is this not just a more formalized version of the appeal to absurdity heuristic?
Not everyone is a galaxy-brain philosopher who can come up with complex blogposts like those to explain why giving their wallet to a Pascal mugger is wrong, yet everyone gets the correct (presumably) answer to this thought experiment anyway. And I think most are getting there by using some kind of absurdity heuristic? I think that should count in favour of the usefulness of the appeal to absurdity heuristic! Really feels like thereâs a good galaxy-brain meme in this. (I get Iâm rolling back here on my early suggestion that we could abandon the absurdity heuristic as soon as just one person could come up with a solution to the problem of pascalâs mugger).
Back to the actual subject of this post: Do you think the approach outlined in your 2 links could be used as an argument against the overwhelming importance of insect suffering, at least for someone who was extremely uncertain about the likelihood of insect sentience or its intensity?
Thanks! I unfortunately donât have time to engage fully with this thread going forward, but briefly:
To be clear, I donât share Karnofskyâs overall framework. Iâm skeptical of the âregression to normalityâ criterion myself. (And I donât find his model of the problem behind Pascalâs mugging probabilities compelling, since he still uses precise estimates.)
In the Pascalâs mugging case, I think people have some fuzzy sense that the muggerâs claim is made-up, which can be more carefully operationalized with imprecise credences. But if we canât even point to what our âthis is absurdâ reaction is about, and are instead merely asserting that our pretheoretic sense should dictate our decisions, Iâm more skeptical. Especially when weâre embracing an ethical principle most people would consider absurd (impartial altruism).
Appeal to absurdity is a reasonable objection and shouldnât be discouraged. We need to be able to say clearly why idea X doesnât also imply some similar absurd idea Y.
@tobycrisford đ¸ unfortunately on mamy animal welfare threads, more extreme dissenting views get downvoted to oblivion without strong up votes (like mine and yours) to compensate. This pattern seems mostly to apply to animal welfare threads unfortunately, and I think more discourse would be encouraged if animal welfare supporters didnât obliterate dissenting views.
Only a handful of us, including myself and @Henry Howardđ¸ engage with different perspectives on these animal welfare threads and I think it would be more useful if these kind of comments were encouraged, even if only to better understand what many (probably most) non EA people might be intuiting and thinking when they see these arguments.
Iâm mostly not engaging with these threads because I often donât find the engagement particularly rewarding unfortunately. Iâll keep trying from time to time :D
I think @Henry Howardđ¸ s 2 points are very important, even if you donât necessarily agree with them.
Agreed Nick. One of my recent comments has 7 agrees, 11 disagrees but â10 karma. If 7 people agree with a comment itâs unlikely to be disruptive trolling that needs to be buried.
Clear misuse of voting and evidence of heavy forum bias that I sense but canât prove.
Iâm not sure itâs âmisuseâ of voting exactly, I think people should vote how they want. I just think this downvoting pattern is unfortunate for encouraging discourse and a diversity of views.
Iâm not sure if I agree with you or not, but I donât know why you were getting so downvoted for this comment (before I strong up-voted, just to balance things out).
I thought the karma system was supposed to be independent of agreement/âdisagreement? I want to see your side of the discussion explored in the comments. I donât think people should be downvoting this kind of objection!
Your point 1 seems like a very good question to me, and I would be interested to read the authorâs reply.
Your second point also seems like a reasonable response to the piece, and Iâm sure represents what a lot of people would feel, especially if not familiar with EA. The author did a good job of anticipating and responding to lots of potential objections, but I donât think directly addressed this âdoesnât this lead to absurd conclusions?â objection.
The whole argument does feel like it resembles a Pascalâs mugging, in the same vein as strong-longtermism. When you try to do expected value maximization using Bayesian subjective probabilities (e.g. around extinction risk or likelihood of insect sentience or intensity of insect experience), and then start considering situations with huge amounts of potential value, it does seem like a recipe for decision paralysis: âbut look how big these numbers are, you canât be that certain they donât matter, surely??â
FWIW, while I didnât downvote the comment, I can see how folks would consider âWhy stop at X?â a lazy âgotchaâ argument or appeal to absurdity heuristic, which seems worth discouraging.
Would you give your wallet to a pascal mugger?
If yes: Guess what? I am a sorcerer from a parallel universe who has the ability to conjure arbitrary numbers of sentient beings into existence at will, and subject them to extreme torture. You tell me how unlikely you think this claim is. I will then threaten 10x the reciprocal of that number, unless you give me ÂŁ100. I can send you my details and we can arrange the transfer.
If no: How do you explain this other than by an appeal to absurdity? I would love to know the solution to this problem.
Unless or until we have a better solution to this problem than âthatâs absurdâ, then I think we have to allow appeals to absurdity, especially when used against an argument that bears some resemblance to this pascal mugger example, at least superficially.
I happen to have a response here that doesnât appeal to absurdity. :) (Cf. Karnofsky here.)
Haha, ok, fair enough, I was not expecting that response!
Your solution (and Karnofskyâs) sound very interesting to me. But Iâll need to read both links in more depth to properly wrap my head around it.
A few questions though:
Karnofskyâs worked example for applying their multi-model technique leads with: âdoes this action deviate greatly from ânormality?ââ Why is this not just a more formalized version of the appeal to absurdity heuristic?
Not everyone is a galaxy-brain philosopher who can come up with complex blogposts like those to explain why giving their wallet to a Pascal mugger is wrong, yet everyone gets the correct (presumably) answer to this thought experiment anyway. And I think most are getting there by using some kind of absurdity heuristic? I think that should count in favour of the usefulness of the appeal to absurdity heuristic! Really feels like thereâs a good galaxy-brain meme in this. (I get Iâm rolling back here on my early suggestion that we could abandon the absurdity heuristic as soon as just one person could come up with a solution to the problem of pascalâs mugger).
Back to the actual subject of this post: Do you think the approach outlined in your 2 links could be used as an argument against the overwhelming importance of insect suffering, at least for someone who was extremely uncertain about the likelihood of insect sentience or its intensity?
Thanks! I unfortunately donât have time to engage fully with this thread going forward, but briefly:
To be clear, I donât share Karnofskyâs overall framework. Iâm skeptical of the âregression to normalityâ criterion myself. (And I donât find his model of the problem behind Pascalâs mugging probabilities compelling, since he still uses precise estimates.)
In the Pascalâs mugging case, I think people have some fuzzy sense that the muggerâs claim is made-up, which can be more carefully operationalized with imprecise credences. But if we canât even point to what our âthis is absurdâ reaction is about, and are instead merely asserting that our pretheoretic sense should dictate our decisions, Iâm more skeptical. Especially when weâre embracing an ethical principle most people would consider absurd (impartial altruism).
Appeal to absurdity is a reasonable objection and shouldnât be discouraged. We need to be able to say clearly why idea X doesnât also imply some similar absurd idea Y.
@tobycrisford đ¸ unfortunately on mamy animal welfare threads, more extreme dissenting views get downvoted to oblivion without strong up votes (like mine and yours) to compensate. This pattern seems mostly to apply to animal welfare threads unfortunately, and I think more discourse would be encouraged if animal welfare supporters didnât obliterate dissenting views.
Only a handful of us, including myself and @Henry Howardđ¸ engage with different perspectives on these animal welfare threads and I think it would be more useful if these kind of comments were encouraged, even if only to better understand what many (probably most) non EA people might be intuiting and thinking when they see these arguments.
Iâm mostly not engaging with these threads because I often donât find the engagement particularly rewarding unfortunately. Iâll keep trying from time to time :D
I think @Henry Howardđ¸ s 2 points are very important, even if you donât necessarily agree with them.
Agreed Nick. One of my recent comments has 7 agrees, 11 disagrees but â10 karma. If 7 people agree with a comment itâs unlikely to be disruptive trolling that needs to be buried.
Clear misuse of voting and evidence of heavy forum bias that I sense but canât prove.
Iâm not sure itâs âmisuseâ of voting exactly, I think people should vote how they want. I just think this downvoting pattern is unfortunate for encouraging discourse and a diversity of views.