I found this article to be a bit rambly and hard to understand. What is the point of the article? An argument for conservatism? Explaining a paradox of preventing coercion?
For instance: access to child pornography reduces the rate of child sexual abuse and
Many people in EA are statistically literate. Saying because in an n=1 (or maybe n=3) experiment a → b, proves that a → b in general either suggest statistical incompetence, inability to use statistical thinking because the subject is political or an attempt to mislead.
I find your posts a little hard to read because of the long hyperlinks that stand in stark contrast to the black. I’d recommend linking just one word, maximum two or three (you can still edit these posts).
Will read properly later! Thanks for writing these five apparently very interesting pieces!
It seems if the utility of a political ideology is based on a sort of mindset that generates outcomes which produce the greatest average well-being, but getting involved in political party machines to change society with policy isn’t efficient enough a process, then getting upstream of politics to what produces cultural changes allowing these attitudes to permeate democratic societies which engender and incentivize, all other things being equal, optimal lifestyle outcomes is the best thing to do.
Societies throughout Africa and most of Asia still seem largely religious or traditional, while societies in the Americas, Europe, East Asia and Australia are more secular and have a stronger civic culture generating their values. I think there’s a state of heightened tension in political across the world today, and the low-level of extremists which typically blend in with broader partisan coalitions are exploiting the opportunity to push an anti-humanistic agenda. Part of this is upstream of violence paving the way for it involves dehumanizing one’s political opponents with propaganda. That’s something that’s happening on the political fringes in North America today. There’s lots of allegations reported in the news of this in Europe as well, but honestly what counts as reliable from this far overseas where I am I don’t know. News might travel far, but accurate reporting doesn’t. The accusations of political violence in North America I know are based on multiple local news sources, eye-witness accounts, video footage, and things one can plainly see with one’s own eyes by visiting these places. This has been my experience living in Vancouver, Canada, having lived on the west coast my whole life. I guess it’s like that regionally all over the map, but virtually any blog or news source beyond the local level distorts real events to the point it’s practically impossible to substantiate any allegations.
However, it’s also been my experience most people repudiate all this type of behaviour, and it appears to be staying out of the party machine. I can’t find the link now, but I read a blog post written by economist Bryan Caplan about as much hype as there is in the news, what boils down to apparently no more than a few thousand extremists on either side of the political divide in North America doesn’t pose much of a real threat to a society of hundreds of millions who’d sooner turn such people out then condone their behaviour. That’s the gist of the argument, and I found it more or less convincing. I mean, certainly, everyone ought condemn the instigation of political violence, and not tolerate propaganda that would promote such as legitimate means of activism either. However, all I’m saying is it doesn’t hold up as an argument against getting involved in politics as a form of effective altruism.
I think this is a major consideration against political involvement in the world today. This speaks to what I know to be true of North America. I think in the other continents I mentioned where political action is a viable way to improve human well-being at this point in history, one will have to defer to someone who knows better. I definitely encourage people with that sort of knowledge to speak up. I only know enough to speak about politics in North America. However, I think the inefficiency of political involvement or activism is so great that alone demonstrates for most people and movements the opportunity costs of diverting resources to politics will be too high.
In the Americas, there’s still a sufficient percentage of deeply religious people among the population of democratic societies. It’s a commonly accepted belief the political base inculcating the attitudes towards some superior well-being outcomes through policy action and thus electoral politics and political activism, is the socially conservative religious right. However, based on effective altruism taking a stance of moral pluralism, there are certain shibboleths of religious/social conservatism much of the religious public wouldn’t be willing to compromise on which will necessarily remain tolerated in the EA community. So, getting involved in that sort of political action is impracticable from a realistic EA perspective at present.
However, there are plenty of organizations and communities in and around the effective altruism movement which are taking an approach to engendering changes in cultural attitudes to set the stage for later policy reform activism in politics. Sentience Politics is currently doing this work in German-speaking Europe, and is currently trying to expand into other countries. The Life You Can Save and Giving What We Can function as projects that do so, and funding movement growth of EA to promote and spread values which in practice lead to significant lifestyle change are abundant. One cause which stands out as not correlated with favouring cultural change is x-risk reduction. However, the base of support for that cause also largely comes out of the rationality movement. There are lots of people in the rationality community who are already supporting, promoting and creating such projects aimed at changing society in a manner upstream or outside of politics. I haven’t talked to anyone enough to figure out which projects would appeal best or most to effective altruism in this regard.
I found this article to be a bit rambly and hard to understand. What is the point of the article? An argument for conservatism? Explaining a paradox of preventing coercion?
Many people in EA are statistically literate. Saying because in an n=1 (or maybe n=3) experiment a → b, proves that a → b in general either suggest statistical incompetence, inability to use statistical thinking because the subject is political or an attempt to mislead.
I find your posts a little hard to read because of the long hyperlinks that stand in stark contrast to the black. I’d recommend linking just one word, maximum two or three (you can still edit these posts).
Will read properly later! Thanks for writing these five apparently very interesting pieces!
I feel like you’re drawing a lot of causations from correlations, which don’t imply causation.
It seems if the utility of a political ideology is based on a sort of mindset that generates outcomes which produce the greatest average well-being, but getting involved in political party machines to change society with policy isn’t efficient enough a process, then getting upstream of politics to what produces cultural changes allowing these attitudes to permeate democratic societies which engender and incentivize, all other things being equal, optimal lifestyle outcomes is the best thing to do.
Societies throughout Africa and most of Asia still seem largely religious or traditional, while societies in the Americas, Europe, East Asia and Australia are more secular and have a stronger civic culture generating their values. I think there’s a state of heightened tension in political across the world today, and the low-level of extremists which typically blend in with broader partisan coalitions are exploiting the opportunity to push an anti-humanistic agenda. Part of this is upstream of violence paving the way for it involves dehumanizing one’s political opponents with propaganda. That’s something that’s happening on the political fringes in North America today. There’s lots of allegations reported in the news of this in Europe as well, but honestly what counts as reliable from this far overseas where I am I don’t know. News might travel far, but accurate reporting doesn’t. The accusations of political violence in North America I know are based on multiple local news sources, eye-witness accounts, video footage, and things one can plainly see with one’s own eyes by visiting these places. This has been my experience living in Vancouver, Canada, having lived on the west coast my whole life. I guess it’s like that regionally all over the map, but virtually any blog or news source beyond the local level distorts real events to the point it’s practically impossible to substantiate any allegations.
However, it’s also been my experience most people repudiate all this type of behaviour, and it appears to be staying out of the party machine. I can’t find the link now, but I read a blog post written by economist Bryan Caplan about as much hype as there is in the news, what boils down to apparently no more than a few thousand extremists on either side of the political divide in North America doesn’t pose much of a real threat to a society of hundreds of millions who’d sooner turn such people out then condone their behaviour. That’s the gist of the argument, and I found it more or less convincing. I mean, certainly, everyone ought condemn the instigation of political violence, and not tolerate propaganda that would promote such as legitimate means of activism either. However, all I’m saying is it doesn’t hold up as an argument against getting involved in politics as a form of effective altruism.
I think this is a major consideration against political involvement in the world today. This speaks to what I know to be true of North America. I think in the other continents I mentioned where political action is a viable way to improve human well-being at this point in history, one will have to defer to someone who knows better. I definitely encourage people with that sort of knowledge to speak up. I only know enough to speak about politics in North America. However, I think the inefficiency of political involvement or activism is so great that alone demonstrates for most people and movements the opportunity costs of diverting resources to politics will be too high.
In the Americas, there’s still a sufficient percentage of deeply religious people among the population of democratic societies. It’s a commonly accepted belief the political base inculcating the attitudes towards some superior well-being outcomes through policy action and thus electoral politics and political activism, is the socially conservative religious right. However, based on effective altruism taking a stance of moral pluralism, there are certain shibboleths of religious/social conservatism much of the religious public wouldn’t be willing to compromise on which will necessarily remain tolerated in the EA community. So, getting involved in that sort of political action is impracticable from a realistic EA perspective at present.
However, there are plenty of organizations and communities in and around the effective altruism movement which are taking an approach to engendering changes in cultural attitudes to set the stage for later policy reform activism in politics. Sentience Politics is currently doing this work in German-speaking Europe, and is currently trying to expand into other countries. The Life You Can Save and Giving What We Can function as projects that do so, and funding movement growth of EA to promote and spread values which in practice lead to significant lifestyle change are abundant. One cause which stands out as not correlated with favouring cultural change is x-risk reduction. However, the base of support for that cause also largely comes out of the rationality movement. There are lots of people in the rationality community who are already supporting, promoting and creating such projects aimed at changing society in a manner upstream or outside of politics. I haven’t talked to anyone enough to figure out which projects would appeal best or most to effective altruism in this regard.