The first linked post here seems to defend, or at least be sympathetic to, the position that encouraging veganism specifically among Black people in US cities is somehow more an attempt at âsystemic changeâ with regard to animal exploitation than working towards lab-grown meat (the whole point of which is that it might end up replacing farming altogether).
See also Crary et al.âs lament that EA funders prioritize transformative alt-meat research and corporate campaigns over sanctuaries for individual rescued animals. They are clearly not principled advocates for systemic change over piecemeal interventions. Rather, I take these examples to show that their criticisms are entirely opportunistic. (As I previously argued on my blog, the best available evidenceâespecially taking into account their self-reported motivation for writing the anti-EA bookâsuggests that these authors want funding for their friends and political allies, and donât want it to have to pass any kind of evaluation for cost-effectiveness relative to competing uses of the available funds. Itâs all quite transparent, and I donât understand why people insist on pretending that these hacks have intellectual merit.)
I find it quite irritating that no matter how much in depth object level criticism people like Thorstadt or I make, if we dare to mention meta-level problems at all we often get treated like rabid social justice vigilantes. This is just mud-slinging: both meta level and object level issues are important for the epistemological health of the movement.
How does writing a substantive post on x-risk give Thorstad a free pass to cast aspersions when he turns to discussing politics or economics?
Iâm criticizing specific content here. I donât know who you are or what your grievances are, and Iâd ask you not to project them onto my specific criticisms of Thorstad and Crary et al.
Thorstad acknowledged that many of us have engaged in depth with the critique he references, but instead of treating our responses as worth considering, he suggests it is âworth considering if the social and financial position of effective altruists might have something to do withâ the conclusions we reach.
It is hardly âmud-slingingâ for me to find this slimy dismissal objectionable. Nor is it mud-slinging to point out ways in which Crary et al (cited approvingly by Thorstad) are clearly being unprincipled in their appeals to âsystemic changeâ. This is specific, textually-grounded criticism of specific actors, none of whom are you.
I think Thorstad has written very good stuff-for example on the way in which arguments for small reductions in extinction risk. More politically, his reporting on Scott Alexander and some other figures connected to the communityâs racism is a useful public service and he has every right to be pissed off {EDIT: sentence originally ended here: I meant to say he has every right to be pissed of at people ignore or disparaging the racism stuff]. I donât even necessarily entirely disagree with the meta-level critique being offered here.
But it was still striking to me that someone responded to the complaint that people making the institutional critique tend not to actually have much in the way of actionable information, and to take a âlet me explain why these people came to their obviously wrong viewsâ tone, by posting a bunch of stuff that was mostly like that.
If my tone is sharp itâs also because, like Richard I find the easy, unthinking combination of âthe problem with these people is that they donât care about changing the systemâ with âwhy are they doing meat alternatives and not vegan outreach aimed at a particular ethnic group that makes up <20% of the population or animal sheltersâ to be genuinely enragingly hypocritical and unserious. Thatâs actually somewhat separate from whether EAs are insufficiently sympathetic to anticapitalist or âsocial justiceâ-coded.
Incidentally, while I agree with Jason that itâs âMoskowitz and Tuna ought to be able to personally decide where nearly all the money in the movement is spentâ that is the weird claim that needs defending, my guess is that at least one practical effect of this has been to pull the movement left, not right, on several issues. Open Phil spent money on anti- mass incarceration stuff, and vaguely left-coded macroeconomic policy stuff at a time when the community was not particularly interested in either of those things. Indeed I remember Thorstad singling out critiques of the criminal justice stuff as examples of the community holding left-coded stuff to a higher standard of proof. More recently you must have seen the rationalist complaints on the forum about how Open Phil wonât fund anything âright-codedâ. None of thatâs to say there are no problems in principle with unaccountable billionares of course. After all, our other major billionaire donor was SBF! (Though his politics wasnât really the issue.)
I think this point is extremely revealing:
See also Crary et al.âs lament that EA funders prioritize transformative alt-meat research and corporate campaigns over sanctuaries for individual rescued animals. They are clearly not principled advocates for systemic change over piecemeal interventions. Rather, I take these examples to show that their criticisms are entirely opportunistic. (As I previously argued on my blog, the best available evidenceâespecially taking into account their self-reported motivation for writing the anti-EA bookâsuggests that these authors want funding for their friends and political allies, and donât want it to have to pass any kind of evaluation for cost-effectiveness relative to competing uses of the available funds. Itâs all quite transparent, and I donât understand why people insist on pretending that these hacks have intellectual merit.)
To be clear, Thorstadt has written around a hundred different articles critiquing EA positions in depth, including significant amounts of object level criticism.
I find it quite irritating that no matter how much in depth object level criticism people like Thorstadt or I make, if we dare to mention meta-level problems at all we often get treated like rabid social justice vigilantes. This is just mud-slinging: both meta level and object level issues are important for the epistemological health of the movement.
How does writing a substantive post on x-risk give Thorstad a free pass to cast aspersions when he turns to discussing politics or economics?
Iâm criticizing specific content here. I donât know who you are or what your grievances are, and Iâd ask you not to project them onto my specific criticisms of Thorstad and Crary et al.
Thorstad acknowledged that many of us have engaged in depth with the critique he references, but instead of treating our responses as worth considering, he suggests it is âworth considering if the social and financial position of effective altruists might have something to do withâ the conclusions we reach.
It is hardly âmud-slingingâ for me to find this slimy dismissal objectionable. Nor is it mud-slinging to point out ways in which Crary et al (cited approvingly by Thorstad) are clearly being unprincipled in their appeals to âsystemic changeâ. This is specific, textually-grounded criticism of specific actors, none of whom are you.
I think Thorstad has written very good stuff-for example on the way in which arguments for small reductions in extinction risk. More politically, his reporting on Scott Alexander and some other figures connected to the communityâs racism is a useful public service and he has every right to be pissed off {EDIT: sentence originally ended here: I meant to say he has every right to be pissed of at people ignore or disparaging the racism stuff]. I donât even necessarily entirely disagree with the meta-level critique being offered here.
But it was still striking to me that someone responded to the complaint that people making the institutional critique tend not to actually have much in the way of actionable information, and to take a âlet me explain why these people came to their obviously wrong viewsâ tone, by posting a bunch of stuff that was mostly like that.
If my tone is sharp itâs also because, like Richard I find the easy, unthinking combination of âthe problem with these people is that they donât care about changing the systemâ with âwhy are they doing meat alternatives and not vegan outreach aimed at a particular ethnic group that makes up <20% of the population or animal sheltersâ to be genuinely enragingly hypocritical and unserious. Thatâs actually somewhat separate from whether EAs are insufficiently sympathetic to anticapitalist or âsocial justiceâ-coded.
Incidentally, while I agree with Jason that itâs âMoskowitz and Tuna ought to be able to personally decide where nearly all the money in the movement is spentâ that is the weird claim that needs defending, my guess is that at least one practical effect of this has been to pull the movement left, not right, on several issues. Open Phil spent money on anti- mass incarceration stuff, and vaguely left-coded macroeconomic policy stuff at a time when the community was not particularly interested in either of those things. Indeed I remember Thorstad singling out critiques of the criminal justice stuff as examples of the community holding left-coded stuff to a higher standard of proof. More recently you must have seen the rationalist complaints on the forum about how Open Phil wonât fund anything âright-codedâ. None of thatâs to say there are no problems in principle with unaccountable billionares of course. After all, our other major billionaire donor was SBF! (Though his politics wasnât really the issue.)