I’m happy to hear about Beckstead’s guidelines to give s-risks and related views more representation. This looks like a big deal, especially given complaints about representativeness at some of the most influential EA orgs.
This is the first I’m hearing about them, actually, and I’m surprised they weren’t brought up when concerns about EAF/FRI’s guidelines were raised (or did I just miss them?). It seemed like a fairly one-sided compromise on suffering-focused views from EAF/FRI in return for grants at the time, but this looks like a pretty good deal overall, although I would like to see how far the guidelines go. Were Beckstead’s guidelines already done or being worked on then?
You mention beliefs, too; does this include suffering-focused views generally?
Yes, we sent out both guidelines simultaneously. They link to each other. The post you’re referring to mentioned Nick’s guidelines in passing, but it seems readers got an incomplete / incorrect impression.
You mention beliefs, too; does this include suffering-focused views generally?
The guidelines talk about beliefs that are important to us in general. Suffering-focused views aren’t mentioned as a concrete example, but flawed futures and s-risks are.
Ah, you’re right, Beckstead’s guidelines are mentioned.
This does still seem a bit asymmetric as a trade: in exchange for grant money and discussing outcomes and problems, i.e. flawed futures and s-risks, that both classical utilitarians (or those with more symmetric views) and those with suffering-focused views would view as astronomically bad, EAF/FRI is expected to emphasize moral uncertainty, reference arguments against asymmetric views and for symmetric views and weaken the framing of arguments against symmetric views (e.g. “world destruction”). Is this accurate?
In other words, those with more symmetric views should already care about flawed futures and s-risks, so it doesn’t seem like much of a compromise for them to mention them, but those with suffering-focused views are expected to undermine their own views.
Are, for example, any of the procreation asymmetry, negative utilitarianism, lexicality, prioritarianism or tranquilism mentioned in Beckstead’s guidelines? What about moral uncertainty in population ethics generally?
I can see how this could be considered a big win for suffering-focused views overall by getting more consideration for their practical concerns (flawed futures and s-risks), and de-emphasizing these views in itself could also be useful to attract hires and donors for s-risk work, but if someone thought the promotion of suffering-focused views (generally, or within EA) was important, it could be seen as an overall loss.
Maybe having two separate orgs actually is the best option, with one (EAF/FRI) focused on s-risks and emphasizing moral uncertainty, and the other (there’s been talk about one) emphasizing suffering-focused views.
So you seem to think that our guidelines ask people to weaken their views while Nick’s may not be doing that, and that they may be harmful to suffering-focused views if we think promoting SFE is important. I think my perspective differs in the following ways:
The guidelines are fairly similar in their recommendation to mention moral uncertainty and arguments that are especially important to other parts of the community while representing one’s own views honestly.
If we want to promote SFE in EA, we will be more convincing for (potential) EAs if we provide nuanced and balanced arguments, which is what the guidelines ask for, and if s-risks research is more fleshed out and established in the community. Unlike our previous SFE content, our recent efforts (e.g., workshops, asking for feedback on early drafts) received a lot of engagement from both newer and long-time EA community members. (Outside of EA, this seems less clear.)
We sought feedback on these guidelines from community members and received largely positive feedback. Some people will always disagree but overall, most people were in favor. We’ll seek out feedback again when we revisit the guidelines.
I think this new form of cooperation across the community is worth trying and improving on. It may not be perfect yet, but we will reassess at the end of this year and make adjustments (or discontinue the guidelines in a worst case).
I hope this is helpful. We have now published the guidelines, you can find the links above!
I agree with/appreciate these points. I think there is a difference in how each sides deals with each others’ concerns, but I guess I can see that it might be fair anyway. That is, in EAF’s guidelines, authors are encouraged to “include some of the best arguments against these positions, and, if appropriate, mention the wide acceptance of these arguments in the effective altruism community”, while in Beckstead’s, authors are encouraged to discuss the practical concerns of the SFE community, which might not otherwise be practical concerns for them, depending on their empirical views (e.g. astronomical suffering would be outweighed by far more wellbeing).
Also, I expect this not to be the case, but is general advocacy against working on extinction risks (and in favour of other priorities) something that would be discouraged according to the guidelines? This may “cause human extinction” by causing people to (voluntarily) be less likely to try to prevent extinction. Similarly, what about advocacy for voluntary human extinction (however unlikely it is anyway)? I think these should be fine if done in an honest and civil way, and neither underhandedly nor manipulatively.
Thanks! I think I don’t have the capacity to give detailed public replies to this right now. My respective short answers would be something like “sure, that seems fine” and “might inspire riskier content, depends a lot on the framing and context”, but there’s nuance to this that’s hard to convey in half a sentence. If you would like to write something about these topics and are interested in my perspective, feel free to get in touch and I’m happy to share my thoughts!
I’m happy to hear about Beckstead’s guidelines to give s-risks and related views more representation. This looks like a big deal, especially given complaints about representativeness at some of the most influential EA orgs.
This is the first I’m hearing about them, actually, and I’m surprised they weren’t brought up when concerns about EAF/FRI’s guidelines were raised (or did I just miss them?). It seemed like a fairly one-sided compromise on suffering-focused views from EAF/FRI in return for grants at the time, but this looks like a pretty good deal overall, although I would like to see how far the guidelines go. Were Beckstead’s guidelines already done or being worked on then?
You mention beliefs, too; does this include suffering-focused views generally?
Thank you for the feedback!
Yes, we sent out both guidelines simultaneously. They link to each other. The post you’re referring to mentioned Nick’s guidelines in passing, but it seems readers got an incomplete / incorrect impression.
The guidelines talk about beliefs that are important to us in general. Suffering-focused views aren’t mentioned as a concrete example, but flawed futures and s-risks are.
Ah, you’re right, Beckstead’s guidelines are mentioned.
This does still seem a bit asymmetric as a trade: in exchange for grant money and discussing outcomes and problems, i.e. flawed futures and s-risks, that both classical utilitarians (or those with more symmetric views) and those with suffering-focused views would view as astronomically bad, EAF/FRI is expected to emphasize moral uncertainty, reference arguments against asymmetric views and for symmetric views and weaken the framing of arguments against symmetric views (e.g. “world destruction”). Is this accurate?
In other words, those with more symmetric views should already care about flawed futures and s-risks, so it doesn’t seem like much of a compromise for them to mention them, but those with suffering-focused views are expected to undermine their own views.
Are, for example, any of the procreation asymmetry, negative utilitarianism, lexicality, prioritarianism or tranquilism mentioned in Beckstead’s guidelines? What about moral uncertainty in population ethics generally?
I can see how this could be considered a big win for suffering-focused views overall by getting more consideration for their practical concerns (flawed futures and s-risks), and de-emphasizing these views in itself could also be useful to attract hires and donors for s-risk work, but if someone thought the promotion of suffering-focused views (generally, or within EA) was important, it could be seen as an overall loss.
Maybe having two separate orgs actually is the best option, with one (EAF/FRI) focused on s-risks and emphasizing moral uncertainty, and the other (there’s been talk about one) emphasizing suffering-focused views.
Thanks for giving input on this!
So you seem to think that our guidelines ask people to weaken their views while Nick’s may not be doing that, and that they may be harmful to suffering-focused views if we think promoting SFE is important. I think my perspective differs in the following ways:
The guidelines are fairly similar in their recommendation to mention moral uncertainty and arguments that are especially important to other parts of the community while representing one’s own views honestly.
If we want to promote SFE in EA, we will be more convincing for (potential) EAs if we provide nuanced and balanced arguments, which is what the guidelines ask for, and if s-risks research is more fleshed out and established in the community. Unlike our previous SFE content, our recent efforts (e.g., workshops, asking for feedback on early drafts) received a lot of engagement from both newer and long-time EA community members. (Outside of EA, this seems less clear.)
We sought feedback on these guidelines from community members and received largely positive feedback. Some people will always disagree but overall, most people were in favor. We’ll seek out feedback again when we revisit the guidelines.
I think this new form of cooperation across the community is worth trying and improving on. It may not be perfect yet, but we will reassess at the end of this year and make adjustments (or discontinue the guidelines in a worst case).
I hope this is helpful. We have now published the guidelines, you can find the links above!
Thanks!
I agree with/appreciate these points. I think there is a difference in how each sides deals with each others’ concerns, but I guess I can see that it might be fair anyway. That is, in EAF’s guidelines, authors are encouraged to “include some of the best arguments against these positions, and, if appropriate, mention the wide acceptance of these arguments in the effective altruism community”, while in Beckstead’s, authors are encouraged to discuss the practical concerns of the SFE community, which might not otherwise be practical concerns for them, depending on their empirical views (e.g. astronomical suffering would be outweighed by far more wellbeing).
Also, I expect this not to be the case, but is general advocacy against working on extinction risks (and in favour of other priorities) something that would be discouraged according to the guidelines? This may “cause human extinction” by causing people to (voluntarily) be less likely to try to prevent extinction. Similarly, what about advocacy for voluntary human extinction (however unlikely it is anyway)? I think these should be fine if done in an honest and civil way, and neither underhandedly nor manipulatively.
Thanks! I think I don’t have the capacity to give detailed public replies to this right now. My respective short answers would be something like “sure, that seems fine” and “might inspire riskier content, depends a lot on the framing and context”, but there’s nuance to this that’s hard to convey in half a sentence. If you would like to write something about these topics and are interested in my perspective, feel free to get in touch and I’m happy to share my thoughts!